Technology begets technology

Battery technology continues to improve

Posted by biodiversivist (Guest Contributor) at 12:39 PM on 07 Jan 2008

Read more about: energy | hybrids | bikes | electric vehicles | tech

This is my hybrid bike charging at a 7-11 while I ate some lunch. I was hauling a heavy load and had been tormenting another cyclist who had been trying to close a 10-foot gap with me for a couple of miles on Sand Point Way. I took my batteries to their limit of 4.6 amp-hours, so I had to pull out of the dogfight to refuel with 14 miles on the odometer.

bike fueling

Yet-Ming Chiang (formerly a researcher at MIT) combined lithium ion technology with nanocarbon particles to invent the batteries that power my bike, saw, and drill. These batteries solved just enough technical problems to make the hybrid electric bicycle fully feasible, and will probably do so for the first plug-in hybrid cars.

Yi Cui (a researcher at Stanford) heads a team that has come up with an improvement on the A123 battery by combining lithium ion technology with silicon nanowires.

"It's not a small improvement," Cui said. "It's a revolutionary development [producing 10 times the amount of electricity of existing lithium-ion batteries]."

It won't be revolutionary unless it becomes a product that successfully competes in the marketplace, as A123 battery technology is. The A123 batteries are light, transmit high currents (charge or discharge), and are good for thousands of cycles. But they don't store much more energy per unit volume than their competitors (amp-hours).

Just imagine a battery that could actually hold ten times the energy of the A123! For starters, all things being equal, it would theoretically reduce the cost of one of my battery packs from $150 to $15, which is a full order of magnitude. This is when the revolution would really begin. Batteries like this, if they can be brought to commercial viability, would finally end the reign of the internal combustion engine. Batteries with this kind of performance would also greatly reduce the cost of off-grid photovoltaic systems and probably the cost of renewable (but intermittent) power in general.

My first hybrid bike consumed six lead-acid batteries in the span of less than two years. I learned firsthand why battery technology has been the missing link all of these years. They were heavy, susceptible to discharge damage, performed poorly in cold temperatures, took hours to recharge, and lost power as they discharged (volts x amps). The A123 batteries, although expensive to purchase, have not only overcome all of those problems, but also paid for themselves long ago with savings in gasoline. They're still going strong. Hopefully this latest battery technology will pan out like the A123 did. I'll be keeping an eye on it.

For story: Technology begets technology
4 Comments | Post a Comment

Cost

Unless you have specific information to the contrary, I wouldn't assume that the nanowire batteries will be cheaper per amp-hour. The advantage of the nanowires, as I understand it, is being able to put more energy-holding chemistry into the same amount of space. While this reduces volume and probably weight, it may not do much for cost, if the majority of the cost resides in the chemistry itself (rather than in packaging, marketing, or other incidentals).

I'm shooting from the hip here, though, so if you do have specific information on this issue, please share it.

by GreenEngineer at 1:35 PM on 07 Jan 2008

Cui's claims not beleived

The curent status of Cui's claims is that no one familiar with the nanowire technology he is working with believes that he has achieved anything, but rather is confused and mistaken.
No one in the industry believes that he has made any sort of breakthru in battery capacity. Sorry.

by theBike45 at 1:48 PM on 07 Jan 2008

Well, like I said,

I'm not touting this battery as a breakthrough. It is unlikely that this battery, like 99% of the other potential breakthroughs we read about every day will ever pan out. I'm using it more as an example of how such a battery would suddenly make a cascade of other things feasible, the way the A123 made my bike feasible and other projects I've been working on that I have not written about yet. Like cell phones and Ipods, we could see exponential change in transportation as technology begets more technology.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 2:34 PM on 07 Jan 2008

The following is an email exchange with a Gristian

reading in Japan:

Russ

Sorry, I'm not familiar with the term "hybrid bike". We still have one of the original Yamaha PAS electrically assisted bikes that we bought for my wife about 12 years ago. The PAS is electrically assisted as opposed to electrically as any vehicle that can be moved without pedaling is classified as a motor vehicle in Japan (even Segways).

I don't remember what the capacity of the NiCd battery pack is (was is probably accurately since we're using it without the electric assist currently) but when new, we had no trouble making 20 mile round trips using it. The original pack lasted about 3 years of daily use. The newer ones mainly use Nickle Hydride cells although a few use lithium ions. Some of the new models of electrically assisted bicycles on the market here claim that they have regenerative braking but it looks more like an advertising gimmick on those models than a useful feature.

I used to joke that we were a typical Japanese ecological (at least compared to Americans) family in that we didn't own a car and traveled mostly by bicycle and rail. Times change and a car became necessary for hauling the kids further than was practical than with bicycles. Take care and looking forward to seeing your commentary in the New Year.

Hi there Robert,

Does your old bike look like this one?

http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/yamaha_pas_hybrid_bic ...

I use the term hybrid because it has developed such a positive connotation among environmental types. The term "electric assist" has a slightly negative connotation, implying one is too weak or lazy to ride a regular bike (which is ridiculous of course).

There are two main issues with electric vehicles: cost and performance. Your bike had no trouble doing 20 mile round trips because it moved slowly and used the electric motor sparingly. I have done twenty-mile round trips that barely used my batteries at all. The performance difference between my bike and yours is that mine will charge up in 30-50 minutes and cruises at whatever speed I want up to about 30 MPH (trading range for speed).

I often drain my batteries two or three times in a given day but because they charge so fast, that is not a problem. I get around in Seattle faster than I can in a car.

I have a good friend who lives in Japan. He is a Japanese engineer who came to Boeing to help design the 777 airliner. May I post your email on the Grist Blog?

Russ,

Basically but it's a much older model. To reconfirm, your hybrid bike is mostly electrically driven whereas the PAS is mostly human power with boosts at startup and some assist up to about 12 mph. It's designed for a different mission and works well for that purpose.

I've been here for 23 years (it was originally supposed to have been three years). Feel free to post my comments on Grist.

Take care,

Bob

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 9:38 PM on 08 Jan 2008

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