Today, a vast majority of the world’s oil is burned for transportation. Energy sources such as wind, geothermal and solar power, fluctuate continuously and can do little to reduce oil consumption unless the energy produced can be harnessed and stored.
Many experts believe the solution may lie in the development of an efficient, affordable energy storage network. Simply stated, energy storage – not energy generation – is seen as an important step toward the future.
A key part of current electric energy storage research will be influenced by the work of a consortium that hopes to develop next generation lithium batteries able to power electric vehicles for 300 to 500 miles on a single charge. This research may uncover major advances in larger-scale power storage for future electric grid applications. This next-generation battery is called Lithium-air.
On this episode of Building a Smarter Planet, Winfried Wilcke – Chairman of the Almaden Institute, and Senior Manager of Nanoscale Science & Technology at IBM talks about the research and development behind Lithium-air and why he feels it is so important to the future of energy storage.