Citing Pasteur's famous dictum, this article from a couple of years ago tells the remarkable story of the development to commerciality of the lithium-ion battery.
And it's a classic illustration of just how messy and random much of science and business can be. In this case, at least a UK organisation made some reasonable money from it!
A great read.
ND
7 comments:
Thank you for that: excellent. In about '86/'87 I was hired as a consultant by a large chemical company to opine on commercial opportunities for it if vehicles powered by fuel cells or batteries should become practical.
I concluded that although I could not rule out important discoveries and development in batteries there was nothing in the open literature to persuade me that such advances were imminent.
Was that a fair assessment? Yes - there was no evidence that such batteries were just around the corner. Of course I had no way of knowing what was going on in secure industrial labs, as I was careful to say.
Even now it's reasonable to ask whether EVs are genuinely an organic advance in motor cars or just an artificial product of taxpayer subsidies. They may well be useful for some niche applications - as were milk floats in their day. I suspect their market would collapse tomorrow but for the subsidies.
Presumably the subsidies might end with the collapse of the Church of Global Warming, but Gaia knows when that will happen.
Fascinating read. And interesting to see that you don't get a Nobel unless your invention gets picked up 40 years later and turns into something big.
Another point about EVs: apart from subsidies they gain from an enormous tax advantage. The fuel for ICEs is subject to heavy taxes; in Britain about 50% of the pump price goes to the government. Domestic electricity is taxed at 5%. If EVs look as if they could take a large, permanent market share governments will move to tax them accordingly while bleating about the loss of tax revenue from petrol and diesel.
If ever "the playing field" is levelled how would EVs do?
Badly, presumably.
Of course EVs are a massive tax arbitrage - everyone with a brain knows that - although with the right solar PV home set up some actually are cheaper than an ICE car to run even if the fuel was untaxed.
However you can be sure that they won't "level the playing field" to get the lost fuel duty back - they will just charge everyone more, probably via road pricing.
Long while back did a report on phones and battery life for big phone company. Sure, batteries have got a lot better but the electronics got very very much better. Do not drink so much juice - better technology and better software made better use of battery power. I reckon this gives the illusion that batteries are much more powerful than they really are. Concept doesn't work so well for cars.
BTW, did come across one group researching a thermal generator to run the phone innards - charged by cigarette lighter gas. Not heard of that one making it to market.
Liz Truss talks sense shock horror:
"In the interview, Truss explains that people who owned assets and capital had done very well from the easy money created by the Bank of England (BoE) since the financial crisis, while that loose policy also made it hard for young people to buy homes."
2007-8 showed that you can let any industry go bust - except banking.
WSJ on Boris and mass immigration:
https://archive.ph/4Hd51
https://www.wsj.com/world/uk/britain-farage-migration-debacle-245baf3e
The Tories, despite repeatedly promising lower overall immigration levels, soon lost control of the system they designed, triggering the biggest influx of legal migration the country has ever seen. In just one job field, care aides who look after the infirm or elderly, one government forecast assumed some 6,000 migrants a year would come to work. In the space of four years, 679,900 carers and their families arrived, government figures show. In total, 4.5 million people arrived in Britain between 2021 and 2024, primarily from India, Nigeria and China. One in every 25 people living in the U.K. today came during that four-year window. In comparison, the U.S. typically averages about one million new lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, a year—to a country with a total population five times the size of Britain’s.
Meanwhile Boris was buying a manor house with a moat round it.
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