1) US troops were in neither Iraq nor Libya during their last elections.
2) Afghanistan's elections are supervised by international monitors, recognized by the international community, and not widely boycotted by entire segments of the population who don't consider the new "government" - imposed by a foreign military just weeks earlier and headed by a local mobster - legitimate or having the right to hold elections.
Even when the US was in Iraq (before they got kicked out, before they were subsequently begged to come back when Iraq was being overrun by Daesh...), Iraqis elected a government that was pro-Iran and hostile to the US. The largest party in the 2005 elections, with double the votes of the next closest contender, was the National Iraqi Alliance - a pro-Iranian islamist shia coalition. Maliki was chosen as prime minister. Do you think the US rigged the election to choose pro-Iranian anti-US government? What about in 2010 when pro-Iranian islamist nationalist power was consolidated, leading to the 2011 sinking of the SOFA? Think that was the result the US wanted? If the US was rigging Iraqi elections, they're pretty bloody terrible at it.
The Russians have always been good at lower performance, low cost rockets. Higher performance, they've always struggled with (particularly upper stages), which hindered their ability to launch probes (they only ever launched to the moon, Venus, and Mars, and with a rather disappointing track record). But they've built quite a few reliable, cheap lower stages and full low-performance orbital stacks. Mind you, a few of their lower-stage engines have turned out to be lemons (most notably the NK-15/33/43), but most have been real workhorses.
As for advanced tech in general, Russia has always been great at conceiving of and doing small scale implementations of very advanced concepts, but they've struggled to bring it into mass produced products. In that regard, I think the US has more to worry about concerning China; while they've long been known for mass production of lower-tech goods, they're getting increasingly good at mass production of high tech goods. The key to the US's success has been the combination of both high tech and skill in bulk production (albeit disadvantaged in that by labour costs)
US vs. Russia, I think the AK-47 vs. M-16 is a great analogy. The M-16 is by most objective standards a much better weapon - lighter, significantly lighter magazines per bullet (yet with nearly the same impact energy due to much faster velocity), significantly greater range in most regards, greater accuracy, faster to load and change magazines, easier to work the safety, predictable trigger behavior, all sorts of other ergonomic features, less recoil, better sights, and on and on down the line. Yet the AK-47 is the one that ended up ubiquitous around the world. It was simple, easy to make, had loose-fitting parts that weren't sensitive to manufacturing defects, was tough to break or jam with dirt and grime, etc. Very much reflective of the philosophy difference in general.
Russia seems to be trying to change today, trying to move more toward the American philosophy of production, in particular with respect to arms. For example they're trying to make their jets less "disposable", designed for lower downtimes and more flight hours like the US and Europe do, in order to be able to give their pilots more flight-time training (among other things), like the west does. But the changes have been incremental, not by leaps and bounds.
Not according to every single UN report on the subject, up to and including just days ago, but by all means, keep being a dictator's internet propagandist.
FYI, since you're late to the party, there no longer is anything called "Al-Nusra". The name changed to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham when they broke from al-Qaeda.
Thank you, I read this headline and immediately sighed at the stupidity of it as well.
Russia likes doing these sort of braggadocious product unveilings; they're often rather disconnected from the reality of how their development goes. That's not to say that Russia can't develop good products - they can. But every time they make these product announcements it's like "The world will imminently fall at our feet due to the obvious revolutionary technological superiority of our latest offering!", when it's most often anything but.
Aluminum was largely the key to the "missile gap" that developed between the US and USSR in ICBMs in the 1960s. Before that, ICBMs had been liquid-fueled, which presented storage, complexity and bulk problems (also prevented underwater launch on submarines). The US discovered that the addition of aluminum powder to solid rocket propellant mixes would simultaneously increase ISP, thrust, density, and burn stability, and moved immediately toward the development of a series of solid ICBMs; the Soviets were late to catch onto the significance of aluminum in propellant mixes, and fell over half a decade behind as a consequence.
Quotation needed. And no, Ukraine does not count. They had a vote and voted to be part of Russia; that's a far cry from rolling in the tanks and taking it by force.
