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points by d_silin 1 day ago | 0 comments

Exactly the same as today.

Ungodly amount of money was spent on battery research since 1945, at least $100-150B since 2000 alone. Every combination of anode, cathode and electrolyte was tried, tested and evaluated. We got silver-zinc, Ni-Cd, NiMH and finally Li-Ion batteries as the result.

[–] KellyCriterion 1 day ago

Do you have some links or stats here?

[–] d_silin 1 day ago

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RS22858

https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-rise-of-lithium-ion-bat...

Early Li-ion battery tech was developed by none other than Exxon itself (in second link)

[–] KellyCriterion 18 hours ago

So there wont be never any progress in that field if we pour hundreds of billions per decade into research of this field instead of sending it to the middle east and buying oil?

I cant believe this esp. since CATL is reporting on a regular base new innovations. Im a layman here but if I think about the 3-digit amount of USD that Europe alone is spending on imports of oil, it seems unlikely that this money couldnt be spent on research batteries?

Same with solar: 20 years ago, 1 Wp was about 3-5 EUR, today its 7ct. This wouldnt have been possible if research wouldnt have been massivly accelerted.

[–] d_silin 15 hours ago

There will be progress, but progress vs money relation is non-linear. Low-hanging fruits got picked early, so dumping another $100B might bring zero results or only small improvments.

Dramatic improvements in battery capacity and durability require big material science breakthrough and those may come from unexpected directions (i.e. optimizing ICE engines, as mentioned.)