The ultracapacitor, tomorrow's battery, um, tomorrow
We're not saying you should keep an eye out for your new ultracapacitor battery next week or anything, but with juice-drain at an all time high in the variety of devices we carry with us on the day to day, it's nice to know MIT's Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (and just about everyone else, for that matter) is hard at work on developing new ways to bust the chemical battery once and for all. Their research has produced methods to use vertically aligned single-wall carbon nanotube structures to create cheap, efficient, long-lasting ultracapacitors -- cells capable of delivering large (or larger, relatively speaking) amounts of energy without all the fussiness of chemical batteries, like the temperature, discharge, explosion, and safety issues. We're just crossing our fingers we're not too many years out from having this or other next-gen energy storage technologies properly commercialized, constantly using Voltaic bags and hand crank chargers is really harshing on our pull.
[Thanks, Brandon]