They did send in their military, that's who the "Little Green Men" were. Even Putin has publicly admitted this. The "vote" was held under occupation, not internationally recognized, boycotted by significant segments of the population, and even Russia at one point accidentally released the "real" numbers from the vote which didn't match the official ones.
Do recall that Russia is a country where Chechnya "voted for" United Russia (Putin's Party) 99% in 2001. Some parts of Grozny voted for "The Butcher of Grozny" by well over 100%. You seriously think that's legit?
Amazing how many apologists for Russia there are here. False equivalencies are clearly alive and well.
1. Very few of the emails are DKIM signed. Check for yourself. 2. Even where DKIM is signed, it relies on the following assumtions. A: The attacker has not compromised the Google private key B: The attacker has not compromised DKIM or any of the technologies it relies on C: The attacker had not compromised the sending account at the time of sending.
The requirement of assumption C is applicable regardless of who the attacker is. Assumptions A and B fail when considering a highly motivated state actor. It should go without saying that everyone here knows that major powers actively work on things like A & B, and C is their bread and butter.
Do I think that a power like, say, Russia, has compromised DKIM itself, or any of the technologies it relies on? Probably not, but I certainly wouldn't put it past them. Do I think that said entity has compromised the Google private key? Probably not, but again, I certainly wouldn't put it past them. I absolutely would not put C past them - but it depends on the importance attached to the topic at hand.
To reiterate: the majority of the leak will be real. But there is an active, demonstrable history this cycle, of the attackers salting the leaks with fakes, using the real content to try to legitimize the fakes, so try not to be naive about all this.
Right. So let's take a look at how this "excerpt the gotcha" plays into that.
Slashdot writes about Zuckerberg:
a later exchange between Sandberg and Podesta showed that Mark Zuckerberg was looking to get in on the action a bit, and perhaps curry favor with Podesta and the Clinton camp in shaping public policy.
Except that the email from Shelly about Zuckerberg very clearly begins:
Mark is meeting with people to learn more about next steps for his philanthropy and social action and it’s hard to imagine someone better placed or more experienced than you to help him. He’s begun to think about whether/how he might want to shape advocacy efforts to support his philanthropic priorities and is particularly interested in meeting people who could help him understand how to move the needle on the specific public policy issues he cares most about
Likewise on the other email from Cheryl. They mention the "She came over and was magical with my kids" re. Clinton. They don't bother mentioning the reason for Hillary's visit, which can be seen in what she's replying to:
To: Sheryl Sandberg Subject: At a loss for words
Can't imagine your pain, but know that you are surrounded by people who love you. Mary and I are praying for you, the kids and, in our Catholic way also for Dave.
... and the part before the excerpt:
Thank you – means a lot to me that you reached out.
And I like that you are praying for Dave. I have to believe in heaven now.
This wasn't some buddy-buddy campaign visit, this was a "person I know's husband just died" visit. Likewise, the implication that they're supposed to give here is that they know her because of Facebook. No bothering to mention that the reason that they actually know her is because she was Larry Summers' Chief of Staff during the Clinton administration.
Almost anything can be made to look sinister when you take it completely out of context. Which is the whole purpose of these emails.
Furthermore, do you honestly think you couldn't do the exact same thing by picking through the Trump campaign's internal messaging? Do you have any clue how many people of note a major campaign interacts with, how many people work for them, etc? We know given Trumps record on server security that hacking him would have been a breeze, but miraculously nobody bothered. Why do you think that is?
Lastly: take everything you read with a grain of salt. I know everyone's reaction to statements that emails could have been altered (and scattered amongst real ones) is going to be "You just don't want to discuss them!" No, the reason you should take things with a grain of salt is that the other anti-Clinton hacks this year have done exactly that. Leaks posted by the hackers in different places involved cases where they had involved changing the same file to say different things (such as a donation list where they added a donation from Soros to a Russian democracy activist, but had different values for the donation in different versions of their release), cases where files were dated to after the hack occurred, and cases where file metadata showed the changes they'd been making. Salting real data with fake is something that they've been doing this year, so it'd be naive to think that they're just going to stop doing it now. Come on, even the most die-hard Clinton hater is going to be hard pressed to actually believe that the Clinton Foundation has a directory sitting around literally called "Pay for Play".
