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Tech News and Commentary
Dave and the team discuss Instagram’s future, Chipotle, Verizon, Nike, and the metaverse, SpaceX and China, the Webb telescope, and more.
James calling in via the AskDave button on our site and asked: “I want to know about aluminium battery technology. I heard that a university in California says that aluminium battery technology is better than any battery out there now.”
James, its just not around – and it may never be, so dont worry too much about it for the time being.
At the moment that – and graphene – are nothing but possible technologies that may be used in a few decades but for the moment are just the subject of academic papers.
The biggest advantages of aluminum-ion batteries over lithium-ion batteries are weight – theyre lighter, and aluminum is less likely to catch on fire violently and quickly the way lithium-ion batteries sometimes do.
That last part is not that big of a deal in applications like phones, but its a much bigger deal on modern planes, electric cars, and other uses that require much larger and much more dangerous batteries.
If youve heard about the Teslas that catch on fire every now and then and cant be put out for hours, this type of battery would be less prone to that problem (also, all other hybrids and electric cars seem less prone to that too so we wouldnt make Tesla our first option).
The downside of aluminum-ion batteries is that their shelf life would be much shorter, and in the real world thats a problem for virtually all of the major applications that would benefit from this type of battery.
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