everlasting battery? thousands of cycles

Why would gold being involved prevent mass production?

Gold is used in quite a bit of electronics in mass production presently.
 
The gold is in the form of nano wires, so maybe it doesn't take too much to build a battery. Even if it's a little expensive, if the lifespan is essentially unlimited, it may be well worth it.
 
They say gold is troublesome and started experimenting with nickel .
Seems they are also having life threats. Their discovery ain't good for business.
Guess 1 GM gets the patent and sinks it in the well.
Guess 2 they get scared/killed and the project gets stalled.
Guess 3 they eventually make this technology viable and we see in our lifetime a better world.
 
I think there is going to be a lot of interplay between a lot of factors for this to become a commercial reality.

The first thing is that the human brain tends to discount events further in the future - hence why politicians often implement positive law changes immediately, but negative law changes a few years in the future. With that in mind, consider:

1. Cars last for a median of 7 years. If batteries are lasting 80% to 7-10 years, the compelling reason to get longer lasting batteries is fairly marginal.

2. Technology keeps changing. Even if you had a battery that lasted forever, if it was significantly more expensive than a 7-10 year battery, who would commit to that if there's odds of a smaller, more powerful battery in the future?

So if you were presented with say, paying $10k for a storage system now, with the possibility of needing to replace it in 2027 with something that is likely to be cheaper and better then, or paying $15k for a solution that could last a lifetime, but might not even suitable for use in 10 years, which would you choose? And a 50% premium is pretty small.

3. From the manufacturer's point of view, they know this turns batteries from a consumable to a capital investment. This means that their customers go from buying regularly, to only buying it when they have a new application. They will need some pretty juicy margins to convince them to cannibalise their existing business to make this new battery.

Now, consider 3 together with 1 and 2. Some risk seeking company decides that even though the battery is only marginally more expensive, they figure that there is a market for everlasting batteries.

Scenario A - they market it as a premium. There is a market, but its very small. Even though the margin per unit is generous, the volume does not permit a good gross profit in relation to capital investment.

Scenario B - they take a loss leader to get volumes up - much like what Musk is doing with the Teslas. They may take first market share, they aren't making money out of it. They will also decimate the market, forcing competitors to cut margins on existing products or move to compete with this one.

You can't keep running a loss leader forever, so eventually the market will normalise. This could restore a healthy market, but the first mover basically will have spent money to only change the industry, not for its own profit.

Unless you can get billionaire sponsors like Elon Musk, or the government to sponsor this for idealogical motives, rather than profit motives, this will not get off the ground.

Unless a new technology is either cheaper, or substantially better in the SHORT term, it can be hard for that technology to succeed commercially.
 
rojitor said:
bad news: right now There's GOLD involved so is not viable for mass production.

samsung and apple does not seem to have this issue with their phones and computers wich have plenty of gold in it...
 
flippy said:
rojitor said:
bad news: right now There's GOLD involved so is not viable for mass production.

samsung and apple does not seem to have this issue with their phones and computers wich have plenty of gold in it...

Neither do these guys, who melt down old electronics to retrieve the gold:

5eb49223ae239881f594fbc5f593f163


Oh wait. No, they all die in their 20s from the toxins, and "They suffer burns, untreated wounds and eye damage from the melting down of computer parts. They are also struck down with chronic nausea, anorexia, respiratory issues and severe headaches."

http://www.news.com.au/technology/worlds-worst-dump-hellish-agbogbloshie-tip-where-poor-children-live-among-australias-ewaste-illegally-shipped-to-africa/news-story/067b66d57793b2b569f934f99939a4c2
 
Sunder said:
flippy said:
rojitor said:
bad news: right now There's GOLD involved so is not viable for mass production.
samsung and apple does not seem to have this issue with their phones and computers wich have plenty of gold in it...
Neither do these guys, who melt down old electronics to retrieve the gold:
5eb49223ae239881f594fbc5f593f163

Oh wait. No, they all die in their 20s from the toxins, and "They suffer burns, untreated wounds and eye damage from the melting down of computer parts. They are also struck down with chronic nausea, anorexia, respiratory issues and severe headaches."
http://www.news.com.au/technology/worlds-worst-dump-hellish-agbogbloshie-tip-where-poor-children-live-among-australias-ewaste-illegally-shipped-to-africa/news-story/067b66d57793b2b569f934f99939a4c2
99% is done in large recycling plants or do you really believe that millions of africans are smelting the hundreds of millions of phones and computer parts?
 
lmfao...I don't doubt they have all those problems while extracting precious metals from electronic scrap but it's due to the chemicals and procedures used not because the electronics stuff is particularly hazardous. Also, the other dude's right, nearly all the actual extraction is done industrially.
 
If you read the article, the screen that kid is holding was one of the 99% that was officially recycled in an approved and legal recycling centre... So how did it get to Ghana in one piece?

I don't claim to be an expert, so I can't say more than this, but you know, the NSA isn't legally allowed to wire tap US citizens, Chinese factories don't use child labour and 99% of my electronics is safely recycled in a safe and environmentally friendly way.

All of them could be true, or none of them might me. I have no idea.
 
OK, just because I have nothing better to do...

First, the NSA is legally allowed to wiretap US citizens as an unavoidable step in pursuing the rest of their directive. The distinction there is many uses of the data collected would be illegal.

Second, Chinese factories as a rule DON'T use child labour. This was true when I started going to China in 05 and I doubt much has changed since I last visited in 09.

Third, (and by the way you can look up the facts on all this stuff for yourself) the vast majority of electronic waste is KNOWN to go unrecycled, and you can bet your bottom dollar any recycling that does take place is not "environmentally friendly" although the impact is probably negligible compared to all our other activity.
 
Seems like a light hearted jibe turned somewhat serious. Doesn't matter. I just thought precious metals in electronics was interesting, and the flow on impact was worth knowing about.
 
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