Yes, the majority will be real. But don't be naive when viewing them and assume that you can just take everything at face value.
Because we hate Wall Street, let's instead put a billionaire real estate scammer whose entire adult life has been spent trying to kiss up to investors and banks to get loans for his businesses, and who refuses to reveal what banks he's in debt to in power.
Because we oppose the Libyan conflict, let's put in power someone who wants to bomb the children of terrorists, insists that waterboarding isn't harsh enough, wants more nations to have nuclear weapons, wants to build a new generation of nuclear weapons, and spent his first security briefing repeatedly asking why we're bothering to have nuclear weapons if we're not going to use them.
Because we oppose free trade, let's put in power someone who spent his entire career - up until he decided to rebrand himself as a populist for this election - championing free trade, built his empire on dumped steel and undocumented workers, and - until it was shut down as a scam - championed the benefits of outsourcing on his Trump University page.
I'm not even sure where you're getting that Clinton has been big "drill baby drill" champion, but Trump has literally called for "drill baby drill" in speeches, including lifting all federal restrictions on offshore drilling and elimination of the EPA.
So if you want to cut off your nose to spite your face, go right ahead, but please understand why many people will not be joining at you.
And if your argument is "I'm not supporting either of them" - if you don't vote for one, you're supporting the other. Not to the degree of voting directly for the other, but you're still supporting them. Because that's the way the US electoral system works.
So you get a permit once, and then every flight of the drone is legal regardless of whether or not you're actually using the drone within the guidelines that the permit was approved for, is that what you're saying?
Let's help make it a bit clearer. Let's say you're the average US male height, weight and build - 176cm / 59" and 83kg/184lbs and a bench press of 165lbs. Picture an environment where everywhere you go, you're surrounded by men who average 192cm (64"), 105kg (231lbs) - with the weight difference being primarily muscle - with a bench press of 400lbs. On average. Basically, the average person around you is a NFL linebacker. Now picture that a good number of them are sexually attracted to you. That they're much more likely to be involved in violent crime than you. That a disturbingly high percentage of your friends and family have been molested or raped by them. Perhaps you yourself.
Try to understand the difference in what the world is like for others.
That could be an interesting legal paradox. Build two identical drones and have them take off at the exact same time filming each other, then send in the video as evidence of a crime. Because they were used to document a crime, both were legal; but then there was no crime being committed, so they weren't being used to document a crime, and were thus illegal... and thus both were documenting a crime, and thus legal...
the improvements have been minor in battery tech... the main improvement has been in lowering energy use in the chips (shrinking mainly)
Flatly contradicted by comparing old batteries with new, amp hours vs. volume and mass. For the past couple decades, batteries have doubled in energy density once every 8 years or so. Do you perchance have an old cell phone lying around at home? Check out its amp-hour rating and see how big/heavy it is compared to the amp hour rating and size/mass of your current cell phone's battery.
and the article say's nothing about 10x, so yes this is bullshit..
No, it is not. The maximum theoretical energy density of li-air is about 10x that of the maximum theoretical for LCO/graphite li-ion.
The problem is chemistry, no matter how much you want to believe it's possible to make a battery that is anywhere near as energy dense as gasoline, the chemistry say's no!!
Once again, false. The maximum gravimetric energy density for li-air is comparable to gasoline (12kWh/kg vs. 13kWh/kg) in the charged state, and significantly better in the discharged state. Now, you don't ever achieve the maximum for a particular chemistry, or even close to it. But then again, for a given amount of EV range, you don't have to, as electric drivetrains are 3-5x more efficient than ICE drivetrains.
Of course, neither of these are actual impediments to EV adoption; nobody gives a rat's arse whether a battery pack is physically larger or heavier than a gas tank (partially or completely offset by the reduced drivetrain mass). The real impediment is price. That said, if cost per unit mass/volume remains the same and energy density improves, then cost per watt hour improves as well.
Wow, unreferenced rant someone added at the bottom - clearly you've got me there!
