[speedgibson] Speed Gibson: You Cannot Change the Laws of Chemistry

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Posted by Speed Gibson:
You Cannot Change the Laws of Chemistry
http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1214264738.shtml


   Why or why does Senator McCain pull stunts like this? With much of the
   Republican base already eying the exit door, he now proposes a $300
   million prize to whoever comes up with a practical battery to run our
   electric cars in the future. I'll agree that such an invention would
   be worth that amount and more, but let's get real.
   What is a battery? It's a container that uses its internal chemicals
   and metallic components to provide electricity. Like an existing car
   battery, the process can be reversed, applying an electric current to
   recharge it.
   This is different from a fuel cell, where the oxygen used to burn the
   fuel is supplied externally. A battery is self-contained; the only way
   in or out is electrical.
   The winning design will provide much more capacity (ampere-hours) in a
   proportionately smaller space, weigh at most 1,000 pounds, and
   recharge quickly.
   Let me see now. Picture a sturdy container filled with a mixture of
   volatile chemicals and reactive metals itching to get at each other,
   willing to go miles through a wire to do it. If there's a short
   circuit or a rupture, all that energy can be released much too
   quickly. We've already seeing lithium-ion laptop batteries igniting
   and exploding.
   You cannot change the laws of Chemistry. At some point, you're no
   longer building a Flux Capacitor. You're making an explosive.