Silicon As the New Lithium

hduff writes "While lithium-ion batteries offer better performance than lead-acid or ni-cad batteries, the supply of lithium is limited and the batteries can pose problems. Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute are building a better battery with easily obtainable sand and air."

"Turn the desert green" backfires

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Wouldn't you know it. You turn the desert into an environment that supports agriculture and the very thing you got rid of in mass quantities turns out to be the main ingredient in the technology of the future. Doesn't that just rub you the wrong way.

does this mean

[commodoresloat]

they'll be treating manic depression with silicone?

Then again, I guess they've been doing that for years with breast implants...

Re:Summary

[AGMW]

Still, it's kind of cool that you can make a battery out of sand.

Yep, and to charge it you just turn it over!

Re:What about copper?

[kestasjk]

A wire shortage.. People can work up a fear about just about anything I think.

http://xkcd.com/605/ [xkcd.com]

English is wrong.

[Colin Smith]

Natrium is called SODIUM in English.

The chemical name is Natrium. Clearly English is wrong.

 

Re:Information

[Lars T.]

Paper at http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1388248109003889 [elsevier.com] The capacity of the prototypes was very small, but they are hoping to acchieve 10 Ah/g.

So how much is that in potato batteries?

Re:What about copper?

[Turzyx]

Hey, look at it this way, when we've eventually all switched to renewable energy, we can finally clear those pesky stockpiles of coal and oil.

Re:English is wrong.

[Darth Sdlavrot]

You must be from München.

I'm from Munich, and I call it Sodium.

Re:What would be fun

[phoenix321]

Of course we can always wait for the socialist dictatorship to snuff some *millions* in their inevitable joy camps and then just build a memorial. This would be sensible, cheap, safe, environmentally-friendly, politically-correct and deeply respecting the local culture and religion.

You can still do a lot wrong when you're doing nothing. I suggest we print more money and send it to them, that's what my great European Union does all the time - and boy, it works sooo well, just look at Somalia, where an entire new industry with thousands of jobs was created by paying hundreds of millions to free a few ships.

Re:does this mean

[rcamans]

And what's this sexism bs? Why not femic depression? Or Femalic?

Re:does this mean

[bilbobob]

More to the point, in 10 years time my girlfriend will have implants that can recharge my ipod. Obviously contactless power would be best; not sure USB piecings would go down too well. I might even start saving for my own pec implants now.

One question

[OhHellWithIt]

Will it spontaneously combust the way some lithium batteries do? If not, then it's hardly a replacement!