Tech Ping!..............
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Scientists see the light on microsupercapacitors: Laser-induced graphene makes simple, powerful energy storage possible
Super capacitors have been possible for a while.
The problem they and this new iteration have is explosive discharge.
If a gas tank on a vehicle is damaged you get a leak, maybe a fire. It would have to leak for a bit and build up a vapor that was later ignited to get an explosion.
Super capacitors make a big boom every time one with a big charge is damaged.
As someone who knows a bit about batteries I’ve been saying for years that chemical batteries are a dead end. Capacitave storage is the ticket. Superfast recharge times. And it doesn’t take several times the amount of charge out to recharge them. Capacitive recharge is closer to 1:1 as opposed to 3-4:1 like a chemical battery. They will eventually replace batteries in most applications IMHO.
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Awesome, if they can work out large-scale manufacturing.
The next huge problem will be current: you can charge a capacitor really fast, but having the power source capable of transferring that much electricity that fast is a problem. Not so big for little things like phones, but cars are a problem - takes me 20 hours to charge my EV on house current (1400 watts, 110v), or 4 hours on 6.6kWh & 220v, or (if so equipped ) about 30 minutes at 440v - but the latter takes a $30,000 charger and thick wiring. Replace that big battery with a giant capacitor, and the limiting factor will be wiring infrastructure, making charging as slow as is now.
BTW: I was at Kodak at the tipping point for digital. They forgot their customers were the button-pushers taking pictures, not the retailers moving pallet-loads of product. Once the public discovered endless “film” for one moderate purchase, the conversion took months - not 5 years like executives expected.