Long Reading
The Future of Energy
Kris Pupek, an industrial chemist at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, near Chicago, waves
a tube of white powder in the air. A mere pinch of the contents is sufficient for his analytical
colleagues to work out if it has the potential to be the next material in battery research. But Dr
Pupek does not deal in pinches. His job is to find out whether potential can be turned into
practice—in other words, whether something that has the right properties can be made cheaply,
and in bulk. If it can, it is passed on to industry for testing. The hope is that at least one of the tubes
will start a revolution.
Batteries are a hugely important technology. Modern life would be impossible without them. But
many engineers find them disappointing and feel that they could be better still. Produce the right
battery at the right price, these engineers think, and you could make the internal-combustion
engine redundant and usher in a world in which free fuel, in the form of wind and solar energy, was
the norm. That really would be a revolution.
It is, however, a revolution that people have been awaiting a long time. And the longer they wait,
the more the doubters wonder if it will ever happen. The Joint Centre for Energy Storage Research
(JCESR), at which Dr Pupek and his colleagues work, hopes to prove the doubters wrong. It has
drawn together the best brains in energy research from America’s national laboratories and
universities, along with a group of interested companies. It has money, too. It has just received a
grant of $120m from the country’s Department of Energy. The aim, snappily expressed, is to make
batteries five times more powerful and five times cheaper in five years.
Think positive
Most batteries, from the ancient, lumbering lead-acid monsters used to start cars, to the sleek, tiny
lithium cells that power everything from e-book readers to watches, have three essential
components: two electrodes (an anode and a cathode) and a medium called an electrolyte that
allows positively charged ions to move between the electrodes, balancing the flow of negatively
charged electrons that form the battery’s useful current. The skill of creating new types of battery is
to change with the materials of these three components in ways that make things better and
cheaper. Dr Pupek’s white powders are among those materials.
The first test of any combination of substances that comes out of the project, or anywhere else, will
be to beat the most successful electricity-storage device to emerge over the past 20 years: the
lithium-ion battery. Such batteries are now ubiquitous. Most famously, they power many of the
electric and hybrid-electric cars that are starting to appear on the roads. More infamously, they
have a tendency to overheat and burn. Two recent fires on board Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliners
may have been caused by such batteries or their control systems. Improving on lithium-ion would
be a feather in the cap of any laboratory.
George Crabtree, JCESR’s newly appointed director, thinks such improvements will be needed
soon. He reckons that most of the gains in performance to be had from lithium-ion batteries have
already been achieved, making the batteries ripe for replacement. Jeff Chamberlain, his deputy, is
more optimistic about the existing technology. He says it may still be possible to double the amount
of energy a lithium-ion battery of given weight can store, and also reduce its cost by 30-40%.
This illustrates the uncertainty about whether lithium-ion technology, if pushed to its limits, can
make electric vehicles truly competitive with those run by internal-combustion engines, let alone
better. McKinsey, a business consultancy, reckons that lithium-ion batteries might be competitive
by 2020 but, as the chart below shows, there is still a lot of work to do. Moreover, competitors to
lithium-ion batteries are already emerging.
The leader is probably the lithium-air battery. In essence, it uses atmospheric oxygen as the
electrolyte. This reduces its weight and means its energy density is theoretically enormous. That is
important. One objection to electric cars is that petrol packs six times more joules of energy into a
kilogram than a battery can manage. Bringing that ratio down would make electric vehicles more
attractive.
The lithium-air approach has consequently generated a lot of hype. It has problems, though, which
will take years of research to resolve. Lithium-air batteries are hard to recharge and extremely
temperamental. The chemical reaction which powers them is not far removed from spontaneous
combustion. Lithium-air batteries are thus highly inflammable and require heavy safety systems to
stop them catching fire.
Source: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21571117-search-better-ways-
storing-electricity-hotting-up-batteries
Questions
1. Mark the following statements as TRUE or FALSE
a) Ideal materials for batteries are expensive and made in small quantities
b) Engineers think batteries can be improved
c) Batteries and renewables may be able to replace fuel based power
d) People are beginning to doubt if a revolution in power will ever happen
e) The research is not being funded by the government
f) The aim of the research is to make batteries double in efficiency
g) A battery is made from three distinct components
h) Lithium-ion batteries often become too hot
i) Scientists are undecided on whether lithium-ion batteries can be made more efficient
j) Lithium-air batteries will be used soon
2. Read again and match the words to their definitions
Fuel Coming or resulting from a natural impulse or
tendency; without effort or premeditation; natural
and unconstrained; unplanned.
Spontaneous An expression of the relative size of two numbers
by showing one divided by the other.
Ripe Easily upset or irritated; excitable; volatile
Ratio Having arrived at such a stage of growth or
development as to be ready for reaping,
gathering, eating, or use, as grain or fruit;
completely matured.
Temperamental Combustible matter used to maintain fire, as
coal, wood, oil, or gas, in order to create heat or
power.
Reading
Answers
a) False
b) True
c) True
d) True
e) False
f) False
g) True
h) True
i) True
j) False
Fuel Combustible matter used to maintain fire, as
coal, wood, oil, or gas, in order to create heat or
power.
Spontaneous Coming or resulting from a natural impulse or
tendency; without effort or premeditation; natural
and unconstrained; unplanned.
Ripe Having arrived at such a stage of growth or
development as to be ready for reaping,
gathering, eating, or use, as grain or fruit;
completely matured.
Ratio An expression of the relative size of two numbers
by showing one divided by the other.
Temperamental Easily upset or irritated; excitable; volatile
