A senior scientist with the taxpayer-funded Argonne national lab says the nation is on the cusp of developing a “super battery” that could fundamentally change the way the world uses energy.
“The idea is to create a super battery that is economic and competitive” with fossil fuels, Jeffrey Chamberlain, the lab’s executive director for energy storage, told a packed auditorium at a forum hosted by the Washington-based Atlantic Council.
Such a device would replace the gasoline used in conventional cars and trucks, while also being able to compete with natural gas and coal in generating electricity, he said.
Argonne is one of the nation’s premier research and development centers operated by the Department of Energy. The lab has been at the forefront of developing cutting-edge battery technology in support of the president’s electric vehicle and renewable electricity goals.
Chamberlain said Argonne wants to “democratize” energy through the use of more advanced batteries, in much the same way social media has democratized how information is now consumed.
That is possible because batteries turn electricity into a storable product that can be used as needed, giving consumers much more choice over how and when energy is used.
“We want to democratize the creation and use of electricity in much the way media has been democratized [in the last] 10 to 15 years,” he said. “Egypt wouldn’t have fallen if social media didn’t exist. This is how much the media has shifted in the course of my life.
“I think we are at the cusp of that happening if the super battery existed [by] allowing us to create and use electricity at our own will,” he said.
Batteries also allow for the creation of an energy “buffer” zone that can encourage greater use of renewable energy from solar and wind. Batteries store the electricity produced when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, to be used at the times when either is not, he explained.
“By having a battery serve as a buffer zone, kind of like a DVR or Tivo” is used to “record the programs we want to watch later — we want to do the same thing with electricity,” Chamberlain said.
The problems inherent in creating such a battery reside in finding the right chemistry to improve upon the conventional lithium-ion battery design – the same battery you find in any cell phone.
He said that various tweaks over the years have improved upon the battery design. But the ultimate goal of a super battery is to have one-to-one energy and cost parity with fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas or gasoline. The current state of battery technology represents one-fifth of that energy potential, he said.
Nevertheless, a variety of factors are lining up that show the development of such a battery may be reaching a “tipping point.”
First, the “adoption rate” for electric vehicles is twice that of the historic sales numbers for the Toyota Prius and other hybrid-electric vehicles that use both a battery and gasoline engine, he said. The adoption rate is based on sales, which may be higher than other advanced vehicles but are nonetheless still very low. The number of electric vehicles on the road is currently hovering around 400,000 to 500,000, with California being the largest market.
The development of electric cars like the Chevy Volt that can manage the range of a conventional gasoline-powered car is driving bigger businesses into the battery game, he said. But the high sticker price of these vehicles, especially the Tesla, makes them unattainable by most consumers, which he also noted.
Tesla Motors announced last year that it was developing a much more affordable version of its luxury class electric car. Tesla stock surged Monday on the heels of a strong earnings report. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also announced that he was hiring the chief mechanic for Formula 1 racing to help develop the company’s battery swap system to extend the range of the vehicles.
He said JPMorgan Chase and a variety of other large corporations have recently begun visiting the lab to understand the state of the technology, which he said is an indication they are attempting to assess an investment strategy to accelerate innovation. He said it is a sign that a “tipping point” could be fast approaching.
