Furukawa wants to reduce the price to of the salt-water system to half the cost of a conventional lead acid battery.
On that crucial dimension, if lithium-ion batteries are a 3, the next best technology, NiMH is a 2, and a lead acid battery, like the one you use in your car, gets a 1.
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Some analysts worry that all the incentive-fueled battery investment will lead to a potential battery glut.
The venerable and ridiculously cheap lead-acid battery that starts your car every time with stunning reliability should tell you something.
The microgrid comprises eight 100-kW grid-tied inverters, the rooftop PV array, the lead-acid battery pack, backup diesel generators, and a Web-based monitoring and control system.
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Power Technology is on the verge of producing what it claims is a revolutionary lightweight lead-acid battery but has yet to find any potential customers.
The lead-acid battery is one of the triumphs of 19th-century technology.
That much has been known since the lead-acid battery was invented.
The first reason was that the lead-acid battery packs used in the EV-1 weighed 1600 lb. and were both too heavy and not powerful enough for widespread use.
The strongest sector was base metals, with lead imports in August rising 51 percent year over year, supported by very strong demand from lead acid and battery makers.
For all the talk of wanting improved battery life, the limits of technology (and mangling background tasks in the Operating System) mean it is unlikely that current battery technology or programming techniques will lead to any significant increase in battery life in the current physical space given over to the battery.
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This would eliminate what has historically been the only performance advantage of lead acid in starter battery applications, and is expected to considerably increase the value proposition of A123's Engine Start battery as a lighter-weight, longer-lasting alternative to absorbent glass mat (AGM) and other lead acid batteries.
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Unlike lead acid or other advanced battery technologies, Nanophosphate EXT is designed to maintain long cycle life at extreme high temperatures and deliver high power at extreme low temperatures.
ENGADGET: A123 Systems' new lithium ion tech keeps EV batteries cool, your wallet in check
Its original nickel-metal-hydride battery packs have been replaced with lead acid batteries to extend the distance the car can travel on electricity.
"Based on our analysis, the performance of A123's new Nanophosphate EXT at high temperatures is unlike anything we've ever seen from lead acid, lithium ion or any other battery technology, " said Dr. Yann Guezennec, senior fellow at CAR and professor of mechanical engineering at the Ohio State University.
ENGADGET: A123 Systems' new lithium ion tech keeps EV batteries cool, your wallet in check
This week ARPA-E announced it is funding General Atomics to build a flow battery using well-known, and cheap, lead acid chemistry.
The testing concluded there was no chance that short-circuiting would lead to a fire, and the odds of a smoking battery were one in every 10 million flight hours.
He rummaged around in his bundle and pulled out a small, battery-operated Craig amplifier, then plugged a lead into an acoustic guitar that was broken in front and had pieces of wood rattling around inside it.
In our view, this should lead to several design advantages, namely the device can be thinner, battery life should be longer, and the overall experience for users should be meaningfully improved.
Some companies also are working on improving other parts of a battery cell to increase its lifespan or minimize overheating problems that could lead to fire hazards.
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Faster charge times, longer battery life and less chance of a meltdown would, in turn, lead to thinner handsets.
Alex Molinaroli, president of Johnson Controls's battery division, said Shanghai authorities have indicated they won't permit processing lead there but may allow the company to perform late stage activity, such as charging batteries for the first time.
Secker believes the fastest growing battery sector will be electric vehicles but at the moment laptops, cell phones and rechargeable batteries still lead the pack.
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