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Cheap proton batteries compete with lithium on energy density (newatlas.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Transcendant@sopuli.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

edit I am an idiot, who uploaded the image link as the URL. The original source should now be accessible

RMIT engineers say they've tripled the energy density of cheap, rechargeable, recyclable proton flow batteries, which can now challenge commercially available lithium-ion batteries for capacity with a specific energy density of 245 Wh/kg.

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[–] cashsky@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Some shady holding company is going to buy the patent for it and sit on it forever while the rest of humanity continues to pillage underdeveloped nations for their lithium.

[–] PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm sorry, but there is simply no way that anyone can have so little greed as to prefer to exercise their sociopathy rather than become the richest person on earth (where they can harm people much more effectively).

The reason these things don't materialize is because they weren't never there in the first place.

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's happened multiple times before. Mostly when a big company is heavily invested in an alternative technology. They don't want to completely retool, since it's expensive, but they want to limit others from developing it, and so become competitors (that eat into profit margins).

The simplest solution is to buy up critical patents and either sit on the, or slow boat them.

Oil and car companies did this with electric/alternative car research for a while. Kodak also did it with digital cameras, since they competed with film cameras. It doesn't last forever, but it can give decades of extra profit, before the competition gets over the speed bump.

[–] PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah. None of that is true.

There was plenty of electric car R&D (and it was never overly restricted by patents). Battery technology and electronics were just not got enough until recently, and there wasn't as much of a financial incentive to go electric.

Kodak is a standard example of a company's failure to migrate from its legacy business. It very much did not stifle digital imaging.

[–] Tilgare@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was actually just watching a 60 minutes episode on YouTube the other day about a massive, fully green, generations long mining source of lithium in SoCal. It'll be able to supply all of the lithium needed for yearly domestic American EV sales and because it's so close to home, prices for these massive battery packs should fall off precipitously.

[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

buy the patent for it and sit on it forever

I.have seen this happening, but I don't believe that it can happen with this one. Broad usage, very different usecases seem possible.