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As hemp makes a comeback in the U.S. after a decades-long ban on its cultivation, scientists are reporting that fibers from the plant can pack as much energy and power as graphene, long-touted as the model material for supercapacitors, according to David Mitlin, Ph.D. Supercapacitors are energy storage devices that have huge potential to transform the way future electronics are powered. Unlike today’s rechargeable batteries, which sip up energy over several hours, supercapacitors can charge and discharge within seconds. But they normally can’t store nearly as much energy as batteries, an important property known as energy density. One approach researchers...

Tesla’s announcement last week about creating a new line of batteries for use by businesses, consumers, and the electrical grid at large is a game-changer for the industry. Currently, when individuals or companies need back-up power, they usually rely on generators. Effective battery storage for large amounts of energy would be a game changer in that it would enable a separation of generation and use of energy produced through clean fuels like solar and wind power. The big problem with solar and wind right now is that the energy is only useful when it is actually produced and, because a...

Aluminium ions are stored between layers of graphite when the battery is charged A new rival to the lithium-ion battery has been created that charges in under a minute and still performs almost perfectly after being recharged thousands of times. The new battery is based on aluminium instead of lithium, which should make it both cheaper and safer than their lithium-ion competitors. The U.S. team behind the aluminium-ion battery say that the technology could find its way into the home, help store renewable energy for the power grid and even power vehicles. The aluminium-ion battery is conceptually similar to the...

A Korean research team has successfully developed a technology to make a sponge-like electrode material using graphene and a polymer, leading to a graphene battery. The newly-developed battery is ten times as small as existing ones, but can show the same product performance. A research team headed by Park Ho-seok, professor of the School of Chemical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University, announced on Feb. 1 that it has succeeded in developing a very porous graphene aerogel electrode material by combining polyvinyl alcohol and graphene. Studies on developing high-capacity and rapidly-chargeable batteries are underway worldwide. It is necessary to compress devices in...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A highly-charged crime spree of sorts has erupted in Queens, and the ill-gotten goods being taken have been some of the most unusual in recent memory. As CBS2’s Scott Rapoport reported, it amounts to the latest wrinkle in smash and grab car thefts. Police said thieves are stealing 50-pound hybrid car batteries of all things — right from under the trunks. “I never heard of it. It’s odd,” one resident said. The NYPD said 14 incidents have been reported citywide since November of last year. Twelve of them happened in the 108th Police Precinct, which includes...

Lawrence Berkeley Lab team helps lead charge to revolutionize energy storage By Jeremy Thomasjethomas@bayareanewsgroup.comPosted:   11/20/2014 10:53:33 AM PST2 Comments | Updated:   a day ago     BERKELEY -- Imagine an electric car with the range of a Tesla Model S -- able to reach Lake Tahoe from the Bay Area on a single charge -- but at one-fifth the $70,000 price tag for the luxury sedan.    Or a battery not only able to provide many times more energy than today's technology but also at significantly cheaper prices, meaning longer-lasting and less expensive power for cellphones, laptops and...

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently found that properties of graphene aerogel could be used to enhance energy storage for electric vehicles and other high-power energy storage applications. The research will appear as the cover article in the Nov. 14 issue of the Journal of Materials Chemistry A. Personal electronics such as cell phones and laptops could get a boost from some of the lightest materials in the world. Lawrence Livermore researchers have turned to graphene aerogel for enhanced electrical energy storage that eventually could be used to smooth out power fluctuations in the energy grid. The team found...

Improved lithium-ion battery technology is coming, charging up your battery to 70% in two minutes, or an entire electric car in 15 minutes ***************************************************** Tweet3 Share0 The next-generation of lithium-ion batteries is really going to ensure that users get all-day, and even more battery life out of their devices. A team of researchers in Singapore have developed this improved lithium-ion battery tech, which is capable of recharging a battery to 70% in just two minutes, yes: 120 seconds.    The clinch, is that this isn't a new battery technology, but it improves on the existing technology that is used. The...

"......The California car firm yesterday revealed plans for the factory that would employ up to 6,500 people , cover 1,000 acres, and cost $5 billion, said the Wall Street Journal, Solar and wind farms would at least in part supply the huge power needs of the plant in either Nevada, New Mexico, or Arizona. Reno is thought to be a favorite. Tesla needs its own production to hit its cost target for a more affordable car. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk's idea is a "Gigafactory" that takes in raw materials and produces finished lithium-ion batteries. He has said he intends...

To convey some sense of the audacity of Tesla's Elon Musk and his plans, consider that the sale of all-electric vehicles in the U.S. reached a high of 100,000 in 2013 — but that's still less than 1 percent of all cars sold. Enter Tesla's GigaFactory, aiming by 2020 for annual production of 500,000 lithium-ion battery packs. Under one roof — a very large one, at 10 million square feet — Tesla will “manage everything from processing raw materials to the assembly of the batteries.” All of which begs the question: Where is all that lithium going to come from?...

