We should pity poor old batteries when they get a bad press. After all, we would not have self-starting automobiles without them. Moreover, as for laptops and smartphones we will not even comment. These are just three examples of many where batteries have enabled the technology. Thus to ask are batteries falling behind progress deserves the answer ‘no’.
In fact, it is getting harder to think of any technology that does not use a battery, somewhere. But, they could be getting better. There is definitely room for improvement. Let’s investigate further and see how good or bad batteries really are.
Are Batteries Falling Behind Progress 3 Reasons Why Not
If we base the discussion on phone and laptop batteries only, then we could argue there are ways to improve them. That said, the picture changes somewhat when we look deeper and consider recent progress with transportation and grid energy.
Batteries are already making inroads into electricity generation and electric cars. However, we do need to find ways to make them cheaper before we can talk about seriously going green.
There is a second reason we can give when a customer phones in and queries, are batteries falling behind progress like people say in the social media. Batteries are making tremendous progress in ironing out demand spikes in the grid. We hope utilities will soon be able to start decommissioning costly ‘peaker plants’.
Finally, it is not really fair to blame smartphone batteries for not lasting months without a charge. Short battery lives are also partly our fault as consumers, because we keep adding more apps into increasingly slimmer phones. A modern lithium-ion battery would probably last for years in a first-generation cell phone.
However This Is Not to Say that Everything is Perfect
Engineers are working tirelessly to improve batteries for portable devices. But right now, we might have to say ‘yes’ to the question are batteries falling behind progress. We post news daily on the fascinating topic of batteries so please do stay tuned to our blog.
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