This seems like a really big deal. Two important quotes:
The findings [...] could help remove a major barrier to developing lithium-sulfur and lithium-air batteries, promising future technologies that could store up to 10 times more energy per weight than batteries now used in consumer electronics and electric cars
In tests, batteries with both chemicals added operated at 99 percent efficiency after more than 300 charge-discharge cycles, compared to significantly decreased efficiency after 150 cycles for batteries treated with lithium nitrate alone
I wonder if Tesla's patents helped with this. If not, I look forward to when someone takes both innovations and creates something world changing like enduring and safe batteries.
Good for mobile applications. For fixed location (eg. renewable energy for off-grid housing) I'm still keen to see the performance of Velkess flywheels: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1340066560/velkess-ener... which, being kinetic and held in vacuum, nominally don't wear out for a very long time and provide other benefits (reduce losses due to AC/DC conversion).
Interesting web site, (velkess) but I worry about the lack of actual information. The "A" version (http://www.velkess.com/products/#VelkessA) for example, 750 lbs, 15kwH seems like it would have to be spinning quite rapidly in order to avoid provide that energy, and making bearings that can carry that load and work reliably is pretty tough. I look forward to reading reviews of their products though, flywheel type systems have been successfully deployed in many places, one at this price point would make for an interesting midpoint between grid tied and full off grid solar.
I'm no civil engineer but the info on their kickstarter is more engineering-oriented. I don't vouch for them, I just think they seem pretty legit and interesting. Obviously, the "it can't move" and "it's damn heavy" factors make it useless for the majority of applications, but for off-grid renewable energy purposes it does seem ideal.
Oh absolutely, we had what it nominally referred to as a 'motor-generator' set in the basement of the building where I worked to provide backup power for the machine room. It worked by using regular AC power to spin a flywheel which was then spinning a generator through a continuously variable transmission (CVT). If the power failed, and you did your math right [1], the flywheel's momentum would continue to keep the generator going for another couple of seconds before power actually shut off. During those two seconds though the computers would know that power was "off" and to do the appropriate things to be ready for that (like park the heads on the drives, unload vacuum column tape drives, shutdown the drum, etc etc.) All stuff you could do in 100 - 250mS which saved a lot of work later on.
The engineering challenges though were size (it ended up being this horizontal thing that filled the room). Keeping it sealed with a vacuum (if there was air in the flywheel chamber it adds drag to the wheel which robs you of energy), and dealing with its very strong desire to precess if the ground moved in any way. The engineer responsible for its installation suggested that if there was 6" of ground movement in an earth quake the gyroscope effect would wrench the flywheel off its mount and it would rapidly climb out of the basement on its own momentum. (something I was secretly desiring to see in action)
[1] The first one they installed they did the calculations incorrectly and when they tested it the flywheel stopped in just under 10mS with a very loud bang. Fortunately you can boost energy storage by increasing mass and/or increasing RPM which they did (both off) and got it to a sustain duration of 1800mS (not quite 2 seconds worst case)
That does away with bearings by using a maglev train that stores 20GWh of energy. I would build quite a few of them; if you build one, accidents would be catastrophic, even in an underground tunnel, as the accident could disrupt electricity supply for months.
The findings [...] could help remove a major barrier to developing lithium-sulfur and lithium-air batteries, promising future technologies that could store up to 10 times more energy per weight than batteries now used in consumer electronics and electric cars
In tests, batteries with both chemicals added operated at 99 percent efficiency after more than 300 charge-discharge cycles, compared to significantly decreased efficiency after 150 cycles for batteries treated with lithium nitrate alone