/mark!
Supercapacitor technology is the golden key for making low energy density sources like wind/solar/tidal cost effective.
“Drawing on the layered design of tear-inducing onions,”
A superb non sequitur! A double if you consider onions and batteries!
Anyone read Riverworld by P H Farmer? Giant batacitors ran a paddlewheel river vessel.
Someday they will power the automobile.
“they can discharge up to 200 volts every second.”
Nonsensical use of units.
bookmark
IF optimized and IF commercialized
Two mighty big IFs
"If commercialized," the two most significant words in the article. What happens when a super capacitor shorts out?
I am hearing more and more about graphene. Looks like a breakthrough nanotechnology material.
My understanding about the supercapacitors, or any capacitors is that the amount of energy they can store depends on the amount of surface area. I compare them to lungs in that sense. If they can cram enough surface area into a capacitor, it could revolutionize portable electric power.
Imagine an electric car with a 1000 mile range between charges and it only takes five minutes to charge. Careful not to touch any wires though.
Has this author ever heard of an RC time constant? Or understand the concept of three times tau?
I thought not.
Standard capacitors can discharge much more slowly than "some fraction of a second".
In the future,
Would have been nice if they’d put that in the title.
ZAP!
SCENE [Bart Simpson’s grandson returns to the present in a time machine]
grandson: “So in the future I tie an electrical onion to my belt, cause that will be in fashion, and head out to reach the ferry...” Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white electrical onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...
It just hit me, you could have a remote location with all LED lighting and have a truck/boat come by every month or two with your propane for cooking and electricity (via a massive super capacitor) for lighting, etc. In your yard you would have a propane tank and a big super capacitor. They’d use their “bigger” capacitor to give yours a quick charge, and away you go for months.
I wonder how many options this will give people that we have not even thought of.
Imagine, instead of a generator, your home has a large super capacitor that has a one week or one month charge in it all the time. And if your power goes out, it automatically kicks in for lighting, the refrigerator, etc.
If commercialized, the new super capacitor could be fully charged in a second and, coupled to a normal battery, provide enough energy to power a cell phone for weeks or a laptop battery for days.Probably take care of running a taser for a couple of hours.
Remember the batacitor of Ringworld?
pang
Bump for later reading