Try googling those quotes. The first one is only people quoting Wikipedia. The second one, I downloaded the paper and the conclusion says just the opposite ("A huge interest expressed by the scientific community in the development of Li-air battery is the demand of modern automotive industry. We have identified four major areas. If properly addressed, this technology may enter the commercial phase in the near future." (immediately after going into a wide range of papers on dealing with each of these four topics))
And I'm telling you that lithium-ion batteries are not a "single tech", that they've dramatically improved in power and energy density (both volumetric and gravimetric) over time. And if you doubt this, I repeat: go find and older lithium-ion battery and compare it to a new one.
As for li-air, yes, the maximum energy density of li-air is about 10x of the maximum of li-ion. Namely because it works by direct oxidation rather than intercalation, so you don't need the mass of the matrix into which the ions get intercalated. It is not a "magical tech". It exists. Like all technologies in all fields, however, you have to reach production specs. This means not only maintaining a combination of safety, reliability, longevity, efficiency, temperature range, power density (charge and discharge) and energy density, but also affordability in mass production. And to be able to guarantee that you can do all of these things to a high enough level for investors to take the risk.
As with all technologies, you start out with promise in one or two fields, but serious problems in many others that you have to deal with. With time you refine them, until all of refined to a state where the product is commercialized. Li-air has actually been advancing quite well. In the early days one of its biggest problems were efficiency and longevity, but they've made huge strides in both in recent years. Lithium sulfur still looks nearer term, but commercialization of Li-air appears to have gone from "possible" to "quite probable".
Right. Out of the 330 million people in the US (not counting the broader market, there's "nobody" who wants a gun that can't be accidentally picked up and used by their young children or an intruder. Literally "nobody". Yeah, totally believe you.
They have a niche. You want to prevent them from filling it.
Actually, that is a concern. Li-ion batteries don't have lithium metal in them unless something goes wrong. Lithium-air batteries always have lithium metal in them, by design.
In practice, you'll probably see a bit of the energy density given up in order to beef up the casing to prevent rupture/fire.
Thankfully, lithium-sulfur batteries don't use lithium metal, just lithium polysulfides. The max energy density isn't as high, but it's still quite good. They're already on the market, albeit in small quantities for applications that require the absolute highest rechargeable energy density (mainly aerospace).
Yes, cue the standard "Batteries haven't advanced!" stuff from people carrying around cell phones with significantly more amp hours in a smaller battery profile than the last generation phones that they owned.
News flash: every time a new tech advance makes it into a product, they don't mail a letter about it to everybody who read an article about it years earlier. Example: hey, remember all of that stuff about breakthroughs in silicon anodes several years back? Yeah, they're in batteries now. Even Tesla is starting to use it in their higher-end packs.
Slashdot Mirror
1) US troops were in neither Iraq nor Libya during their last elections.
2) Afghanistan's elections are supervised by international monitors, recognized by the international community, and not widely boycotted by entire segments of the population who don't consider the new "government" - imposed by a foreign military just weeks earlier and headed by a local mobster - legitimate or having the right to hold elections.
Even when the US was in Iraq (before they got kicked out, before they were subsequently begged to come back when Iraq was being overrun by Daesh...), Iraqis elected a government that was pro-Iran and hostile to the US. The largest party in the 2005 elections, with double the votes of the next closest contender, was the National Iraqi Alliance - a pro-Iranian islamist shia coalition. Maliki was chosen as prime minister. Do you think the US rigged the election to choose pro-Iranian anti-US government? What about in 2010 when pro-Iranian islamist nationalist power was consolidated, leading to the 2011 sinking of the SOFA? Think that was the result the US wanted? If the US was rigging Iraqi elections, they're pretty bloody terrible at it.
The Russians have always been good at lower performance, low cost rockets. Higher performance, they've always struggled with (particularly upper stages), which hindered their ability to launch probes (they only ever launched to the moon, Venus, and Mars, and with a rather disappointing track record). But they've built quite a few reliable, cheap lower stages and full low-performance orbital stacks. Mind you, a few of their lower-stage engines have turned out to be lemons (most notably the NK-15/33/43), but most have been real workhorses.
