Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated with the role of energy storage. It may seem strange, but you have to understand, the things we we're being exposed to on TV during the 50's, 60's and 70's we're things no one else had ever seen. Shows like Lost in Space and Star Trek helped form the vision for my career and investments for years to come. Now that we are in the 21st century and I am long since retired, the visions of the future never never shaped up to the degree our imaginations had lead us to believe. That doesn't mean we haven't made great progress. I think, while slow for my expectations, it has gone as well as it possibly could. Now firmly out of the dark ages, we are well into the age of information and superior scientific explorations and yet we are still digging the earth for lithium to use for our batteries. I understand this is important, we need an energy storage capacity for the planet, but is there an alternative material we can use to make our energy storage systems more efficient and not sacrifice the beautiful earth to do it? There must be some other form of energy storage available, does any one have any clues?
I find this post very interesting. I've been thinking about this for a while now. We're always hearing about some folks' phones starting to smoke or overheat and in some more dangerous cases, explode! The research I've done into lithium batteries has indicated that while it is sufficient for phones and batteries, overall it is still a somewhat volatile energy source and is prone to fires. Not sure if they're are reasonable updates to the technology. Just look at the pacific cosco freight fire earlier this year (Although, the fire was due to some lithium being undeclared, Though whether it was declared or not has little bearing on whether it would have exploded or not.). This article suggests that a magnesium hybrid battery could be used to create a more efficient battery. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemmater.5b03531
