5 ms·

Absolutely agree, it feels like I'm reading about revolutionary battery tech on a weekly basis, with no actual products in sight.

DennisP 6y ago
Nobody's impressed unless someone triples battery density overnight with a radical new chemistry, but lithium-ion energy density has tripled since 2010. https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/19/bloombergnef-lithium-ion-battery-cell-densities-have-almost-tripled-since-2010/ https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/19/bloombergnef-lithium-io... There's a long road between the lab and production, but having all this cool stuff in the lab suggests that the long-term trend can continue for a good while.
- LegitShady 6y ago
  How come aa batteries are still 2000-2500 mah still?
  - JulianMorrison 6y ago
    They won't be being made with the latest tech, since consumers aren't too battery life sensitive and changing up the production lines costs.
  - StillBored 6y ago
    Well there are: https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/l91.pdf https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/l91.pdf But the problem isn't just capacity its maintaining the traditional zinc-carbon voltage profile. There were a bunch of much higher capacity Li/AA batteries from various manufactures that used buck converters inside the "cell" but they have fairly short lifespans, and efficiency loss due to the electronics. For a lot of cases, companies just abandoned the AA form factor and embedded a rechargeable battery.
    - colejohnson66 6y ago
      Why is “lithium” a buzzword? A lot of products (especially Sharper Image and the like) advertise “advanced lithium technology” as if a rechargeable battery is a premium feature for a reusable product.
- scythe 6y ago
  In fairness, the desire to see a new chemistry is not purely an attraction to the new and shiny: https://ceramics.org/ceramic-tech-today/energy-1/pursuing-a-cobalt-free-future-nickel-manganese-aluminum-cathodes-for-lithium-ion-batteries https://ceramics.org/ceramic-tech-today/energy-1/pursuing-a-... > ...the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a country that produces more than 60% of the world’s cobalt. A significant amount of cobalt in the DRC is mined by children...
  - baybal2 6y ago
    And the remaining 40% are not a candy countries either: Cuba, China, Russia. The only standout is Australia. Then, the whole of world's refining, and relevant battery chemical industry is in China.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    It seems to me that the problem is not the chemistry, but the geopolitics that allows using raw materials that were made under such conditions. I bet Congo could get their act together if other countries actually gave them proper incentive.
  - adolph 6y ago
    The linked article’s source is a 2018 Fortune article [0]. As it won a Pulitzer Prize, the article is mirrored on their site [1]. The parent’s linked article claims that a significant amount of the largest cobalt producing area is mined by children. The source article states that industrial-scale output dwarfs the production of the more than 100,000 so-called artisanal cobalt miners which include an unknown number of children. I can’t say that I’m not saddened by thinking of kids, mine or others, mining for a living. The first image that comes to my mind is b/w pictures of Welsh coal mining kids. Stepping outside of my frame of reference, I can see the set of interests that bring about children mining in the DRC. Congolese activists working to end child labor say poverty has driven up the numbers. “Because of the economic crisis, there are about 10,000 of them,” says Hélène Kayekeza Mutshaka, who coordinates a monitoring program in Kolwezi that the government began last year, to try to stop children from mining cobalt. Mutshaka says she faces strong resistance from poor families, who have long sent their children to dig for minerals in order to supplement their meager earnings. “They believe they can try to make it into the middle class if they work as artisanal miners,” Mutshaka says. I’m less sanguine than the article about getting less child labor by moving on from cobalt. The likely scenario is that the industry moves to another similarly rar-ish element and the child miners in DRC move in to another hazardous occupation since the perceived rewards outweigh the risks. 0. https://fortune.com/longform/blood-sweat-and-batteries/ https://fortune.com/longform/blood-sweat-and-batteries/ 1. https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/blood-sweat-and-batteries https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/blood-sweat-and-batteri...
- rasz 6y ago
  Did it now? Because Toshiba Libretto 50CT came out in 1997 using 1200mAh 17670 cells. Today, after 23 years you cant buy 3x the capacity even in 18650 form factor, with best cells available topping out at 3500mAh.
- wutangson1 6y ago
  >"There's a long road between the lab and production" Very well put, and often overlooked. As is the road to actual viable commercialization.
- Hypx 6y ago
  That graph seems to miss some of Panasonic's cells back in 2010. We definitely saw 3100mah 18650 cells 11 years ago.
jahnu 6y ago
Chart most battery metrics over time and you'll see great progress in the past few decades.
- derekp7 6y ago
  edit -- somehow clicked on wrong comment
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    It looks like you responded to the wrong comment. From context, I think you intended to respond to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26015036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26015036
    - derekp7 6y ago
      Thanks, it is weird how the brain works where you could swear you are clicking on one spot, but end up clicking somewhere else. Just like when I come home from the grocery store with diet soda instead of regular -- I'd be looking at one product, reach for it, and somehow grab the wrong one. Every time this happens I swear it is a glitch in the matrix or something.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

DennisP 6y ago

Nobody's impressed unless someone triples battery density overnight with a radical new chemistry, but lithium-ion energy density has tripled since 2010. https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/19/bloombergnef-lithium-ion-battery-cell-densities-have-almost-tripled-since-2010/ https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/19/bloombergnef-lithium-io... There's a long road between the lab and production, but having all this cool stuff in the lab suggests that the long-term trend can continue for a good while.