After three recent fires, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk said he asked the National Highway Tranportation Safety Administration to investigate its Model S. NHTSA said no he didn’t. Tesla has been saying it received the highest safety rating in the U.S., a “new combined record of 5.4 stars.” NHTSA says there’s no such thing. Musk said he expects the investigation will clear Tesla after incidents in which metal objects struck the underside where the Model S battery is located. NHTSA says we’ll see, and a decision whether there should be a recall will likely take months. Maybe a lie...

A fire (screen capture from Jalopnik.com) that torched a Model S from the formerly Teflon Tesla Motors on Tuesday blackened its front end, lowered its stock price, and (further) revealed a corporate arrogance not seen since Fisker Karmas were alight. But CEO Elon Musk saw to it that taxpayers werefully paid back their $465 million Department of Energy loan, so as watchdogs over the public purse we can forget all about it and just go on about our business – right? Wrong. The incident near Seattle still should be of great concern because Tesla still heavily depends on tax breaks...

French President François Hollande hailed “a new industrial revolution” in inaugurating Friday a new lithium battery plant built by the Bolloré group, which manufactures the Bluecar made popular by France’s electric-car sharing scheme. … Earlier in the day, as he attended an environmental conference in Paris, Hollande vowed to halve energy consumption in France by 2050 and cut fossil fuels by 30% by 2030. The French president has also made electric cars “a priority.” …

(snip, from the actual AAIB report at link below) Safety Recommendation 2013-016 It is recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration initiate action for making inert the Honeywell International RESCU406AFN fixed Emergency Locator Transmitter system in Boeing 787 aircraft until appropriate airworthiness actions can be completed. Safety Recommendation 2013-017 It is recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration, in association with other regulatory authorities, conduct a safety review of installations of Lithium-powered Emergency Locator Transmitter systems in other aircraft types and, where appropriate, initiate airworthiness action. (snip, from abcnews.go link above) The FAA didn't immediately say whether it will follow the recommendations....

Batteries were constructed from interlaced stacks of tiny electrodes, which conduct electricity, smaller than the width of a human hair The microbatteries can be used in devices too small for older batteries Researchers at Harvard and University of Illinois created electrochemically active ink for their custom 3D printerThe revolutionary technology behind 3D-printed car parts, food and guns can also be used to print batteries smaller than a grain of sand. Scientists have used a 3D printer to make linthium-ion microbatteries that can fit into tiny devices that had previously stumped engineers looking to power them for longer periods. The batteries...

Stanford scientists have developed inexpensive silicon-based electrodes that dramatically improve the charge storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries. An illustration of a new battery electrode made from a composite of hydrogel and silicon nanoparticles (Si NP). Each Si NP is encapsulated in a conductive polymer surface coating and connected to a three-dimensional hydrogel framework. Stanford University scientists have dramatically improved the performance of lithium-ion batteries by creating novel electrodes made of silicon and conducting polymer hydrogel, a spongy substance similar to the material used in soft contact lenses and other household products. Writing in the June 4 edition of the journal...

Now that Boeing has placed most of its 787s back into service, including those inUnited Airlines’ fleet, executives with both corporations are putting a happy face on the expensive hardship that was caused by the four-month grounding of the planes due to fire hazard risks. United reinstated the so-called Dreamliners on May 20, when United CEO Jeff Smisek and Boeing CEO Jim McNerney hopped a flight from Houston to Chicago to show the troubles with the plane’s lithium ion batteries were behind them. "I’ll tell you, Jim,” said Smisek, as recounted by the Associated Press, “it was a fairly expensive...

"Attention ladies and gentlemen, the Boeing 787Dreamliner will depart shortly – any potential fires caused by our lithium ion batteries will now be contained within the aircraft. Please line up at the gate for imminent boarding!” Are you ready? In case you missed it the Federal Aviation Administration, by publishing an Airworthiness Directive in the Federal Register last week, opened the door for the troubled “green” aircraft to return to service in the coming months. The document lays out the specifications required for Boeing to get the extremely costly project moving again, if the changes are implemented and FAA inspectors...

Are Duracell batteries actually better batteries, or is it marketing?

Microbatteries Could Recharge Phones Instantly Apr 18, 2013 07:43 AM ET // by Alyssa Danigelis Wouldn’t it be awesome to plug in a dead smart phone and have it fully charged in under a second? The wait won’t be long now for that leap. A team of scientists just developed what they say are the world’s most powerful microbatteries capable of near-instant recharging.Supercharged! Battery Power for the FutureThe new batteries are made high-power lithium ion and are only a few millimeters in size. IInside, they contain a 3-D nanostructure made from a thin film that was recently developed by Paul...