The past week seems to have had two encouraging pieces of news in battery technology. The first piece of news – posted below – is in respect to potentially massive increases in power density (not to be confused with energy density) of lithium-ion batteries which dominate the consumer electronics marketplace. With this breakthrough Lithium-ion looks to extend it’s lead in consumer electronics and start to impose itself on the super-capacitor marketplace.
The second piece of news revolves around the lead-acid battery. Lead-acid is not compact, has a relatively low power density compared to its more exotic neighbours, has a very un-green sounding name (names can be deceiving), and looses its ability to recharge very quickly. However, It is inexpensive and all the materials needed are readily available. Where Lithium-Ion is the suave movie star, Lead acid is the factory worker but today the factory worker has had a make-over. By putting carbon additives into the witches brew that is lead acid some very impressive results are starting to be measured and validated by industry neutral sources. Lead-Carbon actually outperforms Lithium-Ion (at least today’s variety) in recharge lifecycle and is competitive with the power density of today’s Lithium-Ion (we’ll ignore the impending advances in Lithium-Ion in this category). All of this at a much more competitive price; Lead-carbon batteries are roughly 40% the cost of their Lithium-Ion cousins. For stationary, larger form-factor uses of batteries this is going to be a very big deal. Could this result in a smoothing of the intra-day electricity price curve as off-peak starts to be more economically shifted to peak?
Below is a two part article that talks about this new breakthrough; the second one takes a much more detailed view on Axion Power International as an investment decision.
Lead-Carbon: A Game Changer for Alternative Energy Storage
Alternative Energy Stocks | A Game Changer – Part II
