In my head I think you kind of need batteries before you can understand electricity at all - you need a dependable source to research it. Leyden jars were probably the earliest electrical storage system, and were critical to researching electricity at all, which led to stuff like Galvani's frog's legs and Volta's piles.
Yeah, I think you and they have put your fingers on it. Diesel and petrol are ridiculously energy dense compared to any batteries we can make or even imagine we can make.
My guess is it'll stay that way - to store electrical charge, you need to store it in something, which will require mass, but with chemical energy, you more or less use the whole of what's there when you burn it.
You could, of course, store electrical charge by making chemical bonds, but then you're essentially using electricity to make liquid fuels. Which may turn out to be a good plan: I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with technologies like that in the future.
One fun thing about that idea is that you could centralise the production process and transport the energy in liquid form ... and simply use the existing very-expensive infrastructure.
(The comment has been removed)
In my head I think you kind of need batteries before you can understand electricity at all - you need a dependable source to research it. Leyden jars were probably the earliest electrical storage system, and were critical to researching electricity at all, which led to stuff like Galvani's frog's legs and Volta's piles.
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
(The comment has been removed)
My guess is it'll stay that way - to store electrical charge, you need to store it in something, which will require mass, but with chemical energy, you more or less use the whole of what's there when you burn it.
You could, of course, store electrical charge by making chemical bonds, but then you're essentially using electricity to make liquid fuels. Which may turn out to be a good plan: I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with technologies like that in the future.
One fun thing about that idea is that you could centralise the production process and transport the energy in liquid form ... and simply use the existing very-expensive infrastructure.
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
Reply
Leave a comment