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Remember the other day how I said storms unsettle my dog? Well, if you really want to see her go bonkers, let the batteries die in a smoke detector. The minute the first chirp sounds, Sadie tries to crawl under or behind me, wherever I am. And yes, I mean wherever …
Touring Bill Gates’s House and Talking About Batteries
by Jonathan Strickland | November 12, 2010
On Monday’s TechStuff, Chris and I decided to take a virtual tour of Bill Gates’s home. The co-founder of Microsoft owns a large estate on Lake Washington across from Seattle. Added together, the buildings comprise more than 60,000 square feet of space. But it’s not all excess and extravagance at Chez Gates. The design incorporates environmentally friendly features to reduce the carbon footprint of the home. It also has a wetlands area designed to provide wildlife access to important, dwindling resources.
Nowadays, batteries are everywhere — but what exactly are they? How do they work? In this podcast, Chris and Jonathan break down the history of batteries, their uses and the chemistry involved.
Good news about the Chevy Volt – 127 MPG in the real world
by Marshall Brain | October 18, 2010
Motor Trend took the Chevy Volt out into the real world, and over the course of 300 miles got 127 MPG. With the Air Conditioner on: 127 MPG: This Volt Story Must Be Told Here’s why I’m so geeked on the Chevy Volt and why you should be, too. In normal, everyday driving we got [...]
The strangest battery you will see today – the Kelvin Water Dropper
by Marshall Brain | October 13, 2010
The Kelvin Water Dropper is a battery like no other. Falling water produces 10,000 to 20,000 volts for no apparent reason. In the following video, jump forward to 44:00 and prepare to be amazed: Now I want to entertain you for the last 6 minutes with something amazing. Something truly amazing. It is a form [...]
How many times over the last few decades have we heard about a new, breakthrough technology that is going to give us a way to charge things instantly? Here is the latest iteration – a new way to make super capacitors out of graphene layers…
How large-scale energy storage works for solar and wind power plants
by Marshall Brain | August 27, 2010
One of the problems with solar power plants is the fact that they shut down at night. The same holds true of wind turbines when the wind stops blowing. We discussed this last week:
In theory, wind power would allow several coal-fired power plants to shut down, but since you can’t rely on wind-power, the coal fired plants need to be kept online and hot for when the wind dies.
To solve this problem, there needs to be a way to store power and send it out to the grid in a steady stream. One of the easier ways to do that with solar power is to store solar energy as heat, as demonstrated here…
Imagine a motorcycle with incredible torque, and therefore incredible acceleration, because it uses an electric motor. Now imagine it has hot-swappable batteries so it can be instantly recharged on the track by popping in new batteries. And imagine it rides like any conventional sport bike so professional riders feel instantly at home on it. That motorcycle has arrived…
This video is fascinating on two levels. First, at the HowStuffWorks level, it shows a truly ingenious way to retrofit an electric motor onto a standard bicycle frame so it is completely invisible. Second, the allegation is that cyclists are using these hidden motors to win races…
When Spring sprang this year, I reached for my string trimmer as part of the yard care ritual. I have an electric model containing a lead acid battery. It has worked great for several years. But this year when I took it off the charger and started whacking, the battery went dead in about 5 [...]
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