I was talking to a coworker the other day about batteries and someone had come up with a battery that could charge in a few seconds, almost instantly. While people are really excited about this prospect for cell phones, the person making the speech my coworker had watched was sure to point out that this technology could mean really great things for so much MORE than cell phones (though those are awesome as well). Think about electric cars that can charge in less than 5 minutes, or emergency devices that usually take hours to charge and can now be charged in 10 minutes, allowing a much quicker turn around for emergency personnel. The new technology with batteries is going to change how we use technology and what types of technology we can invent. Imagine if you could have an electric motorhome that only takes 10 minutes to charge, even if the battery only lasts for 3 hours, if the 10 minute charge time is manageable, then 3 hours is worth it, only if electricity really is cleaner than oil (or cheaper... if that's your concern).
Batteries that use heat instead of charging, like the cell phone in the picture (yes, click on the picture for the Good Magazine article about it) that charges if you put it in your pocket, or perhaps from the vibrations of your voice, like in this article, are coming into play. We need to start using the energy out there, that we produce, and that we waste. In the article about the heat-generated power, there is a picture of a cell phone on top of a radiator heater, we don't need all of the heat produced from our heaters, a lot of it is sent out in the world and wasted, so why not use it as a battery charger? But really, in a cold climate, it may be better to opt for voice vibration based charging. Either way, some day soon, we won't be plugging in, we'll be using energy already sent out into the world to charge our phones, and how much fun will that be?!
R
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