NASA’s incredible new solid-state battery pushes the boundaries of energy storage: ‘This could revolutionize air travel’::“We’re starting to approach this new frontier of battery research."

  • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    61
    arrow-down
    14
    ·
    1 year ago

    Quick, let’s sell this US funded tech to the Chinese or Japanese or Germans and not actually benefit from home grown research. This has happened so many times over the decades it’s disgusting.

    • Unquote0270@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Wouldn’t this benefit everyone? Presumably the implications are far wider and more important than who makes the most profit from it.

      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        10
        ·
        1 year ago

        Then why shouldn’t “everyone” be funding it??

        Funny how the same people who (rightfully so) complain about privatizing profits but socializing risks, don’t see a problem with research that will benefit everyone should maybe also be funded by everyone.

        If one group is funding that research, then you better believe they should be the ones who overwhelmingly see it’s benefits.

        • Munkisquisher@lemmy.nz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          Japanese government has a huge investment in battery tech alongside toyota and other Japanese companies. Solely to boost their economy in the long term

          • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            1 year ago

            Yeah when other countries do it, it is seen as a smart move to help their country and employ their own people for years to come.

            When the US does it, it is somehow demonized as being “nationalist” or labeled as being greedy capitalism or some other negative term.

            • scarabic@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              You know you have the top comment right now, right? I think most everyone agrees that the US should be seeing the benefits of its publicly funded research - except some buttsore Europeans who will never miss an opportunity to piss on / armchair general the US.

              • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Not that I care about internet points, but I have a -3, so if that is the “top comment” then how badly downvoted are all the other posts?! LOL

                And I know a bunch of Europeans will be a little bitter, but the worst are fellow Americans who have this angry anti-American chip on their shoulder. I’ll be the first to say that we need to fix this, that and the other thing, but there is a ridiculous anti-American sentiment out there that covers anything and everything dealing with the US. You can hate on politicians like Trump - guess what, so do it! - but they do not represent the US and what the US can be.

    • Snowplow8861@lemmus.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      Many large discoveries by research in Australia in universities and CSIRO didn’t get funding they needed in Australia, and the engineers and researchers simply found funding and moved to the United States. Then the US benefited from all that education and university research investment simply because the economy and startup funding was better.

      I guess you know America is on a downturn if they see the same thing happening to them.

    • Kerfuffle@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Quick, let’s sell this US funded tech to the Chinese or Japanese or Germans and not actually benefit from home grown research. This has happened so many times over the decades it’s disgusting.

      If that’s true, why aren’t the Chinese, Japanese and Germans running around with amazing futuristic technology while “we’re” over here still stuck in the stone age?

      • scarabic@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        LOL have you seen where all our futuristic tech is manufactured? Why don’t you look into solar panels for a great example. Who’s making and selling them? Hm? Hint: it’s mostly not the US.

        Also, if you think life in the US is “futuristic” compared to Germany and Japan, then it’s obvious you haven’t traveled there.

        • LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.ch
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          1 year ago

          Because solar and chip making is pretty hard on the environment. We don’t do it here cause you need to process the waste to make it less toxic, so instead we buy from places that don’t care.

          Other countries have lots of advantages over the US, but let’s not pretend that it’s a utopia over there. Japan is so overworked and makes immigration so difficult they basically don’t have a next generation.

          Germany is great and all, but they also have a lot of imports, heck they almost froze last year due to their over reliance on cheap Russian fossil fuels.

          • scarabic@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            Now you’re just naming any off topic problem you can think of with those countries.

            Japan’s immigration policy is a choice, and they’re paying the price. It has little to do with how advanced they are in terms of research and technology.

            Germany’s insufficient domestic fossil fuel supply is fucking geology. Hooray the US has rich fossil fuel resources. So does Venezuela.

            So what does any of this have to do with how high tech life is in any of these places?

            Gosh we’d better not look at high end manufacturing or the state of public infrastructure or rail transit in these same countries, you know, something actually on-topic having to do with level of technological advancement.

            Germany gave you the COVID vaccine, by the way. The words you’re looking for are danke schoen.

          • zephyreks@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Do you enjoy not knowing what you’re talking about?

            Intel, GloFo, TI, Micron, ON Semi, and NXP all have semiconductor foundries in the US.

            One of the ten largest photovoltaic companies is based in the US.

            Biden just dumped untold billions of USD into building out more domestic semiconductor and photovoltaic manufacturing capacity.

