ready, set, power upâx80x94can the u.s. win the race to create a superbattery? - 3.7 volt lithium ion battery

Since the Italian Earl Alexander Walta invented the first electric battery in 1799, scientists have been trying to improve its performance.
Although we have sent robots to Mars and separated the atoms, it turns out to be very difficult.
Now, a global competition is underway that will create a battery that will be enough to drive an electric vehicle for 300 miles (483 kilometers)on one charge.
The prize is worth as much as $300 billion a year.
He's in his office in Washington, D. C. C.
Steve Levin, author of Power: inventing the battery to save the world, explains why he wrote a book, which his wife says is boring;
What makes a battery guy tick;
Why is it so difficult to make super batteries;
Why does he think scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois are in front
The player who participated in the competition.
When you tell friends and colleagues that you want to write a book about batteries, they all say: don't do this.
What made you stick to it?
This is Chase.
My wife said it would be boring to have a book about batteries, and she really emphasized capital B.
That's what my best friend said.
My agent did not reply to my email when I came up with this idea. [Laughs]
This is in 2010.
At that time, like many people, I had a feeling that there was indeed a lack of confidence in the country's economy and what kind of foundation it should have after this point.
The boom and collapse of real estate, then the collapse of finance.
This is something beyond America.
It feels like this in Europe and Asia.
One of the areas it shows is the desire to invent a better battery and then create industries around it with electric vehicles.
My major is energy and geopolitics.
I don't think energy is because I am interested in energy.
I'm interested in knocking.
Its impact on global politics.
I see the country that won this race to build a future battery will gain great wealth and power.
It was so exciting that I began to pursue it.
You say the bonus of making advanced batteries for electric vehicles is worth $300 billion.
Is this just the hype of publishers?
I recently returned to the numbers I started in 2010.
Then I called the battery and electric vehicle research company and the Wall Street investment bank.
Compared with the huge optimism five years ago, pessimism has erupted in an all-round way: one feeling is that it is far from their forecast for 2010, which is predicted to reach 15% generations, electric vehicles will account for 10-2020 of all new car sales, and they now think it is lucky that electric vehicles can account for 3% of the market share.
Then I asked them what the value of the dollar was and that figure was even bigger than in 2010.
Whether it's tens of billions of dollars high or hundreds of billions of dollars low, it's going to be a very big industry.
Tesla has 8,000 batteries on the floor, like 18650 lithium.
Ion batteries displayed at the Volkswagen Electronic Research Laboratory in Palo Alto, California.
The competition for Bloomberg/GettyThe photos of Tony Avelar to create efficient batteries is global.
Who is the main competitor of the competition?
Is there a big investment in the United States?
Japan, South Korea, China and the United States are the biggest players.
There are other countries, but those are big countries.
Japan is the biggest player.
The game started very early.
In 1991, when the United States, and Eveready in particular, did not see any future for it, it commercialized its first lithium-ion battery.
Then, on 1996, Toyota launched Prius in Japan, almost the same time as GM canceled EV1 [
Early electric cars
Therefore, Japan has taken risks in electronics and electric vehicles.
So they have 20 years of experience in the factory.
South Korea followed suit.
The United States is in the game, because every major battery improvement has been done here in the past five or sixty years. The U. S.
Hoping to win the game, so in addition to venture capital, it has invested hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government.
Company and National Laboratory.
China also wants to win this victory.
It has money;
It has manufacturing expertise, and, it doesn't have too thin a place, it has a record of "stealing" the cut
They were not invented for marginal chemistry.
Most studies in the United StatesS.
The Argonne National Laboratory is located in Illinois. Take us inside.
Argonne was the first. S.
National Laboratory, created the first self in 1942 by Enrico Fermi
Is the pioneer of the Manhattan Project.
It looks like a sprawling, forest-covered campus, low
The site of leaning back.
You don't think what's going on here. It's very old-
An old-fashioned building built 60 years ago.
When you walk into the building there is a long hall painted with old green
Old fashioned coffee machine.
It's a low
Funding from the federal government.
But the people there are very involved in what they are doing.
This is a very serious young team from all over the world.
They are very idealistic.
They know that they can change the world if they succeed.
You call the researcher "battery man ".
"Give us a psychological file.
They call themselves Gunners.
If you meet a certain mark, you are a gunner.
If you don't, they say: he's not a man who sells batteries.
They are almost all men.
There is only one woman.
They are a very stable, middleclass bunch.
Most of them grew up as modifiers.
Most of them have a very strong relationship with their father.
These are the ultimate geeks, right? Yes. [Laughs]
There are only three parts of a battery, two electrodes and electrolytic electrodes. in order for your life to repair these three parts, you must become a super geek.
You will be bored talking to these guys, even though they are all fascinated by what they do.
They are also very nice people.
Even if it's a fierce competition, you can't find this kind of elbowy thing in other fields of science.