LegitShady 6y ago
How come aa batteries are still 2000-2500 mah still?
- JulianMorrison 6y ago
  They won't be being made with the latest tech, since consumers aren't too battery life sensitive and changing up the production lines costs.
- StillBored 6y ago
  Well there are: https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/l91.pdf https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/l91.pdf But the problem isn't just capacity its maintaining the traditional zinc-carbon voltage profile. There were a bunch of much higher capacity Li/AA batteries from various manufactures that used buck converters inside the "cell" but they have fairly short lifespans, and efficiency loss due to the electronics. For a lot of cases, companies just abandoned the AA form factor and embedded a rechargeable battery.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Why is “lithium” a buzzword? A lot of products (especially Sharper Image and the like) advertise “advanced lithium technology” as if a rechargeable battery is a premium feature for a reusable product.
scythe 6y ago
In fairness, the desire to see a new chemistry is not purely an attraction to the new and shiny: https://ceramics.org/ceramic-tech-today/energy-1/pursuing-a-cobalt-free-future-nickel-manganese-aluminum-cathodes-for-lithium-ion-batteries https://ceramics.org/ceramic-tech-today/energy-1/pursuing-a-... > ...the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a country that produces more than 60% of the world’s cobalt. A significant amount of cobalt in the DRC is mined by children...
- baybal2 6y ago
  And the remaining 40% are not a candy countries either: Cuba, China, Russia. The only standout is Australia. Then, the whole of world's refining, and relevant battery chemical industry is in China.
- adrianN 6y ago
  It seems to me that the problem is not the chemistry, but the geopolitics that allows using raw materials that were made under such conditions. I bet Congo could get their act together if other countries actually gave them proper incentive.
- adolph 6y ago
  The linked article’s source is a 2018 Fortune article [0]. As it won a Pulitzer Prize, the article is mirrored on their site [1]. The parent’s linked article claims that a significant amount of the largest cobalt producing area is mined by children. The source article states that industrial-scale output dwarfs the production of the more than 100,000 so-called artisanal cobalt miners which include an unknown number of children. I can’t say that I’m not saddened by thinking of kids, mine or others, mining for a living. The first image that comes to my mind is b/w pictures of Welsh coal mining kids. Stepping outside of my frame of reference, I can see the set of interests that bring about children mining in the DRC. Congolese activists working to end child labor say poverty has driven up the numbers. “Because of the economic crisis, there are about 10,000 of them,” says Hélène Kayekeza Mutshaka, who coordinates a monitoring program in Kolwezi that the government began last year, to try to stop children from mining cobalt. Mutshaka says she faces strong resistance from poor families, who have long sent their children to dig for minerals in order to supplement their meager earnings. “They believe they can try to make it into the middle class if they work as artisanal miners,” Mutshaka says. I’m less sanguine than the article about getting less child labor by moving on from cobalt. The likely scenario is that the industry moves to another similarly rar-ish element and the child miners in DRC move in to another hazardous occupation since the perceived rewards outweigh the risks. 0. https://fortune.com/longform/blood-sweat-and-batteries/ https://fortune.com/longform/blood-sweat-and-batteries/ 1. https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/blood-sweat-and-batteries https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/blood-sweat-and-batteri...
rasz 6y ago
Did it now? Because Toshiba Libretto 50CT came out in 1997 using 1200mAh 17670 cells. Today, after 23 years you cant buy 3x the capacity even in 18650 form factor, with best cells available topping out at 3500mAh.
wutangson1 6y ago
>"There's a long road between the lab and production" Very well put, and often overlooked. As is the road to actual viable commercialization.
Hypx 6y ago
That graph seems to miss some of Panasonic's cells back in 2010. We definitely saw 3100mah 18650 cells 11 years ago.

jahnu 6y ago

Chart most battery metrics over time and you'll see great progress in the past few decades.

derekp7 6y ago
edit -- somehow clicked on wrong comment
- MereInterest 6y ago
  It looks like you responded to the wrong comment. From context, I think you intended to respond to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26015036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26015036
  - derekp7 6y ago
    Thanks, it is weird how the brain works where you could swear you are clicking on one spot, but end up clicking somewhere else. Just like when I come home from the grocery store with diet soda instead of regular -- I'd be looking at one product, reach for it, and somehow grab the wrong one. Every time this happens I swear it is a glitch in the matrix or something.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]