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Battery Development Off The Beaten Path

Posted by timothy on from the and-my-batteries-are-beaten dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Let's face it. Our computing devices are going faster year after year. But our laptop batteries don't show the same performance improvement. They still work only for a few hours, just a little bit more than ten years ago. Several companies want to change this, according to this UPI report, 'Nanotechnology improving energy options.' For example, mPhase Technologies plans to introduce smart batteries based on millions of silicon nanotube electrodes. These nanobatteries, to be introduced before the end of 2005, will last longer than traditional ones and will be respectful of our environment. Meanwhile, Konarka Technologies wants to reduce the weight of batteries with its flexible solar-fueled nanobatteries. You'll find more details and pictures in this overview."

4 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. Power Consumption? by bintrue · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maintaining the same life in devices that have exponentially grown in power consumption sure seems like improvements to me.

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  2. Seems like batteries ARE getting better... by megaversal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With computers getting faster and faster, doesn't it seem like batteries ARE getting better, simply to keep up with the higher power requirements of new devices. Sure you still only get 2,3, or 4 hours of battery life... but would a battery from 1990 even provide half as long a life as a battery from 2000 or 2004?

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  3. Re:Price? by Short+Circuit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    prohibitively expensive.

    So is just about everything till the patents expire and commodity-level competition kicks in.

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  4. You do realize by Nf1nk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Batteries have been in development for the better part of two hundred years (ignoring posible evidence of even earlier batteries used for electro plating in greco-roman periods) the fact that after this much time the tech is for the most part a a platue is expected, to be fair the advances that we are having now are very impressive when you think about how much work has gone into this field.
    electric computers on the other hand are just over 50 years of serious development, advances should be more rapid in this field.

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