            • astropenguin5@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              To be fair the majority of those things are still produced abroad, particularly Vietnam has a lot of semiconductor manufacturing, and biden dumping money into domestic production is specifically to try and fix the problem of outsourcing

        • Kerfuffle@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Why don’t you look into solar panels for a great example. Who’s making and selling them? Hm? Hint: it’s mostly not the US.

          So somewhere else is doing the dirty, laborious part and we’re getting the benefit?

          The other person said “and not benefit from it”. That’s what I responding to. Just to be clear, I’m not saying that kind of outsourcing to places with exploitative treatment and lax environmental regulations is a good thing in general.

          if you think life in the US is “futuristic” compared to Germany and Japan

          I didn’t say anything remotely like that.

          • scarabic@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            Of course you did. It’s right there. You balked at the idea of Germany and Japan enjoying “amazing futuristic technology” compared to the US.

            • Kerfuffle@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              Of course you did. It’s right there. You balked at the idea of Germany and Japan enjoying “amazing futuristic technology” compared to the US.

              You have a very active imagination.

              You also 100% missed the point I was making, which is that western countries like the US didn’t lose the benefit of that technology. Nothing I said had anything to do with 1) saying other countries have relatively less technology or 2) being opposed to other countries having equivalent technology. Is it possible I have some kind of opinion on that? Maybe, but I didn’t share it. If you want to know what I think about something, you could try asking me instead of just fabricating an alternate reality out of the ether.

              With some exceptions (like trade embargoes, military secrets) if you can pay for it, you can get your hands on any technology that exists in the world.

              • scarabic@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                Silly me for thinking I was learning your opinion by reading words you wrote. Don’t wait around too long for me to come asking for more of your opinions.

      • Kethal@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        They manufacture it and sell it to us. The US led solar research. China organizations certainly contributed to research as well, but they’re a much larger manufacturor than the US, despite the significant research advancement contribution by the US. US politicians failed to put any backing into domestic effects to manufacture solar and now it’s second fiddle in an industry its research helped create. So, it’s not in the stone age, because it’s paying out the ears for it while other countries profit heavily.

        • Kerfuffle@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          They manufacture it and sell it to us.

          So then we actually do “benefit from it”, right? If we actually wanted to assemble the batteries, place thousands of components on circuit boards, whatever, we could.

          So, it’s not in the stone age, because it’s paying out the ears for it while other countries profit heavily.

          If it’s so disadvantageous, why don’t you start a company to manufacture solar panels or whatever in the US and become super rich? Why doesn’t insert random rich person do so if it’s so obvious? The answer is because it’s probably not so obvious: lots of regulations, expensive labor, etc.

      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Japan has access to lots of cheap labor in Asia, and the Germans have Eastern Europe which has salaries a fraction of what Germans get.

        • mellitiger@iusearchlinux.fyi
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Which is becoming rather untrue more and more. An good engineer in Wrocław costs about the same as in Germany. So many factories and offices there, it’s hard to find people…

          Source: am German, have a competing plant in Poland near Wrocław

    • pleasemakesense@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      This is what the US does to Swedish companies, only with the added benefit of running them into the ground (I’ll never forgive what they did to Saab)

      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        Oh please, who are you kidding? SAAB would have been dead at least a decade earlier if GM didn’t try to save them. The only reason they lasted as long as they did was because of GM’s injection of money into the company.

        • mindlight@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          So you claim that SAAB was already lost when GM heroically decided to step in and do some charity?

          You are very wrong and of course GM saw a value in SAAB that was more intellectual property than manufacturing cars.

  • solstice@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    ·
    1 year ago

    I never really understood why battery technology was so difficult until a friend put it in perspective for me. The only difference between a battery and a bomb is the rate they release their energy. Now I understand.

    • zifk@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      This is similarly true to a container of gasoline. The difficult part is we’ve yet to find a battery tech that comes even close to the same energy density. Gasoline has nearly 12000 Wh/kg, compared to the 200-500 mentioned in the article.

  • Mojojojo1993@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    1 year ago

    I read this a bit ago. Hopefully all this tech eventually finds it way into aircraft.

    My money “hope” is actually on smaller solid state batteries than can be recharged through the air. Similar to watt up tech and ossia.

    With power over air you need less battery storage and work on keeping the battery from dropping.

