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DOE Wants 5X Improvement In Batteries In 5 Years

Posted by Soulskill on from the charging-scientists-with-this-task dept.

dcblogs writes "The U.S. Dept. of Energy has set a goal to develop battery and energy storage technologies that are five times more powerful and five times cheaper within five years. DOE is creating a new center at Argonne National Laboratory, at a cost of $120 million over five years, that's intended to reproduce development environments that were successfully used by Bell Laboratories and World War II's Manhattan Project. 'When you had to deliver the goods very, very quickly, you needed to put the best scientists next to the best engineers across disciplines to get very focused,' said U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, on Friday. The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research isn't designed to seek incremental improvements in existing technologies. This technology hub, according to DOE's solicitation (PDF), 'should foster new energy storage designs that begin with a "clean sheet of paper" — overcoming current manufacturing limitations through innovation to reduce complexity and cost.' Other research labs, universities and private companies are participating in the effort."

3 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. Chu! by mrbluejello · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's so refreshing having a Secretary of Energy that actually knows something about energy and physics, rather than somebody who just knows how to dig carbon out of the ground.

    1. Re:Chu! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Right. 5 years to develop 5X cheaper and 5X more energy dense? How gullible are you?

      The free market doesn't solve all problems, but any company that could deliver this would make hundreds of billions of dollars. Why aren't they doing it? Because nobody knows how!

      This $120 million is good research, but it isn't going to deliver. Dr. Chu will certainly be glad that the deadline is past the time that he will be out of office.

  2. Enough $? by markdavis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    $120 million really doesn't sound like enough money to me to solve a problem that has been the bane of thousands of electronics companies for many decades....

    Still, this is a VERY worthy cause. Batteries have improved a lot over the years, but not nearly fast enough to keep up with what we need. Especially important as we move ever closer to electric cars (I would just LOVE to have one).

    And it isn't just the capacity and price that is important- safety and component scarcity and disposal concerns should be addressed too.