[LINK] 'Electrical Energy Storage Unit'

[Tom Worthington]

At 08:34 AM 22/04/2008, Stephen Wilson wrote:
>...  specific energy of a cell, battery or 
>capacitor is usually measured in Watt Hours per Kg.  ...

The wikipedia has a good explanation of 
Supercapacitors <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor>.

Experimental supercapacitors are currently around 
30 W·h/kg. This is much less than Lithium-ion 
batteries, as used in laptops, which are around 
160 W h/kg <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery>.

Rather than trying to replace batteries with 
super-capacitors, CSIRO have done interesting 
work combining the two: 
<http://www.csiro.au/news/UltraBattery.html>. 
This way you can get the best features of both.

The Australian Government could invest its hybrid 
car fund into projects like the CSIRO 
unltrabattery, rather than investing the $500M in 
subsidizing the assembly of overseas designed 
hybrid cars built from parts imported into 
Australia <http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200703/s1872588.htm>.

ps: Just to relate this back to the topic of the 
list: Super-capacitors could have a role in 
alternative energy supplies for computer and 
telecommunications systems. As I pointed out in 
my recent green ICT talks, the new broadband 
system the government is funding will generate 
significant anounts of greenhouse gasses and will 
require battery power supplies 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/carbon_neutral_computing/>. 
The supercapacitors could be used for this and 
for rural and remote areas. As an example such 
systems could be used to power computerized 
classrooms in remote indigenous communities 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/07/flexible-learning-modules-for.html>.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, ANU