New iterations of the smartphone often focus on bells, whistles and other fancy features, when what we all really want for our devices are batteries that last longer. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with technology writer and battery expert Daniel Oberhaus about the latest developments in the energy storage space. We learn about the role that solid state and lithium-silicon batteries may play in the machines of tomorrow, how artificial intelligence may improve battery life, and the progress being made to create recyclable batteries.

Narrator  0:02 This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I’m Alex Wise.

Daniel Oberhaus (DO)  0:16 Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing with the battery space is that nothing is ever moved as fast as you would want it to. But you know, I think it really underscores just like how challenging these problems that we’re dealing with are and battery development has never been happening faster. It’s a really exciting time for the field.

Alex Wise (AW)  0:33  New iterations of the smartphone often focus on bells, whistles, and other fancy features. One what we all really want for our devices are batteries that last longer. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with technology writer and battery expert Daniel Oberhaus, about the latest developments in the energy storage space. We learn about the role that solid state and lithium silicon batteries may play in the machines of tomorrow, how artificial intelligence may improve battery life, and the progress being made to create recyclable batteries.

Alex Wise (AW)  1:26  I’m joined now on Sea Change Radio by Daniel Oberhaus. Daniel is a science writer and his first book was entitled Extra Terrestrial languages. Daniel, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

Daniel Oberhaus (DO)  Thank you so much for having me, Alex.

Alex Wise (AW)  1:39   So you have been a staff writer for Wired magazine for quite some time and have contributed a lot of very interesting pieces specializing in the future of energy. And specifically, I want to talk to you about battery technology because there’s it’s a large palette to work with, why don’t we first dive into solid state batteries. They’re very promising for what reason?

(DO)  2:06  Solid State has been getting a lot of attention lately, due specifically to one company called quantum scape, which recently went public through a special acquisition company a couple months ago. They’re backed by Volkswagen, they’re backed by JB Straubel, who was Tesla employee number seven, if I’m not mistaken. So just really high caliber people working in the battery space are kind of rallying around this company. And the reason for this is that quantum scape believes that they have solved a at this point probably a 40 or 50 year old battery problem, which is how do you create lithium ion cell with a solid electrolyte typically the the batteries that you find in your phone or your computer, these lithium ion cells, they have either a liquid electrolyte or it’s almost like a like a plasticky material. And so the problem with liquid electrolytes is, if you remember, like years ago, when people were having their cell phones, you know, spontaneously catch fire. And people were getting these horrible burns from like, we’re like from vaporizers. Liquid electrolytes and cells are often very fla...