The Earth-sized Battery

or; Sub-zero vs DVD Burner... FIGHT!

The course of the last hundred years has been guided by batteries. The ability to store, transport and meter out energy allows us to do many of the things which mark these modern times. Now our overflowing energy needs demand new power sources. That old Duracell bunny will need a bigger drum, longer arms and a caffeine addiction catch up to our D Size lust for power.

It's hard to imagine being without a smart-phone, stylishly wrapped in a tasteful rubber skin, unique among a billion others. It contains millions of microscopic switches just nanometers across, crammed into its minuscule multi-core processor. Marvelous of course, but nothing without its sexy yet volatile partner, the Lithium Ion battery.In some ways the current state of Lithium Ion batteries reflects the state of our large-scale power supplies. Once they were modern and très chic, now they're awkward, overdone and beginning to leave a stain. It's no surprise, given that Lithium Ion batteries were conceived in the late 70s, well-known as one of the worst periods in human history (see diagram below).

Hits of the 70s

Apologies to the fine decade of the 70s, you know you were great (see diagram below)

Appendix DD

The mainstay of battery tech (known by its hip-hop name 'Li-Ion') has got some legs yet, but even with recent developments opening the possibility of some fit and active twilight years, the Lithium Ion cell will need to shuffle over and make room for the natural progression of things – inevitable replacement with a slimmer, newer model, offering something old man Lithium never could. The big questions are; what form will this Messiah of power storage take, and, why does the title of this post refer to the coolest character in Mortal Kombat? All will be revealed in the next sentence.

It's impossible to tell which emergent technology will have the popular uptake required to really 'change the world', but where batteries are concerned a few things seem certain – the next iteration will need to be made from abundantly available resources, or, the very least amount of rare-elements possible, with a several-fold increase in storage/output capacity. This is where liquid oxygen, sodium and graphene cells have gained a lot of favour, especially with eco-types. Several manufacturers are rolling out electric cars with massive Lithium cells on board, which is set to cause a big spike in demand, if people really get into those kinds of cars. Currently, they aren't going well. That's may be a good thing. Lithium extraction is a thirsty process, and, as with many resource booms, stands to exploit and then abandon those countries where it sits in high supply. There will be a way out though, the ideas are out there (necessity is the outspoken teen mother of invention), most waiting for some well placed funding. Some very promising new ideas and start-ups exist that may just dig us out of the lithium pit, before we all become confused and unstable... seriously.

Air is great. There's quite a lot of it too, just look around. Liquid air is lining up to be a prominent energy source for the future. Based on the work of an Englishman in his shed (the genesis of most good ideas), several viable models for liquid air power are beginning to take shape.

The basic idea revolves on the cooling and heating of oxygen. When pushed below -196°C, oxygen becomes a liquid; safe, easy to contain, store and transport. At any temperature above -196°C it will return to its gaseous state, by applying a source of relatively low heat, the transition back to a gas is energetic enough to run a variety of mechanical systems. Used in a car, for instance, the exhuast pipe would emit only air. Of course energy is required to cool and liquefy the gas in the first place, some proposals suggest using less consistent means (wind farms, for one), rather than relying on them as a direct contributor to the power grid. Imagine, instead of fuelling up your car at an ever-increasing cost, damaging the environment in virtually every stage of fuel production and use, it could be powered by air liquefied by the wind, and with more air as the only emission. It's sort of a Holy Grail of energy cycles... except it actually exists and we can pretty well see it from here.

There is a small issue of scalability in this technology. It's unlikely, for example, that the next iPhone will be run on a tank of liquid air and a turbine, which is good because Apple would call it something stupid like 'iTurb S with WonderAir'. There is a great need for small batteries with quick re-charge and high output – Li-Ion's current stomping ground. The miniaturisation of computer components has created the smart phone, but the ludicrously short amount of use one gets from a full charge shows batteries have not caught up.Batteries must catch up and as often seems the case, an accidental discovery and the re-purposing of a previous device could be the key. For a few years researchers have been using graphene sheets to create micro-supercapacitors (small batteries that charge and discharge many times faster than normal). Recently, a UCLA team catapulted this idea ahead, by developing a technique that allows very dense clusters of capacitors to be printed using an everyday DVD Burner. This doesn't mean you'll be printing out your next battery (though you can, with this), but it is an excellent step towards very small, high-powered, quick recharging, bendable, easy-to-make batteries. A phone or electric car that charges in seconds? That's a good thing, we want that.



When cars run on air and small devices enjoy the benefits of graphene, then much of Li-Ions territory has been usurped. Poor fellow. But no doubt the Lithium Tycoons (assuming they exist) will force it into a new field, rather than redundancy. Li-Ion may have a late second career as a grid-side storage medium, charging up during off-peak hours to bolster supplies when people want it most and ensuring no wastage. This is an underused idea, certainly, but its also a task that should fall to whatever the most effective technology is, not for the sake of re-employing an old one.

This isn’t nearly the scope of possibility for the energy systems of tomorrow. Power generation and storage are some of the most active and exciting technological fields. No doubt we'd be further along the line if it wasn't so profitable to keep the world addicted to old energy systems. The future is coming; it isn't here yet, though it's encouragingly visible on the horizon. For the present; Electric Cars aren't that great, exhaust is still poisonous, the Duracell bunny keeps banging on, and my phone still only holds enough charge to get me to a destination.. never back.

Let's keep remembering the 70s, shall we?