As for advanced tech in general, Russia has always been great at conceiving of and doing small scale implementations of very advanced concepts, but they've struggled to bring it into mass produced products. In that regard, I think the US has more to worry about concerning China; while they've long been known for mass production of lower-tech goods, they're getting increasingly good at mass production of high tech goods. The key to the US's success has been the combination of both high tech and skill in bulk production (albeit disadvantaged in that by labour costs)
US vs. Russia, I think the AK-47 vs. M-16 is a great analogy. The M-16 is by most objective standards a much better weapon - lighter, significantly lighter magazines per bullet (yet with nearly the same impact energy due to much faster velocity), significantly greater range in most regards, greater accuracy, faster to load and change magazines, easier to work the safety, predictable trigger behavior, all sorts of other ergonomic features, less recoil, better sights, and on and on down the line. Yet the AK-47 is the one that ended up ubiquitous around the world. It was simple, easy to make, had loose-fitting parts that weren't sensitive to manufacturing defects, was tough to break or jam with dirt and grime, etc. Very much reflective of the philosophy difference in general.
Russia seems to be trying to change today, trying to move more toward the American philosophy of production, in particular with respect to arms. For example they're trying to make their jets less "disposable", designed for lower downtimes and more flight hours like the US and Europe do, in order to be able to give their pilots more flight-time training (among other things), like the west does. But the changes have been incremental, not by leaps and bounds.
Not according to every single UN report on the subject, up to and including just days ago, but by all means, keep being a dictator's internet propagandist.
FYI, since you're late to the party, there no longer is anything called "Al-Nusra". The name changed to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham when they broke from al-Qaeda.
Thank you, I read this headline and immediately sighed at the stupidity of it as well.
Russia likes doing these sort of braggadocious product unveilings; they're often rather disconnected from the reality of how their development goes. That's not to say that Russia can't develop good products - they can. But every time they make these product announcements it's like "The world will imminently fall at our feet due to the obvious revolutionary technological superiority of our latest offering!", when it's most often anything but.
Aluminum was largely the key to the "missile gap" that developed between the US and USSR in ICBMs in the 1960s. Before that, ICBMs had been liquid-fueled, which presented storage, complexity and bulk problems (also prevented underwater launch on submarines). The US discovered that the addition of aluminum powder to solid rocket propellant mixes would simultaneously increase ISP, thrust, density, and burn stability, and moved immediately toward the development of a series of solid ICBMs; the Soviets were late to catch onto the significance of aluminum in propellant mixes, and fell over half a decade behind as a consequence.
They did send in their military, that's who the "Little Green Men" were. Even Putin has publicly admitted this. The "vote" was held under occupation, not internationally recognized, boycotted by significant segments of the population, and even Russia at one point accidentally released the "real" numbers from the vote which didn't match the official ones.
Do recall that Russia is a country where Chechnya "voted for" United Russia (Putin's Party) 99% in 2001. Some parts of Grozny voted for "The Butcher of Grozny" by well over 100%. You seriously think that's legit?
Amazing how many apologists for Russia there are here. False equivalencies are clearly alive and well.
1. Very few of the emails are DKIM signed. Check for yourself.
2. Even where DKIM is signed, it relies on the following assumtions.
A: The attacker has not compromised the Google private key
B: The attacker has not compromised DKIM or any of the technologies it relies on
C: The attacker had not compromised the sending account at the time of sending.
The requirement of assumption C is applicable regardless of who the attacker is. Assumptions A and B fail when considering a highly motivated state actor. It should go without saying that everyone here knows that major powers actively work on things like A & B, and C is their bread and butter.
Do I think that a power like, say, Russia, has compromised DKIM itself, or any of the technologies it relies on? Probably not, but I certainly wouldn't put it past them. Do I think that said entity has compromised the Google private key? Probably not, but again, I certainly wouldn't put it past them. I absolutely would not put C past them - but it depends on the importance attached to the topic at hand.
To reiterate: the majority of the leak will be real. But there is an active, demonstrable history this cycle, of the attackers salting the leaks with fakes, using the real content to try to legitimize the fakes, so try not to be naive about all this.
Right. Keep denying our reality.
Right. So let's take a look at how this "excerpt the gotcha" plays into that.
