"Liquid fuels such as petrol boast density of around 12,000 Wh/kg". Just for comparison, uranium has an energy density of 1,083,000,000 Wh/kg, i.e. 0.00046 g of uranium can deliver just as much energy as a 1 kg 500 Wh battery.

Though, with Uranium, you only get the energy once...

And if you get it wrong, more quickly than you might find comfortable.

500 wh/kg will open up a number of applications in aviation.

Do not expect battery powered airliners with these numbers, but battery powered General Aviation (CS 23) becomes competitive in quite a few applications.

On the other hand, pouch cells are not suited for rapid changes in atmospheric pressure, so hopefully they will develop standard format cylindrical cells.

> more quickly than you might find comfortable

This is of course a property unique to radioactive materials. Never before in the history of history has any other energy source ever got itself into an excessively exothermic state.

True but the reactor is a touch heavy for many applications...

Forget about the weight of the reactor.. there is the hardened concrete housing, the grass covered perimeter areas, the double fencing, the guards, the gatehouses, etc. etc.

Getting all of that onto your nuclear airliner (as invented by feynmann) will be difficult.

I did love the US air force approach to the nuclear bomber, just use older crew!

Every time I see press releases like this I expect to see some reference to prefabulated aluminite. It is hard to tell if they are being serious or taking the piss with some of the technical terms.

That exclamation mark two thirds into the article completely threw me. What is this unbounded excitement?

Well I'm tetatively excited, but only somewhat so at the possible prospect of my 3.9kg ebike battery someday being replaced by a 1.38kg battery of the same capacity. Hopefully whatever cells those battery packs contain, will make their way into the hands of hobbyist ebike battery makers, as other cell types intended for electric cars have. 500 Wh/kg is quite the leap, I very much hope it's true. I also hope they don't burst into flames as easily, or burn as hot for as many hours unextinguishable without complete immersion in swimming pools.

Bullshit.

I don't think anyone doubts its achievable (prototypes have achieved it as the article mentioned) - but as sceptics have pointed (such as Yazami in that article) out the challenge is to have a battery that can be mass produced and keep up that level of performance after some real world use - no point in a battery that dips from 500 down to 300 in the space of a couple of years and it takes time to do all the proper tests. Though given they are an established battery maker likely to get something to market in a reasonable timescale and so we will likely soon find out if they degrade badly (or not) in typical use.

There's lots of good research going into all sorts of battery tech (with some potentially major power / weight improvements) but sadly most of them are a long way from producing a commercially available mass produced battery (a bit like the way that fusion has been achieved for a few seconds and by different teams but going from there to working fusion reactors has (so far) proved a step too far )

Yeahbut ... In the world of technology, such announcements, sans working examples, are more often than not vapo(u)rware.

Well assuming it is kosha...

With the US sanctions I expect they won't be presenting data neither will they be filing US Patents... So if US companies want to gain access to the tech they are going to have to put some real effort into it...

The article is a bit scant on details (I guess that's the company keeping them secret from their press release)

"highly conductive biomimetic condensed electrolytes that create a miniscule micron-level net structure. The semi-solid-state battery also incorporates new anode and separator materials and cathode materials with ultra-high energy density."

...mostly marketing-speak, doesn't actually say much. Lithium-ion batteries have a theoretical upper limit of about 2MJ/kg, which is about 550 Wh/kg*, and while I'm far from being an expert, my 'spidey-senses' tell me that it's unlikely to get so close to the theoretical limit in practice. So more likely it's not Lithium at all (Could be Sodium, as the article mentioned one of the company's earlier batteries being Sodium-ion). There are various battery chemistries** that theoretically could go to well over 1000Wh/kg, and are expected to approach this figure in prectice.

For comparison, the petrol energy density of around 12,000 Wh/kg is what's stored in the fuel, but the best car engines are maybe 35%-40% efficient (I believe jet engine efficiency is also in this range). So in terms of effectively delivered power contributing to motion, it's more like 4200 - 4800 Wh/kg. And this is after many decades of research and development, it's unlikely to get much better. On the other hand, electric motors are over 98% efficient, so the energy in the battery is practically all available at the wheels / propellers. Still far from what liquid fuel can deliver, but close enough to electrify some short-haul aviation. (It's unlikely that prop-driven electric aircraft could get to more than half a jet engine speed, but quiet, slower, low-emission planes could land on small runways much closer to city centres, and match door-to-door travel times for short-haul flights vs jets that have to land further away from the centre)

* https://thebulletin.org/2009/01/the-limits-of-energy-storage-technology/#:~:text=But%20as%20currently%20designed%2C%20they%20have%20a%20theoretical,lithium-ion%20batteries%20might%20break%203%20mega-joules%20per%20kilogram.

**https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S240582971931102X-fx1_lrg.jpg

Looking forward to Samuel L Jackson sequels to Snakes On A Plane, Exploding Batteries And Fires On A Plane and AI Pilot On A Plane, shouldn't take long to write the scripts with AI, I'll take my Oscar's now thanks.

Yes, but can these batteries melt steel beams?