-Anthony J Ochs

 

As we all know there has been a recent tidal wave of hybrid technologies forming in the oceans of industry. The major car companies such as Toyota, Ford, Honda, GM, Nissan, BMW, etc., are all in a race to get to the top of the wave and ride the crest to the shores of tomorrow. It is the very competition between these companies that drives them to advance their technologies even further. The good thing is that the public benefits from this because it results in major discoveries which can help the environment and the economy. For car companies, the most significant factor to achieving ‘zero’ emissions in an economically practical way is the advancement of battery technology.

First off it is important to understand not only the competition between companies, but also the competition between concepts. For example, as of right now it takes more energy to harness hydrogen than it gives off. Some say that this defeats the purpose of utilizing hydrogen fuel cells to power vehicles to begin with. Hydrogen is also not a creator of energy, it is a carrier. Since Bio-diesel does not require the energy of fuel cells, and gives off more energy than it takes to create, is this a better solution to hydrogen? Arguments like this have lead to various ongoing debates on what alternative to petroleum will ultimately win out. Is the transportation of hydrogen more dangerous than gasoline? Are hybrid and fuel cell infrastructures worth developing in the wake of advanced electric plug-in technologies? Does clean diesel actually release more harmful emissions than gasoline vapors which may cause cancer? Does the amount of energy lost, due to transformation of energy in current hybrid systems, outweigh their fuel efficiency? Advocates of the advancement of lithium-ion battery technology feel they can step up to the podium and present the best solution. If ‘all’ the car companies concentrated ‘all’ their energy on ‘all’-electric vehicles, would ‘all’ of these debates go away? That would depend on various factors when it comes to proper recycling of these batteries, significant capacity in the electric grid to support these vehicles, cost efficiency on the production line, the most efficient and least harmful ways to produce electricity in the first place, etc.

Lithium could be an answer to the major issue of global warming in the environment we currently live in. In a much different form than the drug used to treat manic depressives as talked about by Kurt Cobain in the Nirvana song (lithium carbonate), lithium can be used in batteries to treat another problem. Lithium in its purest form is a metal that was first discovered within the mineral petalite. Therefore it cannot be found in free form within nature. Due to its extremely light weight when compared to other metals it has various uses. It has been compounded with other metals and used to build aircraft, etc. Because it has the highest specific heat of all metals it has also been used to make ceramics, glasses, and telescopes. Perhaps what will turn out to be the most significant use of lithium is when ‘lithium salts are used to synthesize cathode material for lithium ion batteries’[1]. The reason why this technology is so sufficient is because of how long an advanced lithium ion battery will be able to last. You would essentially be able to compare your car to a remote control car that runs on AA batteries. The less you use your remote control car, the longer the battery will last. When the car is not being used the battery does not lose power. The power comes from the chemical reaction caused by the flow of electrons from a positive to a negative terminal. Think about the batteries in one of your cabinet drawers. They can sit in there for months and still have plenty of power. Unless the chemical reaction occurs when they are put to use, no energy is lost. Combine this level of durability with your standard rechargeable battery technology. It would be like being able to recharge an Energizer battery. It would ‘keep going and going and going and going’…..further than it ever went before. Now you can somewhat grasp the concept of lithium ion batteries powering the electric motor of your real car, as opposed to standard car batteries of today (which constantly die out) powering a gasoline engine. When you plug it in you will be recharging the battery of a much bigger toy. The amount of miles per minute of juice would be the standard we would use to compare the cost efficiency to miles per gallon.

One of the major pioneers in the electric automobile industry is an upstart Silicon Valley company known as Tesla. Tesla has actually been more of a movement than merely a company. It has been a concept in itself, a crusader in the industry. This environmental movement, like many others, has gained the support of many influential people in society. In fact its main investors are some of the same people who brought us the groundbreaking internet craze of the 90’s. Tesla’s first main roadster will utilize 6,831 lithium ion batteries. The batteries used in the Tesla will actually be similar to those used in laptop computers.[2] Here we see the advancement of computer science overlapping into the car industry. It is the innovative discoveries within a broader category of battery technology that remains the one constant and most crucial factor in the future success of Tesla and electric vehicles in general.

The energy lost during the chemical reaction in a battery is part of the reason for an emerging solution in hybrid battery technology called ‘fly-wheel’ technology. A great genius named Isaac Newton once discovered through the fundamentals of physics that when energy is transformed from one form to another, a substantial amount of energy is lost. This theory was made evident in his Second Law of Thermodynamics.[3] A flywheel is a mechanical battery that rotates on an axis. It can be broken down to the simple concept of utilizing a spinning force in order to store energy. Many enthusiasts believe that this old concept can revitalize new ideas. Flywheels can be used to replace lead acid batteries in automobiles in order to solve energy problems. This is because flywheels are a much better and more efficient component to use for the storage of kinetic energy. A Flywheel Energy Storage System (FES) has been proven to be much more effective than chemical energy storage. This is because of the potential for larger energy output in a shorter time period than conventional batteries. This is possible because ‘the rate which energy can be exchanged into or out of the battery is limited only by the motor-generator design’.[4] Yet the main advantage of the flywheel battery is that it can be charged in a matter of minutes. Quick charging will definitely make electric cars more marketable to a world of consumers who are always in a rush. Therefore the possible use of flywheel battery technology in electric cars can be pivotal to their future popularity.

One can definitely underestimate the importance of battery technology as a whole. In a broader spectrum, we use many different batteries in everyday life. From the day we are born, batteries serve more of a purpose in our lives than we realize. Battery technology is always overlooked and taken for granted in society. Stop for a second and think of what life would be like without batteries. We use so many different forms of batteries to serve a variety of purposes. From baby monitors, to toys, to radios, to phones, to cars, to cameras, to computers, etc. we all depend on some type batteries from the day we are born until the day we die. As I look at my clock running on AA’s I realize that only time will tell how far batteries can take us.

Anthony J Ochs.

---