    Also I think best case scenario would be a massive reduction in the amount of planes flying.

    High speed rail would be a better solution. Planes across seas and then rail travel on land.

    If trains can get within speeds of air travel then we might be getting there.

    Alas will be long dead before anything happens

          • Mojojojo1993@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            7
            ·
            1 year ago

            It’s just as it sounds. Just Google power over the air.

            Lots of different applications for it. Mostly it’s using some kind of wave to power devices from a distance. Currently it’s on a few watts at a few meters.

            Pretty shit but actually would be useful as your phone or devices would discharge slower and you could charge at the end of the day

            With planes it would be a bit different. Fuck knows how they’d manage it. But still something to look it.

            Similar to wireless charging. Some countries have roads that charge electric vehicles as they drive.

            This would be similar

            • Stoneykins [any]@mander.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              8
              ·
              1 year ago

              The amount of research needed to make this technology work for the applications you are suggesting would be many times greater than the amount of research needed to just figure out better batteries. And. it would always be energy inefficient, so it would need an electricity surplus to be viable.

              • Mojojojo1993@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Didn’t say it would be easy. Oh magnitudes sure. It’s already a well known area though. Would reduce down the size and efficient of batteries.

                It’s what I’m betting on. Already plenty of applications on it. Pretty sure Japan is or has trying to beam power from space solar to ground arrays.

                I think to get drones to work effectively they will need this tech.

                • Stoneykins [any]@mander.xyz
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  The air is a poor wire. Lots of electricity will be lost just getting it to the machines, so for high energy applications, especially over longer distances, trying to use this technology would waste huge amounts of power. Not economically viable until electricy costs almost nothing.

                  I don’t disagree that it has many applications, but probably more low power things for a while.

                  Battery/energy storage technology on the other hand has a lot of potential, and is entering it’s golden age of research. The advances we have already made will look like nothing compared to the advances in batteries we will have in the next 20 years. Why beam power from the ground to a plane in the air when it could have all it needs onboard, and can charge in minutes once landed?

  • ICanDoHardThings@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    Thanks for sharing. I struggle with feeling such dread about the climate crisis. It’s very helpful to see posts with positive stories like this. Such exciting possibilities for reducing fossil fuel usage and still having regular air travel.

  • AKADAP@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    1 year ago

    There seems to be yet another new battery technology that will save the world every day. And yet, they never become available to the public. I really wish we could ban them from announcing until they can mass produce the battery and sell it to the public. It is almost as bad as all those articles about the “flying car that will be available next year” articles that have been appearing in magazines since the 1950’s.

    • FlaminGoku@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      The issue is generally scalability. Lots of cool concepts but hard to mass produce profitability.

      As this is Nasa, it’s subsidized, but there should be even more government money going into energy storage as that is the biggest hurdle for renewable energy.

  • Cam@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    87
    ·
    1 year ago

    Powering a plane with a battery sounds like a bad idea. Almost worst than EVs.

    • Smacks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      37
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Oh yeah, way worse than filling planes with thousands of gallons of extremely flammable jet fuel

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          No, it’s not. Jet fuel does not have lead

          Small propeller planes use leaded fuel

          Actually , one of the proposed solutions to leaded fuel in propeller planes was to see if you could modify the engines to use jet fuel

          • space_frog@lemmyfly.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Additionally, there are several unleaded alternatives in the works, one of which (GAMI 100UL) has been approved by the FAA for use in all avgas planes with the purchase of a Supplementary Type Certificate.

            Some light aircraft, such as the Diamond DA40NG use automotive diesel engines adapted for aviation that burn jet fuel instead of avgas. The diesel version of the Diamond is about 40% more efficient than the avgas version, and also flies considerably faster.

      • Clevermistakes@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        63
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I’m going to guess “all the precious metals in manufacturing of the EV are so much worse than my gas cars!” Nonsense that the oil industry has been shilling online with bots for years to slow adoption of EVs among specific demographics.

        Even though this myth has been debunked a hundred times, by folks like MIT, and in Reuters they showed if you live in an area that’s exclusively renewable power like I do, then I actually broke even 4ish years ago; within 3 months of owning my EV. Source: Reuters article, norway vs us ev break even point

        But hey, I’m sure that propaganda of “just buy a gas car! It’s better for the environment” will make sense eventually once they figure out how to ignore more science.

