Many of us are dependant on batteries to roll out renewable energy, and slow, perhaps even reverse climate change. Today we ponder over a fundamental question. Can batteries outwit global warming?
Meanwhile, our environment continues to warm steadily as we face a double bind. Warmer temperatures also accelerate battery degradation and shorten battery life. Are we going to be able to keep ahead this trend?
Improved Battery Performance Outwits Degradation
Researchers at University of Michigan researched this paradigm, and wrote up their conclusions in a press release on Eurek Alert. They were concerned that consumers might shun electric vehicles on account of the threat of shrinking driving range.
The University of Michigan report in Eurek Alert that we link to below, confirms that batteries are holding their own. They have improved considerably over the past couple of years. In fact, these gains should ‘more than offset their expected heat-related degradation on a warming planet’.
“Thanks to technological improvements, consumers should have more confidence in their EV batteries, even in a warmer future.” So says the lead author of a study funded by U.S National Science Foundation, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Proof of Batteries Outwitting Global Warming
The lead author and his team obtained solid proof that batteries are outwitting global warming. They investigated battery lifetimes and degradation across 300 cities around the world, in a variety of warming scenarios.
The researchers found that battery lifetimes ‘held up globally’. We find it particularly interesting that those in the warmest cities, including nearest to the equator, ‘showed the biggest gains”.
However, and here’s catch, the team’s data in India and sub-Saharan Africa was not the same quality as that for Europe and the United States. We understand the impacts of increasing temperature will be more severe in those southern hemispheric regions, and so we shall have to wait and see how batteries shape up.
More Information
Temperature Batteries And Arrhenius Equation
Electric Vehicle Battery Degradation
Preview Image: Escalation of Extreme Heat
