Comments on: A proton battery combines the best aspects of hydrogen fuel cells and conventional batteries

By: DM

DM — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 00:31:10 +0000

I just noticed isegoria.net is no longer loading into my RSS feed. Inoreader is reporting crawler errors. Any idea why this is?

By: Candide III

Candide III — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 12:55:29 +0000

Flywheels are used all right — in niche applications for backup energy storage, e.g. to provide critical power until diesel generators or backup turbines start. (See flywheel energy storage.) A high-speed flywheel is difficult to use in a vehicle. It creates strong gyroscopic forces, its suspension must stand up to vibration (unlike stationary applications), it is a fire hazard if composite (a 50,000rpm flywheel braking due to accident or failure dumps all its energy into heat in a very short time) and a kinetic hazard if solid (in case of failure its pieces become projectiles on par with small-bore artillery). A lead-acid battery is safer and, I suspect, cheaper for its primary application.

By: Sam J.

Sam J. — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 10:06:26 +0000

“SJW mental masturbation”

A bit harsh, technophilia would also fit.

By: Sam J.

Sam J. — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 04:46:59 +0000

I think a lot of these hydrogen batteries are just SJW mental masturbation. They want hydrogen because it’s green. Even if you find a way to store hydrogen safely you still need a way to make it and a way to get power from it. Too many problems. Not saying at some point it could not be overcome just that there are better ways to store power in the first place.

I really wished that we would spend the same amount of resources on flywheels that we do on batteries. I suspect the reason we don’t is that batteries have to be replaced periodically and flywheels much less so. I can’t find the references I’ve used right off hand but the power you can get out of a flywheel is directly related to the specific strength of the material used. With regular fiberglass you can outclass normal lead acid batteries. That they haven’t replaced them is…lead acid battery makers are making big money replacing their worthless LA batteries. The specific strength of graphene would outclass lithium ion and I think carbon fiber would also. Carbon fiber is rapidly coming down in price and so is graphene. Some of the high strength plastics would do well also. It would take a good deal of work to make flywheels as a package like a battery. They would need generators, motors and active bearings all in one package. Much like most industrial processes once you had the engineering done the price could plummet far below lithium because of the cheap material cost. I suspect that the best way to do this would be to use electrostatic motors, generators and electrostatic bearings combined. The power you can get from electrostatic generators in a vacuum is VERY HIGH per weight. Far outdoing a normal magnetic generator. Here’s a few pertinent links.

A New Look at an Old Idea; The Electromechanical Battery

https://str.llnl.gov/str/pdfs/04_96.2.pdf

I wish the chart below had graphene, fused silica and some others

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_strength

http://www-materials.eng.cam.ac.uk/mpsite/interactive_charts/spec-spec/basic.html

By: Bruce

Bruce — Sun, 18 Mar 2018 18:05:19 +0000

Batteries are important. I’d like to see an X-Prize for a lighter-than-air battery.

By: Patty O.

Patty O. — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 12:11:39 +0000

You really like batteries.