If we're going to convert our auto fleet -- 137 million passenger cars as of 2008 -- to some mix of electric and hybrid cars, we're going to need a hell of a lot of batteries. The current round, your Volts and your Leafs, uses lithium-ion batteries that are essentially the same as what's in your laptop.
But what if someone invented a battery that could store energy in a sludge that could be easily pumped in and out, except your car wouldn't burn it? Well some awesome nerds at MIT may have (h/t Grist):
A radically new approach to the design of batteries, developed by researchers at MIT, could provide a lightweight and inexpensive alternative to existing batteries for electric vehicles and the power grid. The technology could even make "refueling" such batteries as quick and easy as pumping gas into a conventional car.The new battery relies on an innovative architecture called a semi-solid flow cell, in which solid particles are suspended in a carrier liquid and pumped through the system...
The new design should make it possible to reduce the size and the cost of a complete battery system, including all of its structural support and connectors, to about half the current levels. That dramatic reduction could be the key to making electric vehicles fully competitive with conventional gas- or diesel-powered vehicles, the researchers say.
Another potential advantage is that in vehicle applications, such a system would permit the possibility of simply "refueling" the battery by pumping out the liquid slurry and pumping in a fresh, fully charged replacement, or by swapping out the tanks like tires at a pit stop, while still preserving the option of simply recharging the existing material when time permits.
The technology has been licensed to a private company the scientists set up. Maybe it will prove to be impractical, or maybe it will totally revolutionize the auto industry. If it does reach its full potential, not only could these guys become billionaires, we'd all benefit. And here's the punch line: "The development of the technology was partly funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Defenses Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E)."
It's often said these days that the federal government is basically an insurance company that maintains an army on the side. That's true in budgetary terms, but we should remember that the government also makes a lot of relatively small but potentially explosive investments in things like new battery technology, and these investments can, when the stars align, set the stage for enormous private profits. That's what happened with the Internet, after all -- it began as a project of DARPA, then eventually changed the world and created hundreds of billions of dollars in private wealth. Is ARPA-E going to save the world? Maybe not. But it might. (If you're interested, here's an interesting story about Arun Majumdar, the head of ARPA-E, who seems like a fascinating guy, and just the kind of person we want in government.)
