Claimed revolutions in battery technology are somewhat symptomatic of how the media work and fail.
Japanese company TDK reports progress in battery technology. The company’s new batteries are said to have an enormous energy density, said to increase by an incredible factor of 100. That would indeed be a sensation; a cell phone would only need to be recharged three times a year. E-cars could cover very long distances. The FAZ (paid article) immediately jumped on this news.
Japanese Apple supplier TDK promises significantly longer battery life for small devices such as headphones, smartwatches and hearing aids thanks to a new battery technology it has developed. The solid-state batteries, for which the company has now announced a technological breakthrough, enable an energy density 100 times higher than the current solid-state batteries from TDK. “We believe that our newly developed material for solid-state batteries can make a significant contribution to the energy transition,” said TDK CEO Noboru Saito.”
No miracle
Apparently the figures were never checked for plausibility. This progress seemed strange to Golem and they searched the original report. The miracle was not a miracle, but even less than batteries from other manufacturers can already achieve.
According to the press release, Cera Charge achieves an energy density of 1,000 Wh/l, which is comparable to other batteries that have been presented with this technology in recent years. Meanwhile, the peak values of Chinese battery technology are around 1,600 Wh/l, not only in research laboratories but also at industrial battery manufacturers, so the claimed hundredfold increase in energy density could not have taken place, at least not in comparison to conventional battery technology. Nevertheless, media such as the FAZ, Handelsblatt and the Association of German Engineers, as well as many others, are uncritically reporting an implausible breakthrough of a mega-material in battery technology.”
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June 21, 2024 at 11:48AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 