Re:What We Get Wrong About Technology
by Robotbeat on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @11:09AM
(#15132740)
You're quite right about EM, I think.
And by the way, I think the lithium battery enhances this dramatically because it makes it practical for EM-based power to be mobile, not just stationary. It's a little like how coal enabled machine power to move away from rivers (i.e. watermills) in the 19th century into factories all over and start moving a little bit on large and/or fixed infrastructure (like ships and rail), and how oil enabled machine power to become completely mobile in the 20th Century.
Lithium batteries (especially as they'll become perfected in the form of lithium-sulfur and lithium-air) enable electromagnetic energy, that most magical form of energy (distinct from mere thermal or mechanical power), to become completely mobile as well and also even for fixed electricity no longer reliant on fossil fuels for prime energy but also able to utilize any kind of inexpensive energy source (wind, solar, etc).
Lithium batteries are to the 21st Century what the internal combustion engine was to the 20th. Smartphones, tablets, drones, electric cars, and into the rest of the 21st century: vast usage of renewable energy, full electrification of ground transport, spreading to air transport, even rocket engines (RocketLab's engines really wouldn't be possible without lithium batteries), cubesats, Hyperloop, etc.
And by the way, I think the lithium battery enhances this dramatically because it makes it practical for EM-based power to be mobile, not just stationary. It's a little like how coal enabled machine power to move away from rivers (i.e. watermills) in the 19th century into factories all over and start moving a little bit on large and/or fixed infrastructure (like ships and rail), and how oil enabled machine power to become completely mobile in the 20th Century.
Lithium batteries (especially as they'll become perfected in the form of lithium-sulfur and lithium-air) enable electromagnetic energy, that most magical form of energy (distinct from mere thermal or mechanical power), to become completely mobile as well and also even for fixed electricity no longer reliant on fossil fuels for prime energy but also able to utilize any kind of inexpensive energy source (wind, solar, etc).
Lithium batteries are to the 21st Century what the internal combustion engine was to the 20th. Smartphones, tablets, drones, electric cars, and into the rest of the 21st century: vast usage of renewable energy, full electrification of ground transport, spreading to air transport, even rocket engines (RocketLab's engines really wouldn't be possible without lithium batteries), cubesats, Hyperloop, etc.