

Aluminum battery technology allows for 1 minute charge - Phithagoras
http://phys.org/news/2015-04-ultra-fast-aluminum-battery-safe-alternative.html

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maxerickson
Original here: [http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/aluminum-ion-
batter...](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/aluminum-ion-
battery-033115.html)

(I guess phys.org is just reprinting the Stanford press release)

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JoeAltmaier
No mention of energy density (charge per weight or per volumn) - did I miss
it? Without that, this is a pointless article.

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rstuart4133
No, it's not. Energy density is only relevant for today's uses of batteries -
car's, laptop and the like. If energy density was all that mattered pumped
storage would be utterly useless as it energy density is abysmal. The reality
is pumped storage is 80% efficient, and is good for 10's of thousands of
cycles (basically unto the dam silts up), and base storage medium (water) is
dirt cheap. As a consequence we store and discharge gigawatt hours of energy
using pumped storage every day, which I suspect more than all those batteries
with higher energy density combined.

If you want another comparison, there are more vehicles using lead acid
batteries than there are using lithium - yet lead acid has a horrible energy
density. (You are thinking this is wrong - but you are thinking cars. There
are far more golf buggies and indoor forklifts and the like out there than
there are cars.)

They say the voltage of this battery is around 1/2 that of lithium - which I
suspect means much than half the density. But Aluminium is cheap, more common
and lighter than lead, and they are talking 10's of thousands of cycles. If
this works it will change the world - regardless of it's energy density.

