Green Tech Girl

New Battery Technology

How would you like a battery that could charge your car up for a 500 mile trip in just 5 minutes? EEStor’s Electrical Energy Storage Unit, or EESU can apparently do just that:

EEStor’s take on the ultracapacitor — called the Electrical Energy Storage Unit, or EESU — combines the best of both worlds. The advance is based on a barium-titanate insulator claimed to increase the specific energy far beyond that achievable with today’s ultracapacitor technology. It is claimed that this new advance allows for a specific energy of about 280 watts per kilogram — more than double that of the most advanced lithium-ion technology and ten times that of lead-acid batteries. This could translate into an electric vehicle capable of traveling up to 500 miles on a five minute charge, compared with current battery technology which offers an average 50-100 range on an overnight charge. As if that weren’t enough, the company claims they will be able to mass-produce the units at a fraction of the cost.

According to the company, the “battery” (technically, a capactitor) would be much more environmental and have a much longer lifespan than typical batteries.

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The Downside of Wireless Controllers

I was at a friend’s over the weekend and we were playing some games on his Xbox 360. It seems that every time we’re in the middle of a game, one of the wireless controllers dies due to weak batteries. I have to wonder: Is it really that much better to go wireless when you constantly need to change batteries? The wired controllers never needed a battery switch.

I do have a wireless mouse on my desktop. I use the computer to watch TV sometimes and a wireless mouse serves as a remote control of sorts. I use rechargeable batteries to avoid creating unnecessary waste. Still, there is something to be said for having wires that power up a peripheral instead of batteries.

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