The headline couldn’t be more attractive—“A Laptop 40-Hour
Battery?” Alas, all this is just speculation raised from some
juiced theoretical prototypes at the moment. Regardless, in the
ScienceNOW article by Robert Service, a research team, lead by
Yi Cui, a materials scientist at Stanford University, is cited
as developing a battery anode from nanowire strands of silicon
which can hold a charge up to 10 times longer than conventional
carbon anodes. What’s holding this technology back from reaching
your laptop’s battery? Designing a cathode that is equally able
to hold a charge that is 10 times greater than current
technology. Let’s just hope that these new 10x batteries don’t
produce 10x-sized laptop fires.—Dave Prochnow Five amazing,
clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's
energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector,
the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human
catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.