Gizmorama - November 19, 2014

Good Morning,

A new battery, which uses the sodium ions of saltwater as its electricity-carrying electrolyte, may revolutionize the renewable energy market - mainly due to the fact that it is so cheap! Really!

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- New battery could propel the renewable energy market --*
BOSTON (UPI) - One of the largest obstacles to the viability of renewable energy, like wind and solar power, is the process of storing and transporting the power once the energy's been converted to electricity. That obstacle has shrunk in recent years, as technology has improved.

Now, a bigger, cleaner and more powerful battery is hitting the market. But scientists say it's important quality is its price. The battery -- which uses the sodium ions of saltwater as its electricity-carrying electrolyte -- is cheap, really cheap.

The new generation of battery is roughly the same price as the cheapest lead-acid batteries, but last twice as long. The size and affordability will allow renewable energy to be utilized in areas where only small power grids, or "microgrids," are an option -- remote regions where a link with a centralized grid isn't a possibility.

"By making solar power cheaper than diesel fuel in many places, it could help bring clean power to some of the more than one billion people in the world without reliable electricity," Kevin Bullis, energy reporter for MIT Technology Review, recently concluded.

The battery was developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. Their lab work became a company, Aquion Energy, and now the developers are raising capital in order to continue scaling up their battery production efforts. Last week, the company announced $34.6 million in funding.

"We have been hard at work making the world's best long duration battery even better," Scott A. Pearson, CEO of Aquion Energy, recently said. "The improved chemistry of the second generation Aqueous Hybrid Ion battery yields more energy, and will deliver more value for our customers."


*-- As climate warms, chances of being struck by lightning go up --*
BERKELEY, Calif. (UPI) - Scientists say the number lightning strikes will increase by up to 50 percent by the end of the century if current global warming models are correct.

A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and is more likely to produce bigger, stronger storms -- the two main ingredients for lightning.

"With warming, thunderstorms become more explosive," University of California Berkeley climatologist David Romps said.

Romps and his colleagues arrived at their predictions after analyzing precipitation and cloud buoyancy data from 11 of the newest climate models. They published their work this week in the journal Science.

"Lightning is caused by charge separation within clouds, and to maximize charge separation, you have to loft more water vapor and heavy ice particles into the atmosphere," he said. "We already know that the faster the updrafts, the more lightning, and the more precipitation, the more lightning."

A factor called CAPE, convective available potential energy, was found to predict lightning strikes. The models predicted for each 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature in the U.S., CAPE increased 11 percent. A 4-degree rise over the next century would add up to about 50 percent more lightning strikes in the U.S.

According to the NOAA, the odds of getting hit by a bolt of lightning in your lifetime are about 1 in 12,000 -- slim, but still greater than the odds of getting attacked by shark. If the calculations hold true, those odds will become less favorable to golfers and storm chasers by 2100.

Perhaps more worrisome is the uptick in wildfires that will likely follow. Lightning strikes trigger the majority of brush and forest fires in the United States. They also affect greenhouse gas composition -- for better and for worse.

Lightning strikes increase the level of ozone in the atmosphere, one of the greenhouse gases contributing to global warming. But lightning also produces nitrogen oxides, which mitigate the concentration of methane, one of the most potent heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

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