New battery technology

[John Coviello]

Jed is right on the money with his analysis of this Toshiba battery announcement.  I noticed there was no mention of possible mileage ranges with these new batteries.  But, if they really can recharge in one minute, then the whole range issue is a lot less significant.  Even a 200 mile range would be sufficient for long trips, if you can pull in and recharge quickly just about anywhere.   The key to electric cars is the fact that we don't need to build a whole new infrastructure like hydrogen.  The infrastructure is already in place for electrics.  We just need to install recharges, which wouldn't be too difficult.     I noticed they used nanotechnology to achieve this breakthrough.  It seems like nanotech is really starting to pay some dividends in technological advancements, especially battery and solar technology.     As far as the electricity supply issue.  That could be dealt with.  For one thing, the technology exists today to make our coal and gas generating stations twice as efficient than they currently are (up to 60% efficient), this doubling of output can be done with no more input of raw materials, and even has the side benefit of making it easier to catch mercury and other heavy metals before they exit the stack.  This design uses the waste heat from the generation process to run it through another generation cycle.  The key to the efficiency of the heat-scavenging system is that it uses propane vapor rather than steam to turn a turbine and drive an electricity generator. This allows it to be driven by low-temperature waste heat.  Just a thought.  We can make even our power generation system much more efficient than it currently is.  The technology I discussed above is real and practical, but not in use much yet.  On the consumption side, I'm sure we could be a lot more efficient.  And, if necessary, we could build new plants to meet the demand of electric cars.  It's worth the price for a more stable world and less pollution.