Just heard about these on the latest SecurityNow episode. Sounds like the way forward to me. Basically, the idea is to replace Lithium batteries etc with ultracaps. The advantages include the ability to fully charge them in seconds (if you can supply enough power), no nasty chemicals, no memory issues, no degrading over time etc. I think they were designed for use in cars like the Tesla but they are scalable for things like mobiles and laptops etc. Also, due to the very efficient storage of power they could be used for things like storing power that's trickle-cherged overnight at cheaper rates to be used during the day. Or trickle-charging from solar/wind sources etc for use when needed. Basically, it sounds like a dream come true for anyone who uses electricity... If you want to hear the podcast go here and get the latest podcast and go to 1h26m50s. Also, the supplimentary notes on that page have interesting links to the patent application etc.
yeah this technology has been in developement for a while, i was using some super capacitor back a while ago, and put together a semi decent torch with some LED's, and it lasted around about 3 times longer than a simular circuit with standard caps. cant wait for phone with instant charge, and not those crappy things that are disposible chargers. I also cant wait for wireless electricity to become mainstream if its only for wireless networks, that way my wireless dongle in my laptop dosen't kill the battery as quick.
Technically it's wireless power. I don't know the efficiency of it anyway but with fuel scources running out it really needs to hit something like 80%.
ok, wireless power. the basic idea the chap from MIT had was to have stations about the home with in close range of devices that require a low power source, now if the wireless router could output wireless power to power wireless cards then win win. wireless drains the battery as it try's to maintain signal, when signal strength drops it boosts the signal which kills the battery.
The trouble is that it's incredibly wasteful thanks to the losses of simple transmission. For wireless cards you could be talking about 15-20m of distance, and quite a large power requirement. Don't forget you're talking about microwaves too - you'd lose even more energy heating up atmospheric water. Wireless power wouldn't be too bad, if you just put stuff like your mobile next to a charging station, but any power you transmit through an EM field (which isn't inducted) will inevitably be lost.
Depends on where you look. The gas plant I work at only has ten years left. And they aren't drilling like they used to.
I was referring to genuine run out of fossil fuels, not just the odd gas plant or oil drill shutting down, that happens all the time. And even if india and China start ramping up even more than they are now (it's not like they currently don't use much), there are still many many years to go.
Does that mean we shouldn't look forward and plan for the inevitable? Or that we shouldn't investigate more efficient tech (like the ultracaps this thread was meant to be about )?
no not at all, i didn't say that. actually the fuel sources thing is a valuable point, given the vast amount of energy requird to charge an ultra-cap setup in the short spaces of time quoted....
Agreed, but I think the real boon is the ability to effectively trickle charge them with renewable sources and then have power when needed. This electrostatic method instead of the current electrochemical methods is much much more efficient. It never degrades and doesn't have the 'memory effect'. It loses something like .1% of charge per month compared to something like 10% for a LIon battery when its just sat there not used. So you could have a massive cap in your home that charges using solar/wind energy as well as cheaper overnight mains electricity in the darker/stiller days or when its running low. From this, you could potentially run everything in your home. Imagine being able to charge up your mobile devices, which have much smaller caps in them, instantly by hooking them up to your giant cap through some clever (and safe) interface. You could charge your electric car much faster than using mains power alone. The possibilities are just waiting to be exploited. The best thing is, this isn't some ultra-high-tech solution that needs heaps of palladium etc. Its a capacitor. They are likely to be in production soon. I for one can't wait to see what gets created...
odd gas plant, we have 650 wells. its one of the larger fields. Anyway, I for one look forward to cars that run on just electrical power like these caps.
Sorry, but that's a load of rubbish. Li-ion batteries do not discharge appreciably if you leave them on their own. They lose total capacity at about 20% per year, as do capacitors. Yes, that is an advantage and would be great if it were possible. However, there's not much stopping us doing that now; the current that you can deliver through a 13AMP plug is the limit at the moment anyway. The Tesla car uses so many Li-Ion cells in parallel that you could charge it at a rate of several thousand watts, but you would need a custom plug and power supply which would be too much investment for most people. Yes, it is an ultra-high-tech solution. It's been in development since the 1960s and they still haven't got to market yet. You need incredibly complicated and expensive carbon nanostructures that are nowhere near being mass-produced with the performance that you describe. Really? While super/ultracaps are a fantastic idea in principle, they're not so great in reality. Also, due to the way a capacitor discharges (exponential decay, think back to your GCSE physics), the power delivered by them falls off very quickly as they discharge - if you charge it to hold 1000J, you'll be lucky to get 500J out efficiently.
Hehe, I can see you know way more about this stuff than me but I'll try to answer some of the points from info on the GRC newsgroup. The first point about internal leakage I can only say that more intelligent people than me have said that these supercaps have a much lower rate than standard li-ion batteries. I don't believe you could charge Li-ions quickly with higher voltage as they would melt due to their internal resistance. From what I read, there's been a new patent applied for and from what Steve read in it, it seemed that nothing was stopping them going into production real soon. However, instead of me waffling and spouting other people's info that I don't even know how to verify, I'll give you the link to the patent. I suspect you may be able to make more sense of it than me. http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat7466536.pdf
Li-ion's are a bugger to charge and require very careful management else they explode, the voltage can only be a few v higher than their rated value and can only be charge at or less than their rated discharge value.
Tesla went mad trying to invent wireless electricity, didn't we conclude that it's impossible? Or are we talking about very short distances? Like sitting your phone on a little box vs plugging it in?
I'm sure they could be better than Li-Ion batteries, I was just saying that your 10% a month figure was completely wrong. Look at it this way: The Tesla has 6800 Li-Ion cells. Say you charge each one at 500mA, 4.3V, which is pretty standard. That's 14.6kW! You can't draw that much power from a domestic plug, so the fact that supercaps can be charged faster is meaningless. Yes, they could be charged faster, but nobody has a power supply to do it, so it doesn't matter. That document states they wanted to go to market in 2007. I found another press release of theirs from July 2008. It's now 2009 and they're not even starting production; they're still looking for more investors. What this sounds like to me is that someone has made a pretty good ultracapacitor but it's not finished yet, and they need more funding. The fact that their patent is dated 16th Dec 2008, meaning they made a press release several months before getting a patent is a pretty standard sign of someone promoting their tech to get interest and investment. I'm sure this will eventually get to market; efficient ultracaps made solely of carbon are a wonderful ideal and deserve research funding if someone's found a possible way of making them. However, you can be pretty sure that they're many years away from general use. Lockheed Martin is one of their principle investors, so you'll most likely see this first used in militaries where budgets are enormous. Once the tech is reasonably mature, we'll start seeing it in our cars and homes, but that is a long way off. Most of the quotes you've made come from the CEO of the company. Of course he's going to say "my product is amazing and it's just around the corner". You have to take things with a pinch of salt. If this was really an amazing invention, he'd make the patent and a scientific paper first, and the product second. I'm not a non-believer; I just don't think this should be as sensationalised as it is being.
