Paul Craft/Shutterstock
With an average shelf life of nine years, the coming tsunami of waste EV batteries needs action now.
Wind turbines and fighter jets both rely on imported critical minerals.
U.S. Air Force; Dennis Schroeder/NREL
Right now, the nation is almost entirely dependent on other countries for minerals that are used in everything from wind turbines to strike fighters and satellites.
Batteries used in Spanish energy storage tests.
Agefotostock/Alamy Stock Photo
Britain’s electricity sector continues to decarbonise, but its capacity to store energy lags far behind.
Bohbeh/Shutterstock
What was a feature of power stations such as Yallourn has become a bug.
korkeng / shutterstock
Batteries that can be fully charged in just five minutes may soon be a reality.
petovarga / shutterstock
A planned battery project in Essex will be ten times larger than the UK’s current biggest battery.
A “creuseur,” or digger, descends into a tunnel at the mine in Kawama, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Companies can’t verify that their source didn’t involve artisanal mining. A discussion over responsible sourcing strategies and practices is needed.
Lukas Coch/AAP
It’s a big-engineering solution that costs twice as much the equivalent amount of batteries.
What happens to millions of these?
Kristoferb/Wikipedia
Batteries power much of modern life, from electric and hybrid cars to computers, medical devices and cellphones. But unless they’re made easier and cheaper to recycle, a battery waste crisis looms.
Petrmalink/Shutterstock
Grid-scale batteries could be at least double the cost of those in electric vehicles.
Replacing carbon-emitting gas-powered cars with EVs requires whittling away EVs’ price premium, and that comes down to one thing: battery cost.
Westend61 via Getty Images
EVs will have lower sticker prices than gas vehicles when batteries are cheaper. Getting there comes down to knowing where to cut costs.
Lithium-ion batteries are already supporting renewable power generation, but a future without fossil fuels will need even better battery technology.
AAP
A new technology for rechargeable batteries overcomes many of the problems with the ones we use today.
Eviation’s Alice prototype.
Ian Langsdon/EPA
Small regional flights will soon start going electric but batteries are unlikely to ever fully power large airliners.
Jevanto Productions/Shutterstock
The future of zero-carbon transport starts today. First stop, Britain’s railways.
Buildings at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, illuminated by George Westinghouse’s alternating current.
Field Museum Library/Wikipedia
Long before Apple vs. Microsoft or Facebook vs. Google, there was Edison vs. Westinghouse.
Lithium ion batteries store large amounts of power in small battery cells that can be recharged.
Mile Atanasov
Nobel Prizes in science are usually given for revolutionary ideas that change our perception of the universe. But this year’s chemistry prize was awarded to inventors of a revolutionary device.
M. Stanley Whittingham, John Goodenough and Akira Yoshino.
Binghampton University/University of Texas/Kimimasa Mayama/EPA
M. Stanley Whittingham, John B. Goodenough and Akira Yoshino made the batteries in our pockets possible.
Shutterstock.
A battery’s power comes from a chemical reaction that happens inside the cell.
Artist Albert Robida imagined in 1882 how air travel might look in future.
Everett Historical/Shutterstock
More than a century since humans learned to fly, we need to revolutionise how we stay up there.
Lithium-ion batteries power lots of different kinds of devices.
Transport Canada
The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry rewarded crucial advances in these small, powerful, easy to charge batteries.