In the mid-1990s, I was finishing up a physics degree and working on a research project to study the electrical properties of mixed conductors. A possible application for the material we studied was to create longer-lasting batteries. Roughly: the batteries that we drop into flashlights and remote controls and the like consist of electrodes (usually a sort of metal) in contact with an electrolyte (usually a sort of alkaline (basic) material). The electrode is made of a material that reacts with the electrolyte in such a way that electrons flow when metal comes into contact with a battery's “terminals”. Electron flow is electricity. In the reaction between the electrode and electrolyte, which happens when the electrons flow, there are byproducts. Those byproducts build up on the electrode, thus inhibiting the chemical reaction. The electrode also ever so slowly dissolves in the reaction. This is how a battery weakens and eventually “dies”. The appeal of the mixed conductor (in our application, a solid electrolyte) was that the byproduct of the reaction that made electrons flow did not inhibit that flow as quickly. Hence, the battery would last much longer.
With more funding, we could have continued the project longer and possibly discovered something more interesting about the exotic material under study. But by the mid-1990s, funding for projects that aimed to improve battery technology was scant; alternative energy programs were on a political back-burner.
Skip forward a decade and, to the surprise of many, the historically science-resistant Bush-Administration introduces “The American Competitiveness Initiative” and the “Advanced Energy Initiative”.
A couple of recent articles in EETimes succinctly describe some of the Initiatives’ details:
- “Specific areas of research outlined by Bush included clean coal technologies, solar power, wind energy, vehicle efficiency, hydrogen fuel and a biorefinery initiative to study advanced technologies for making renewable ethanol fuel from plant fiber. Bush also referenced ‘clean, safe nuclear energy’ as part of the energy solution.”
- “The budget also includes $54 million for the FutureGen Initiative, a partnership between government and the private sector to develop innovative technologies for an emissions-free coal plant.”
- “The administration will also step up the nation's research in better batteries for use in hybrid and electric cars and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. The 2007 budget includes $30 million a $6.7 million increase over FY06 to speed up the development of this battery technology and extend the range of these vehicles.”
American Competitiveness Initiative
- “[Includes increased funding for] the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy's Office of Science (DoE SC), and the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).”
- “The budget includes $137 billion for federal research and development, an increase of more than 50 percent over 2001.”
- “To encourage private-sector investment in technology, the administration continues to support making the research and development (R&D) tax credit permanent. A permanent R&D tax credit would enable companies to have certainty in their tax planning and therefore be bold in their R&D investment strategy.
- “Making the credit permanent, which is estimated to cost $86 billion over ten years, will eliminate problems and uncertainty associated with its temporary nature, according to the administration.”
- “In addition, the American Competitiveness Initiative proposes $380 million in new Federal support to improve the quality of math, science, and technological education in our K-12 schools.”
These Initiatives, if applied well, are long-overdue commitments to improving our science-education infrastructure, and to raising awareness of what will be the biggest challenge in the first half of this century — to overhaul our attitudes toward energy consumption.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
Good article. Nice to see someone noticing that Bush doesn't actualy fuck everything up. I agree that there could be more money spent in this area - or even better, more tax incentives, but it's a great first step. BTW, I think some of the money was actually specifically earmarked for battery research.
Dave
2 - james h coulter
Why mess around with technologies which don't offer solutions? We can't afford to mess around with hybrid and hydrogen technologies. Everyone who can do arithmetic knows they are nice but dead ends.
If we had a battery good enough to give a full size car a thousand mile range and manufactured for a competitive price, we could at least stop burning oil for fuel; for all the oft repeated reasons but also because oil is the most valuable building material on earth.
Given that battery, private and public money would go after low resistance conductors. Then we could have electric airplanes.
The military needs this battery for directable energy weapons, laser, microwave, etc. So are we actually spending only a few tens of millions on battery research? If we are we deserve to be buried in the dust of the Indian and Chinese advancements.
3 - Dave Nalle
By all means let's not do anything now while we wait indefinitely for pie in the sky solutions which may never become realistic.
Dave