Sorry, I can't resist the urge to repost this classic comment on a thread about new battery technology:
Dear battery technology claimant,
Thank you for your submission of proposed new revolutionary battery technology. Your new technology claims to be superior to existing lithium-ion technology and is just around the corner from taking over the world. Unfortunately your technology will likely fail, because:
[ ] it is impractical to manufacture at scale.
[ ] it will be too expensive for users.
[ ] it suffers from too few recharge cycles.
[ ] it is incapable of delivering current at sufficient levels.
[ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures.
[ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently portable.
[ ] it has too short of a lifetime.
[ ] its charge rate is too slow.
[ ] its materials are too toxic.
[ ] it is too likely to catch fire or explode.
[ ] it is too minimal of a step forward for anybody to care.
[ ] this was already done 20 years ago and didn't work then.
[ ] by this time it ships li-ion advances will match it.
Better batteries are a really big deal. Is every promising technology gonna work out? Of course not. But there's valid reasons to be interested and excited. I like that these stories appear on HN so I can keep a rough understanding of how research is progressing. And usually there's some comments here from people who know the field a lot better. But to find those gems I have to scroll past a whole crowd of people posting this self congratulatory snark.
> I have to scroll past a whole crowd of people posting this self congratulatory snark.
Has this comment ever been posted more than once in a thread?
edit: and I honestly can't understand what is self-congratulatory about a list of issues created by somebody who is obviously interested in batteries, and has seen a lot of press releases with the same flaws. It gives laymen a sensible list to check the newest claim against.
It's not as bad in this thread, it's more that every single thread in this topic area has this sort of snark, if not the exact text template, as the number one or two comment.
Sure it's fair to say I should just ignore it. But I find it lowers the quality of discussion in a way I want to protest, so I'm doing so. It's a zero effort "dunk" posted reflexively.
If you'll let me ramble a little bit, part of why I push back on this sort of behavior is because of growing up around evangelical extremists. A huge part of their behavior is using and re-enforcing what I call "thought ending cliches." These are one size fits all rhetorical quips that function to shut down conversation. "Well it's all part of God's mysterious plan" being the most basic famous one. Climate change? "It goes in cycles." You get the idea.
This kind of empty reflexive contrarian snark does the exact same thing, so no, I don't see it in a positive light. It's not just a joke, it's a joke intended to shame people into stopping discussion.
From a young age I've combed the shelves at public libraries and found handbooks on battery technology.
Often 1/3 of the book is devoted to ordinary batteries and the other 2/3 are devoted to "reserve batteries" which are able to deliver a high power density for a short time to power a missile or something like that. There was a huge amount of research on those and I think it's easier to make a battery work if it doesn't have to last very long.
NiMH batteries seemed to come out of nowhere. I remember Sony licensing the technology for "InfoLithium" batteries that eventually took over the world.
The market for batteries is bigger than it ever was. Grid scale batteries relax many constraints: molten salt batteries might be practical there. The South Africans thought this kind of battery might be relevant for cars in the late 1970's and 1980's
I wonder if there was some kind of economic inflection point — it felt like that in my memory, too, where it felt like NiCad was advertised more as new thing in the 80s before getting replaced with NiMH. I wonder how much that perception was steered by what was common in the car battery space since that was probably the most known rechargeable battery for a long time.
Nothing wrong with reposting it. As a matter of fact I think this should be posted every time there is a new battery announcement so we can all do the tick boxes.
[ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures.
[ ] it is too likely to catch fire or explode.
[ ] it is impractical to manufacture at scale.
These are the only three I see as problematic or unknown. Which is not that bad.
I have a very simple criterion: Do they have a production process designed for this new technology? That's the final step to commercialization and is often the barrier that prevents new chemistries from entering the market.
Dear battery technology claimant,
Thank you for your submission of proposed new revolutionary battery technology. Your new technology claims to be superior to existing lithium-ion technology and is just around the corner from taking over the world. Unfortunately your technology will likely fail, because:
[ ] it is impractical to manufacture at scale.
[ ] it will be too expensive for users.
[ ] it suffers from too few recharge cycles.
[ ] it is incapable of delivering current at sufficient levels.
[ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures.
[ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently portable.
[ ] it has too short of a lifetime.
[ ] its charge rate is too slow.
[ ] its materials are too toxic.
[ ] it is too likely to catch fire or explode.
[ ] it is too minimal of a step forward for anybody to care.
[ ] this was already done 20 years ago and didn't work then.
[ ] by this time it ships li-ion advances will match it.
[ ] your claims are lies.