4 ms·

Google Gets into Battery Arms Race

38 points by antouank 12y ago

Gabriel_Martin 12y ago
I can't tell if this is great news, due to having a powerhouse with a massive cash war chest lumbering toward this goal, or terrible news, because it will Google-ize the hiring verticals surrounding this industry.
- melling 12y ago
  It brings a lot more money to the problem. Doesn't that usually increase innovation in tech? Yes, Google will gobble up some of the startup innovators but doesn't that encourage more startups?
r00fus 12y ago
The only story I see here is that Google is leaking some of their strategy. I doubt Apple, Tesla or other heavily battery-tech-dependent companies would allow their staff to even hint about this kind of research.
- pinewurst 12y ago
  I've been seeing a few of these sort of leaks lately. I have a feeling that it's to counter a shifting perception of Google. I'm willing to bet that this innovation will have the same real world impact as all of the other ones "leaked" so far.
ctdonath 12y ago
Tangential thought: is there a sane physical upper limit to power storage/generation in a given space (say, 1cc)? Sometimes helps to bracket the question to predict what's possible & reasonable. (Comparable ex.: total maximum possible solar energy capture is 1367 watts/m^2; circumstances will limit that around 10%)
- zyxley 12y ago
  From what I understand, with assorted chemical energy storage technologies you can get a (for our purposes) arbitrarily high power density... as long as you're also willing to deal with arbitrarily high volatility. See stories about laptop batteries igniting for an example just with current batteries. Of course, if you're talking about scifi theoreticals, the thing to do would be to calculate the energy from mixing X/2 volume of matter with X/2 volume of antimatter (presumably with some amount of the total volume skimmed off the top for containment structure).
- greggyb 12y ago
  Since energy and mass are tied, the upper limit would be the point at which you are about to create a black hole, wouldn't it?
  - deeviant 12y ago
    Black holes are almost the perfect battery. Small black holes decay very quickly, a black hole the mass of, let's say a small mountain, would decay almost immediately, releasing it's energy as hard gamma via hawking radiation, whose energy could be captured and used via multiple processes including some sort of sterling engine/photovoltaic mechanism. If some how you were able to create a small "artificial black hole" you could just feed it mass, any mass, and it would be converted directly in energy, as if it were a matter/anti-matter reaction. At least, that's what my two semesters of modern physics and latent desire to be eventually be a sci fi author tell me. I am reasonably sure nature has some sort of small print that kills my awesome idea, like requiring 100x to create said black hole than energy released, bleh nature. IANAP.
    - benjiweber 12y ago
      Black holes were one of the power sources in Star Trek http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Artificial_quantum_singularity#Artificial_quantum_singularity http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Artificial_quantum_singulari...
- teraflop 12y ago
timdellinger 12y ago
Here's my read on the tea leaves that hint at what's going on at Google: It looks to me like they're probably dumping ~$3 million/year into a battery lab, which gives them state-of-the-art testing facilities and in-house expertise, and thus the ability to knowledgeably stay on top of what's going on in the battery space, what's real and what's not, and the strengths and weaknesses of different technologies. The probability that Google will invent something important is low, but the business value of having a battery group justifies the cost, given the importance of batteries in portable devices, electric cars, solar energy storage, etc.
- Retric 12y ago
  Google has built enough devices / systems in house Google Glass, Nexus, Self driving car, solar, and various computer systems that having a small but world class team for battery technology is probably a no brainer. IMO it’s less about keeping ahead of the curve so much as avoiding dumb mistakes.
  - agumonkey 12y ago
    Also the fact that processing information to control energy forms (light, sounds, emw, etc) is not the bottleneck anymore.
barefootford 12y ago
"The company’s latest self-driving car runs on batteries recharged by electricity." I'm missing something, aren't all batteries recharged by electricity?

38 points by antouank 12y ago

I can't tell if this is great news, due to having a powerhouse with a massive cash war chest lumbering toward this goal, or terrible news, because it will Google-ize the hiring verticals surrounding this industry.

melling 12y ago
It brings a lot more money to the problem. Doesn't that usually increase innovation in tech? Yes, Google will gobble up some of the startup innovators but doesn't that encourage more startups?

r00fus 12y ago

The only story I see here is that Google is leaking some of their strategy. I doubt Apple, Tesla or other heavily battery-tech-dependent companies would allow their staff to even hint about this kind of research.

pinewurst 12y ago
I've been seeing a few of these sort of leaks lately. I have a feeling that it's to counter a shifting perception of Google. I'm willing to bet that this innovation will have the same real world impact as all of the other ones "leaked" so far.

ctdonath 12y ago

Tangential thought: is there a sane physical upper limit to power storage/generation in a given space (say, 1cc)? Sometimes helps to bracket the question to predict what's possible & reasonable. (Comparable ex.: total maximum possible solar energy capture is 1367 watts/m^2; circumstances will limit that around 10%)

zyxley 12y ago
From what I understand, with assorted chemical energy storage technologies you can get a (for our purposes) arbitrarily high power density... as long as you're also willing to deal with arbitrarily high volatility. See stories about laptop batteries igniting for an example just with current batteries. Of course, if you're talking about scifi theoreticals, the thing to do would be to calculate the energy from mixing X/2 volume of matter with X/2 volume of antimatter (presumably with some amount of the total volume skimmed off the top for containment structure).
greggyb 12y ago
Since energy and mass are tied, the upper limit would be the point at which you are about to create a black hole, wouldn't it?
- deeviant 12y ago
  Black holes are almost the perfect battery. Small black holes decay very quickly, a black hole the mass of, let's say a small mountain, would decay almost immediately, releasing it's energy as hard gamma via hawking radiation, whose energy could be captured and used via multiple processes including some sort of sterling engine/photovoltaic mechanism. If some how you were able to create a small "artificial black hole" you could just feed it mass, any mass, and it would be converted directly in energy, as if it were a matter/anti-matter reaction. At least, that's what my two semesters of modern physics and latent desire to be eventually be a sci fi author tell me. I am reasonably sure nature has some sort of small print that kills my awesome idea, like requiring 100x to create said black hole than energy released, bleh nature. IANAP.
  - benjiweber 12y ago
    Black holes were one of the power sources in Star Trek http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Artificial_quantum_singularity#Artificial_quantum_singularity http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Artificial_quantum_singulari...
teraflop 12y ago

timdellinger 12y ago

Here's my read on the tea leaves that hint at what's going on at Google: It looks to me like they're probably dumping ~$3 million/year into a battery lab, which gives them state-of-the-art testing facilities and in-house expertise, and thus the ability to knowledgeably stay on top of what's going on in the battery space, what's real and what's not, and the strengths and weaknesses of different technologies. The probability that Google will invent something important is low, but the business value of having a battery group justifies the cost, given the importance of batteries in portable devices, electric cars, solar energy storage, etc.

Retric 12y ago
Google has built enough devices / systems in house Google Glass, Nexus, Self driving car, solar, and various computer systems that having a small but world class team for battery technology is probably a no brainer. IMO it’s less about keeping ahead of the curve so much as avoiding dumb mistakes.
- agumonkey 12y ago
  Also the fact that processing information to control energy forms (light, sounds, emw, etc) is not the bottleneck anymore.

barefootford 12y ago

"The company’s latest self-driving car runs on batteries recharged by electricity." I'm missing something, aren't all batteries recharged by electricity?