Is Oil’s Kodak moment closer than we think?
Charged-The Electric Vehicles Magazine:
SolidEnergy, an MIT spin-out company commercializing solid electrolyte technology, plans to release a 20 Ah EV battery in 2017, which it says will offer more than two times the range of current Li-ion batteries.
The core of SolidEnergy’s technology is a Solid Polymer Ionic Liquid (SPIL) electrolyte, which enables the use of an ultra-thin lithium metal anode. According to the company, this improves cell-level energy density by 50% compared to graphite anodes and 30% compared to silicon-composite anodes.
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As SolidEnergy founder Dr. Qichao Hu and his colleagues at MIT noted in a 2011 paper in the Journal of Power Sources: “The use of conventional lithium-ion batteries in high temperature applications (>50° C) is currently inhibited by the high reactivity and volatility of liquid electrolytes. Solvent-free, solid-state polymer electrolytes allow for safe and stable operation of lithium-ion batteries, even at elevated temperatures. Recent advances in polymer synthesis have led to the development of novel materials that exhibit solid-like mechanical behavior while providing the ionic conductivities approaching that of liquid electrolytes.”SolidEnergy is collaborating with A123 Venture Technologies, a Massachusetts-based technology incubator.
I know you will like this.
Hu’s paper came out 3-1/2 years ago and they “plan to release” a battery in another 2-1/2 years in 2017? A 6 year spread? Hmmmmmm.
Will SolidEnergy and A123 Venture Technologies be competing for funds with Solar Roadway and CWET? Let’s hope A123 doesn’t go bankrupt like its predecessor A123 Systems.
Man, I wouldn’t want to be competing with Solar Roadway for funding. They have got cannon blasts in their soundtrack.
“Solar…BOOM!…fu***ng…BOOM! roadways…BaBooM!! How can you compete with that?
I am looking forward to 2017. With the improvements in efficiency provided by SolidEnergy and the 4,237,905 other companies whose breakthroughs have been breathlessly hyped in industry rags, we can look forward to getting 26,000 miles per charge.
Happy motoring!
First Solar Announced it was able to squeeze out another 0.5% efficiency out of its thin solar panels, to make them more competitive with Sun Power.
Also, for those not paying attention, oil has been falling the last two days, and for the first time I’ve seen, solar stock prices are somewhat decoupling from oil prices. So far, the last few months, the r value has been ~0.7. But we could be at a turning point here, where investors start seeing oil actually has little to do with solar.
I’m going to have to buy more Guggenheim today, just in case this is the case, but really I’ve been waiting for oil to anomalously dip into the 30’s or 20’s before I buy more solar.
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http://seekingalpha.com/article/2896236-first-solar-proving-its-critics-wrong
First Solar recently announced that it had a record-breaking efficiency breakthrough for its cadmium telluride PV technology, and passed the stringent Atlas 25+ certification quality test.
First Solar has proven once again that its cadmium telluride PV technology can be competitive with crystalline silicon.
The company’s increasing efficiency innovations will enable the company to move into the distributed markets, thus expanding its addressable market.
While the long-term viability of cadmium telluride technology is still questioned, this should not be of too much concern as First Solar is more than capable of adopting new technologies.
If this pans out, then we may soon be looking at smaller or lighter batteries.
But I wouldn’t be counting on this for a 500+ mile battery because you still need to be able to charge it in a reasonable time.
Even with a Tesla Supercharger, that will take time and you probably won’t be able to charge at the maximum rate for very long.