Slashdot writes about Zuckerberg:
Except that the email from Shelly about Zuckerberg very clearly begins:
Likewise on the other email from Cheryl. They mention the "She came over and was magical with my kids" re. Clinton. They don't bother mentioning the reason for Hillary's visit, which can be seen in what she's replying to:
This wasn't some buddy-buddy campaign visit, this was a "person I know's husband just died" visit. Likewise, the implication that they're supposed to give here is that they know her because of Facebook. No bothering to mention that the reason that they actually know her is because she was Larry Summers' Chief of Staff during the Clinton administration.
Almost anything can be made to look sinister when you take it completely out of context. Which is the whole purpose of these emails.
Furthermore, do you honestly think you couldn't do the exact same thing by picking through the Trump campaign's internal messaging? Do you have any clue how many people of note a major campaign interacts with, how many people work for them, etc? We know given Trumps record on server security that hacking him would have been a breeze, but miraculously nobody bothered. Why do you think that is?
Lastly: take everything you read with a grain of salt. I know everyone's reaction to statements that emails could have been altered (and scattered amongst real ones) is going to be "You just don't want to discuss them!" No, the reason you should take things with a grain of salt is that the other anti-Clinton hacks this year have done exactly that. Leaks posted by the hackers in different places involved cases where they had involved changing the same file to say different things (such as a donation list where they added a donation from Soros to a Russian democracy activist, but had different values for the donation in different versions of their release), cases where files were dated to after the hack occurred, and cases where file metadata showed the changes they'd been making. Salting real data with fake is something that they've been doing this year, so it'd be naive to think that they're just going to stop doing it now. Come on, even the most die-hard Clinton hater is going to be hard pressed to actually believe that the Clinton Foundation has a directory sitting around literally called "Pay for Play".
Yes, the majority will be real. But don't be naive when viewing them and assume that you can just take everything at face value.
Right.
Because we hate Wall Street, let's instead put a billionaire real estate scammer whose entire adult life has been spent trying to kiss up to investors and banks to get loans for his businesses, and who refuses to reveal what banks he's in debt to in power.
Because we oppose the Libyan conflict, let's put in power someone who wants to bomb the children of terrorists, insists that waterboarding isn't harsh enough, wants more nations to have nuclear weapons, wants to build a new generation of nuclear weapons, and spent his first security briefing repeatedly asking why we're bothering to have nuclear weapons if we're not going to use them.
Because we oppose free trade, let's put in power someone who spent his entire career - up until he decided to rebrand himself as a populist for this election - championing free trade, built his empire on dumped steel and undocumented workers, and - until it was shut down as a scam - championed the benefits of outsourcing on his Trump University page.
I'm not even sure where you're getting that Clinton has been big "drill baby drill" champion, but Trump has literally called for "drill baby drill" in speeches, including lifting all federal restrictions on offshore drilling and elimination of the EPA.
So if you want to cut off your nose to spite your face, go right ahead, but please understand why many people will not be joining at you.
And if your argument is "I'm not supporting either of them" - if you don't vote for one, you're supporting the other. Not to the degree of voting directly for the other, but you're still supporting them. Because that's the way the US electoral system works.
So you get a permit once, and then every flight of the drone is legal regardless of whether or not you're actually using the drone within the guidelines that the permit was approved for, is that what you're saying?
Let's help make it a bit clearer. Let's say you're the average US male height, weight and build - 176cm / 59" and 83kg/184lbs and a bench press of 165lbs. Picture an environment where everywhere you go, you're surrounded by men who average 192cm (64"), 105kg (231lbs) - with the weight difference being primarily muscle - with a bench press of 400lbs. On average. Basically, the average person around you is a NFL linebacker. Now picture that a good number of them are sexually attracted to you. That they're much more likely to be involved in violent crime than you. That a disturbingly high percentage of your friends and family have been molested or raped by them. Perhaps you yourself.
Try to understand the difference in what the world is like for others.
Why can't you apply for a permit for each drone before starting?
"Images"? Thorn is a letter.
And the intent would be to film the criminal activity, hence a fully legitimate use of the drones ;)
Necrophilia much?
That could be an interesting legal paradox. Build two identical drones and have them take off at the exact same time filming each other, then send in the video as evidence of a crime. Because they were used to document a crime, both were legal; but then there was no crime being committed, so they weren't being used to document a crime, and were thus illegal... and thus both were documenting a crime, and thus legal...
