Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[Brian H]

Breakable wrote:

Never say never. Right around the end of ’07, Stanford announced the development of silicon nanowire LiIon battery tech which increases energy density (storage capacity) by 10X, and eliminates charge/discharge and heating issues (the nano-structures don’t stress and burst like larger silicon ion-absorbers at high charge levels).
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At current electricity prices, the Roadster gets 130mpg equivalent. At FF electricity prices, this would be at least 3000 mpg-equivalent. With a corresponding range — over 2000 miles with silicon nanowire LiIon batteries.

Well not fully correct as the silicon nanowires can be used in one electrode only. That translates to no more 5x improvement.
Well even a 2x improvement should be good enough, but the most important number is not the range, but the price of batteries and electricity of course.

Regarding biofuels, in my opinion anything that trows CO2 into atmosphere is bad. Even if it takes it later back – because the circulating dioxide is sill causing global warming. I think its likely we will start scrubbing air of dioxide in near future, that is if we reach a point where energy is cheap and plenty – such as implementing fusion power.
There are others, including Enable IPC, who are working on or claim to have nanowire cathodes: http://www.enableipc.com/microbattery.html . I have queried them about compatibility of the technologies.