Quote:
Originally Posted by Cornelis Spronk
Fossil fuels have a very high energy density per unit volume.
The problem with conventional batteries and capacitors, is that their energy density very small in comparison to oil.
If this technology can result in an improved energy density storage, it might be simple to use, and inexpensive to manufacture.
There would be have huge opportunities for storing energy with small scale generation projects.
Instead of roofing our houses with asphalt products which we throw away in 20 years, we will cover our roofs with photovoltaic panels that will charge up these cells. Such cells connected to community grid could go a long way to reducing conventional fossil fuel.
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I doubt this would happen when we are all in the poor house, and last time I checked we didnt have flying cars, I've been waiting 10 years for a supercapacitor that would save us all, I'm still waiting.
And small projects generally have small budgets.
Most likely the technology will end up being wasted and go into laptops and tablets, pacemakers and other wonderful gadgets that we cannot live without, because we need to buy them inorder for the economy to stay afloat, thats if we ever see it, lithium as it is now is plenty good, the iPad 3 is proof of that, a genuine 10 hour battery life.
But thats because of a combination of energy efficient LED backlighting, newer very efficient CPU's and larger battery capacity.
Then we will need to wait another 20 years for it to get cheap enough for it to be used everywhere including an african familys hut.
~~~~ The future as I see it:
If we manage to make it out of this economic black hole that we are floating around...
Automated fly-by-wire taxis, highly congested roads for private transport making it infeasible and expensive to even own or insure a private car, so a boon in taxis will result. Taxis are typically the latest tech, or out by a few years and as a result will be very affordable compared to the cost of owning your own car.
Cars will require a needs basis to be registered and operated.
In the home there will be a resurgence of low voltage wiring and energy efficient cooking will boom in places where there isn't a huge abundance of natural gas or LPG, probably will be in the form of a microwave convection oven instead of electric radiant heating.
In Australia at least there will be no choice but to go with government-mandated front loading washing machines, and tumble dryers in the suburban home will be banned for being too hard on the electric grid or some other such nonsense that we seem to swallow quite readily from whoever is in government at the moment.
You will need to buy a very expensive licence to own and operate an air conditioner. Restrictions will be placed upon the size of refrigerators for families and couples, single people will have no choice but to survive on chest freezers and a microwave oven and microwave meals for their kitchens. They will pry my chest freezer from my cold refrigerated hands.
Atmospheric pollution worldwide as a result of the surge in runaway industrial pollution from China and the inevitable global climate change will create a world in Australia at least that looks like a dry barren desert all along the east coast of Australia, with a boom-bust cycle of a decade in length of monsoons or dried up droughts.
I will most likely need to dodge the usual cyclone or tornado while on my way to greet the postman, who just so happens to look like mary poppins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate...e_in_Australia