        • BobKerman3999@feddit.it
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          1 year ago

          I read one of the studies and they pitted a Prius vs a Leaf. Like the best possible and most efficient ICE car that is also a hybrid Vs one of the worst BEV and used it in a highway

          • Clevermistakes@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            1 year ago

            I wonder what they thought that Prius’s battery was made out of. Must have been gas cells or something. Couldn’t be one of those pesky rare earth batteries.

            • matter@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              Depending on when this “study” was done the Prius probably had a NiMH battery though.

      • Cam@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        They are worse on the environment then gasoline cars due to the rare earth materials needed to make a EV and it is harsher on the environment when it comes to dispose a EV once they reach end of life.

        And all a EV car does is demand energy from a power plant which are either using coal or natural gas for the most part. The only “green” efficient power plant option out there is nuclear but no one wants to go nuclear.

        If your concered about the climate and want to take that into account when getting a new vehicle. I always tell people to buy a used vehicle since it already exists and by driving a used car, your keeping it from being in a land fill and you save money buying used. Or the other best option is to get a bike or use public transportation.

        And I do not see any difference with battery powered planes. I see more planes crashing due to using a new technology. Planes have come a long way and only gotten safer with years of engineering but by changing the power source to a battery over gasoline, unexpexted problems will like arise. Essentially do not fix what is not broken.

        • TheBenCommandments@infosec.pub
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          Do you have a source for thinking that over the lifespan of the vehicle, that an EV is worse for the environment than a gasoline powered vehicle? Because I have multiple studies referenced in this article from the EPA stating the exact opposite.

          The advantage of using an electric powertrain over any other is that the energy can be produced by any source of energy. Yes, right now, a lot of that’s coming from coal and natural gas, but even then, those power plants are WAY more efficient than the gas engines in cars and produce FAR less greenhouse gases source. Also, as countries transition from coal and gas to solar, wind, geothermal, and most critically and hopefully nuclear, the way the energy makes it from the earth to our cars can remain the same: the power grid.

          Also, if everyone buys used cars, then that’ll solve the problem? Where do you think used cars come from? You think we should just keep making ICE vehicles and burning shit when we have plenty of new technologies which are being developed at breakneck pace that could actually make a huge difference in reducing emissions?

          • Cam@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I do not have a souce that I can just copy and paste. However if I recall my source on this come from Patrick Moore who was a founder of Greenpeace or Alex Epstein. They both publish some great books on the subject of climate change.

            • TheBenCommandments@infosec.pub
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              1 year ago

              I don’t give a shit what the founder of Greenpeace or someone who has published books thinks. I care about scientific studies. I’ll be here to review them if/when you care to actually contribute to this conversation with verifiable facts, rather than just things you remember.

              • Cam@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                0
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Alrighty then, nice talking to you to? Books are a very reliabe source and their books have lots of scientific facts. Check them out sometime, espeically Patrick Moore’s literature.

            • SeaJ@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              1 year ago

              Patrick Moore denies climate change so he has zero credibility. Alex Epstein is a philosophy and computer science major. Neither of those people have credibility in the topic. I would suggest you find some others who have at least an inkling of credibility.

              • Cam@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                0
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Patrick Moore has degrees and is well educated on the subject. Patrick Moore been to the arctic and to these places that claim to be suffering from climate change.

                Alex Epstein is well educated on this climate stuff. He did not go to school for it but higher education is not required to understand this climate change stuff. Anyone can be self taught these days on many subjects and fields.

                Just read the books when you get a chance, until them I not interested in this one-sided debate were everything needs to be from an “official” source. I been down this road before where I read peoples sources and shared mine and I am always wrong because you got to trust the science and if some questions it like me, I become labelled as a heretic to the climate change movement.

                I get it though, you been told this stuff your whole life and how to always trust “official” sources. That is how many of us were raised. It is not your fault but man, the truth will set you free. I used to be worried that by the time I become adult or be in my middle years, I would inherit a earth that is uninhabitable. The amount of anxiety and depression this puts on one person is awful. However the world will be around just like it is today for a very long time. I can promise you that.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Did you read the article? Solid state batteries are much safer than lithium ion batteries when damaged, so the risk of fire is quite different.

      The only other reason it’s a “bad idea” is energy density, and the article is reporting advancements there. Really, just read the article next time.

      • TheBenCommandments@infosec.pub
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        Of course they didn’t. They can’t even be bothered to provide links to research that backs up the claims they’re making in this thread.