** Ed: Should read "in the discharged state, and significantly better in the charged state". It's heaviest in the discharge state.
Flatly contradicted by comparing old batteries with new, amp hours vs. volume and mass. For the past couple decades, batteries have doubled in energy density once every 8 years or so. Do you perchance have an old cell phone lying around at home? Check out its amp-hour rating and see how big/heavy it is compared to the amp hour rating and size/mass of your current cell phone's battery.
No, it is not. The maximum theoretical energy density of li-air is about 10x that of the maximum theoretical for LCO/graphite li-ion.
Once again, false. The maximum gravimetric energy density for li-air is comparable to gasoline (12kWh/kg vs. 13kWh/kg) in the charged state, and significantly better in the discharged state. Now, you don't ever achieve the maximum for a particular chemistry, or even close to it. But then again, for a given amount of EV range, you don't have to, as electric drivetrains are 3-5x more efficient than ICE drivetrains.
Of course, neither of these are actual impediments to EV adoption; nobody gives a rat's arse whether a battery pack is physically larger or heavier than a gas tank (partially or completely offset by the reduced drivetrain mass). The real impediment is price. That said, if cost per unit mass/volume remains the same and energy density improves, then cost per watt hour improves as well.
Wow, unreferenced rant someone added at the bottom - clearly you've got me there!
Try googling those quotes. The first one is only people quoting Wikipedia. The second one, I downloaded the paper and the conclusion says just the opposite ("A huge interest expressed by the scientific community in the development of Li-air battery is the demand of modern automotive industry. We have identified four major areas. If properly addressed, this technology may enter the commercial phase in the near future." (immediately after going into a wide range of papers on dealing with each of these four topics))
*Sigh*
And I'm telling you that lithium-ion batteries are not a "single tech", that they've dramatically improved in power and energy density (both volumetric and gravimetric) over time. And if you doubt this, I repeat: go find and older lithium-ion battery and compare it to a new one.
As for li-air, yes, the maximum energy density of li-air is about 10x of the maximum of li-ion. Namely because it works by direct oxidation rather than intercalation, so you don't need the mass of the matrix into which the ions get intercalated. It is not a "magical tech". It exists. Like all technologies in all fields, however, you have to reach production specs. This means not only maintaining a combination of safety, reliability, longevity, efficiency, temperature range, power density (charge and discharge) and energy density, but also affordability in mass production. And to be able to guarantee that you can do all of these things to a high enough level for investors to take the risk.
As with all technologies, you start out with promise in one or two fields, but serious problems in many others that you have to deal with. With time you refine them, until all of refined to a state where the product is commercialized. Li-air has actually been advancing quite well. In the early days one of its biggest problems were efficiency and longevity, but they've made huge strides in both in recent years. Lithium sulfur still looks nearer term, but commercialization of Li-air appears to have gone from "possible" to "quite probable".
No, I meant precisely what I wrote. Every word. Go look at old cell phone batteries and how many amp hours they provide if you don't believe me.
Right. Out of the 330 million people in the US (not counting the broader market, there's "nobody" who wants a gun that can't be accidentally picked up and used by their young children or an intruder. Literally "nobody". Yeah, totally believe you.
They have a niche. You want to prevent them from filling it.
Actually, that is a concern. Li-ion batteries don't have lithium metal in them unless something goes wrong. Lithium-air batteries always have lithium metal in them, by design.
In practice, you'll probably see a bit of the energy density given up in order to beef up the casing to prevent rupture/fire.
Thankfully, lithium-sulfur batteries don't use lithium metal, just lithium polysulfides. The max energy density isn't as high, but it's still quite good. They're already on the market, albeit in small quantities for applications that require the absolute highest rechargeable energy density (mainly aerospace).
Yes, cue the standard "Batteries haven't advanced!" stuff from people carrying around cell phones with significantly more amp hours in a smaller battery profile than the last generation phones that they owned.
News flash: every time a new tech advance makes it into a product, they don't mail a letter about it to everybody who read an article about it years earlier. Example: hey, remember all of that stuff about breakthroughs in silicon anodes several years back? Yeah, they're in batteries now. Even Tesla is starting to use it in their higher-end packs.