John Goodenough, 92, is responsible for the 1979 breakthrough, which led to the first commercial lithium --
Ion battery in 1991
Photos of the University of Texas at Austin have many great characters in this book.
Tell us the story of John Goodno, the father of modern batteries.
Goodno is a genius.
Every major lithium-ion battery chemistry on the market today is either invented by him or by his laboratory.
This is a very touching story.
He grew up in Connecticut.
His father is a famous religious scholar at Yale University, but his parents' marriage is terrible.
His mother did not want another child.
They already have a son.
But it was good that his father forced his wife to have another child.
They sent him to boarding school.
When he was ten, his mother wrote him only once at school when he was ill.
But he was a very warm man when he grew up.
People who are confident and interesting.
He also had dyslexia, so it was a miracle for him to go so far.
In 1980 at Oxford University, he was a professor who invented lithium-
Ion cathode: the nervous system of the battery.
He is now 92 years old, teaching in Austin, Texas, and he is still working on the next big thing in the field of inventing batteries.
One of the first mass
The electric vehicle produced was the Volt of GM, when you said it was "state-of-the-art fuel --
Efficient cars in the world.
"Why is it like this?
Voltage and other plug-ins
In addition to Tesla, electric vehicles are also targeting a certain market.
They are expensive compared to gasolinedriven cars.
They are not particularly attractive in appearance and technology.
These cars are targeting eco-activists who want to do a good job, but the niche is limited.
General Motors sold a certain number of cars.
The same is true for Nissan's Leaf and Ford.
But only a few thousand people will buy a car so they can feel good.
After that, you must seize the imagination.
Volt did not do this.
As far as Japan is concerned, the competition for electric vehicles is over, and Prius wins, you quote Japanese automakers.
He's right, isn't he?
He is right that the Japanese believe this.
But Toyota has actually been cold on electric cars.
It decided to bet on the fuel cell, a different system.
But Elon Musk thinks the Japanese did not win.
The development of Elon Musk and Chevrolet will allow the Japanese to run for their money.
Toyota Prius plug-
At 2010 Paris Motor Show, hybrid cars are charged.
Bloomberg/GettyThe Chris Ratcliffe's only two electric vehicles that have been successful in the market are Prius and Tesla.
Both of them basically chose the old one.
Isn't the school battery?
They call the battery 18650.
They are just a little bigger than the AA battery on your TV remote.
But Tesla has 8,000 cars on the floor, which makes the car very stable.
To some extent, this is an insult to the battery worker.
Toyota and Elon Musk are basically saying: you will never get there.
Elon Musk is now building a $5 billion Gigabit plant in Utah. the-Shelf battery.
You cited ExxonMobil's 2040 major study on world energy, which predicts that gasoline will cost $10 to offset the increased cost of electric vehicles over five years.
Now that the price of gasoline is less than $3, the electric car is out of power, isn't it?
We live in an era of chaos.
At this time last year, no one will say that oil prices will plunge.
Nor did the best energy thinkers predict the arrival of shale oil.
Who is predicting Putin's invasion of Ukraine?
WHO predicts the Arab Spring?
Over the past five years, many events have overturned our assumptions about the world.
Exxon thinks it can predict what will happen to electric vehicles in 25 years.
As long as the federal government and Silicon Valley have invested a lot of money in super battery research, and you have a person like Elon Musk, who has prompted automakers around the world to take electric cars seriously, I think Exxon may be lacking in this issue.
We have installed a robot on Mars and built a particle accelerator, despite the millions of dollars invested in R & D and manpower.
We haven't been able to do something that looks simple for hours: make a battery that can drive 300 miles for an electric car.
Is there any problem? [Laughs]
You said so well.
We live in a world where we believe in Moore's Law: every 18 months, the power and performance of silicon wafers will double.
We believe this is how technology has improved.
But when Intel engineers squeeze more transistors into one chip, then go home for dinner, and come back in the morning, the things they left on that chip are in the same place.
The battery is different.
The way electricity works is that the higher the voltage you can apply, the more energy you can take out of the battery.
But when you apply a higher voltage, the atoms start to move and the shape and properties of the whole material change.
They have to find the physical answer to the Nano core. science.
The problem is that we didn't know we needed this new battery until a few years ago.
We are very satisfied with the internal combustion engine.
No one told the market to want a super battery.
So, really, even though the battery has existed since Alessandro Volta invented it in 1799, it wasn't until recently that we really took it seriously.
Who will win the game?
I don't know. The simple answer is.
But I spent my money in America.
The reason I did this is that all the key inventions were made here.
Agon is continuing this tradition.
We give a public speech on the slogan: The slogan about technology, about what is possible and what we should do.
However, there are some goals that deserve serious dedication and commitment.
The battery is one of them.
The slogan can't get us there.
We need to take it seriously.
We need to make a commitment and stick to it.
Book Lecture by Simon Wallar.
Follow him on Twitter or atsimonworrallauthor. com.