A Lithium Charge For The Auto Industry
Everyone knows about cocaine and Coca Cola. But are we equally aware of the history of lithium in 7-Up? Seth Fletcher, author of, “Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars and the New Lithium Economy,” fills us in:
[Lithium] was used as sort of a curative in the late 19th century. I mean, it was a mineral water. And it was added to soft drinks. Actually, 7-Up was originally a lithiated beverage, and it was marketed as a hangover cure…it was sort of a faddish curative towards the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century.
Read on or listen up for Fletcher’s take on how lithium can create a better, long-lasting battery with the potential to transform the automotive industry, power grids and the environment, “No blasting. No gouging… No fracking. No toxic chemicals.” And the cars are fun to drive.
4 Responses to “A Lithium Charge For The Auto Industry”
lithium in the body is a bit dangerous, glad it was taken out
. its used today in psychiatry as a way to control manic episodes in bipolar disorder, although the level of therapeutic dose is so close to toxic dose docs must watch the blood levels carefully.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_salts
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Joe,
Lithium battery tech progress is a good thing, and as I’ve written before, not only with wind and solar power, but with the ubiquitous presence of (and dependence on) batteries, it’s something that the federal government should probably do more research on. (just with other storage technologies, fuel cells, etc.)
As with photovoltaics (and with semiconductor products in general), advanced batteries are hardly “natural” or tame in the way contemporary pet-left-tech (as with kids and their favorite toys) advocates would like to have you as well as they believe.
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/semiconductors/index.html
Yes, progress is progress, but there is no instant benevolent magic.
Joe,
(More good links ahead!)
This is another Web page you may find of interest,
http://cnx.org/content/m14503/latest/
and in addition to being decried as another disposable item that clogs and contaminates landfills, there’s always the fire problem.
Now, I believe the benefits with lithium (such as lithium ion) batteries (cells) are worth the costs and risks (that’s also true for nuclear power, as informed, rational people know), but it’s not true that they’re some magic solution to today’s problems.
Those gushing about electric vehicles now (rather than liking them and wanting to see more progress with them) haven’t had to buy a new battery pack for their electric vehicle yet!
Here is material from Muller, who has written physics-n-tech books for students and the interested public, about electric cars that includes references to lithium batteries, Joe.
http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching/Physics10/old%20physics%2010/physics%2010%20notes/Electric%20cars%20.html
From his textbook, read from page 7 onward.
http://books.google.com/books?id=jMWCDsJesbcC&lpg=PA8&ots=iTkKSHXCml&dq=richard%20muller%20batteries%20vehicles&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q&f=false
It’ll just take more work, and the more progress, the better. Don’t forget, the ultimate achievement for electrical power storage tech isn’t the electric vehicle, but making wind and solar power much more practical. (And with rechargeability-for-years, especially fast rechargeability, will come a real breakthrough for electric vehicle owners of the future. With photovoltaic progress, I have also thought that many things we use now with batteries can be light-powered someday with much smaller batteries for backup that are fully charged by the photovoltaics in addition to powering the devices themselves.)