[soycd]

I don’t know how they will do it, but do it they will. Look at a 5 pound chunk of plutonium and then imagine how big a pile of hydrocarbons it would take to release the same amount of energy. Give me a battery cell with the same energy as a pound of plutonium, and the ability to release it in a controlled manner, and I’ll be quite pleased.

[D Rider]

I don’t know how they will do it, but do it they will. Look at a 5 pound chunk of plutonium and then imagine how big a pile of hydrocarbons it would take to release the same amount of energy. Give me a battery cell with the same energy as a pound of plutonium, and the ability to release it in a controlled manner, and I’ll be quite pleased.

To do that you are way beyond chemo/electrical and into atomics. So, it takes allot of hydrocarbons to equal atomics. Hydrocarbons are renewable, a point missed by most.

[backwoods-engineer]

Give me a battery cell with the same energy as a pound of plutonium, and the ability to release it in a controlled manner, and I’ll be quite pleased.

Electrochemically, that is TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

Nuclear energy, in joules per kg, exceeds chemical energy density by an order of magnitude. Of course, it's radioactive, so that comes with some drawbacks. That's why the interest in low-energy nuclear reactions (read: cold fusion, though there are low-energy fission reactions, too).