Mini-Winch for FES

On Wed, 04 Mar 2020 15:54:48 -0700, kinsell wrote:

Yep, that's been making the rounds again recently. Announced in 2016,
supposed to be commercially viable in another 5-10 years. The good
thing is Goodenough is 97 years old, and unlikely to be around to take
criticism if it doesn't pay off.

Only four years? So what?

Need I remind you that work started on lithium-ion cells in 1977,
Goodenough and Mizushima demonstrated a rechargeable Li-ion cell in 1979
and Yazami demonstrated the carbon anode in 1980, but it still took
another 11 years before Sony released the first commercial battery in
1991. Thats 14 years in development.

The first device I owned with a Li-ion battery was a Compaq iPAQ 3630 -
iPAQs weren't released until 2000, with the 3630 appearing in 2001 - a
mere 24 years after the first Li-ion battery was demonstrated.

So, I think we need a teensy bit more evidence than "its taken 4 years
already and still not on the shelves" to discount glass-technology
lithium batteries as vapour-ware.

I see the Germans burned up their Lilium eVTOL "jet" prototype a few
days ago, 36 ducted fans on something targeted as an electric flying
taxi cab. If they're going to keep burning up prototypes, maybe they
should do it in Greta Thundberg's back yeard, so she can experience what
a fully involved lithium battery fire actually smells like.

If you store a lot of energy in a battery containing a flammable
electrolyte, mistreat it in some way (short, overheat or puncture -
doesn't matter which) you shouldn't be surprised if bad things happen:
several crashed Teslas have caught fire hours after the crash happened.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org