Nanowire batteries are ten times better

Here is an extensive detailed interview with the silicon nanowire's inventor:
http://www.gm-volt.com/2007/12/21/gm-voltcom-interview-with-dr-cui-inventor-of-silicon-nanowire-lithium-ion-battery-breakthrough/

This will be a boon for makers of electric cars. Until the U.S. government starts taxing it's motorists per mile for the use of it's badly out-of-shape roadways. At last our laptop bateries will be able to explode with ten times more force the previously possible!

Yeah, we have plenty of silicon to go around (your username is a bit of a givaway). I thought the real supply problem was the availability of lithium?

The problem with electric cars isnt some great conspiracy of the oil companies. Its down to the practicalities of charging. Go to a garage, fill up with gas - takes a few minutes. Do the same for charging batteries and youre talking hours maybe overnight. How will that be overcome?

until they get a clean power source then electric cars will still basically be coal powered.

Silicon is the new gold?

NO, it's not. Yes you need it in a pure state, but it's hardly scarce - please don't talk b*ll*cks just cos it's a Friday.

No wonder the Daleks are shafted if you, as their leader, go spouting off merry little sound bites willy nilly.

No disrespect*, but you sir, are an arse.

* I may have fibbed a teensy weensie bit there.

Ohh, and all hail the silicon nanowires - we need someone like Mr Branson to pick this up as his next uber-project, and run rough shot over the blocking attempts of big oil - Richard, you reading this? Get on it, fella; think of the positive public perception (and other phrases dripping in alliteration) that would waft out of that one...

Merry Chrimbly, one and all - even the arse-like Davros!




"Less service = less $$$ which is the driving factor behind everything these days...."

Yes, I pine for the old days, when corporations did not operate in order to compensate their owners or stockholders.

Burying technology is indeed anticompetitive, and while it might be good business to transition to the Next Big Thing using your vast amounts of money, if your company's assessment is that it's not fiscally worthwhile, why would ANY business fund their own competitors? 

For instance: should the Inquirer be required to fund journalism and writing classes? I think not!

... cheap Chinese manufacturers give these a try, of course they may only be 5-8x the power rather than 10, we can have more than just "oh it burnt up my laptop" we can have "it exploded in a fireball that engulfed the entire building".

Interesting times ahead indeed.

Do they burst into 10 times the flames as well?

Great!! Now a certain manufacturer of exploding laptop batteries is squealing with glee. For now it will be possible to take out an entire city block or down a 747 with only 1 exploding battery. The energy density yielded by this tech is a disaster waiting to happen. I would hope that some thought has been put into new safeguards. The breakthrough is still a step in the right direction though.

Do they explode 20 times stronger?

Are these likely to cause 10x the damage when they explode?

They're talking about it over at GMI:
http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58729

Including a comment about how long it might take to grow the wires. This still looks like a promising new technology.

If the discharge cycles are in the thousands, and constant vibration isn't an issue for the nanostructures in a moving vehicle-- the rarity of clean silicon will raise the prices of this material making all technologies that are dependant on it, even more expensive to produce.

Maybe my old AMD silicon based CPUs aren't worthless, afterall?

this is going to be a big enough deal just in super long-life batteries for cell phones and UMPCs, etc. But when it gets cheap enough to produce at electric car capacities, look out. 10x the range, or 5x at half the battery weight, suddenly gives EVs a BETTER range than gas powered cars. I hope the Oil Execs are crapping in their collective pants this morning. can't wait to drive a Honda Nano.

this will be great for my remote control cars and airplanes :)

Although I thought I read somewhere that the earth is running low on lithium...

True this would be great for the re-introduction of electric cars, but that wont be hapenning anytime soon. The best we can hope for anytime soon is plug-in hybrids. Car companies HATE electric cars because they have very few moving parts. Few moving parts = less service. Less service = less $$$ which is the driving factor behind everything these days.

I'd love to see this technology in cars, but I just dont see it hapenning anytime soon.

I'd like to see that kind of battery technology in the TESLA ROADSTER... of www.teslamotors.com/ ... now that would be incredible

If by 'sponsor' you mean buy the rights to the technology and then hide it in safe where no one can see it, then probably.

This is great news for mobile devices like mobile phones, mps, and portable gaming devices.

More often than not mobile devices are limited by their batteries. The sony PSP could have been released long before it did, the only thing that held it back was battery technology.


electric cars could become much more viable and attractive as a consequence.

I hope the oil companies are going to sponsor the research.

All we need then is a similar solar power innovation in the cell structure of solar cells - produciding more output.