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Storing Energy
| Article
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14919 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1988 |
2,790 Words |
| Author
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Michael Woods
Michael Woods, a contributing editor for THE WORLD & I, has
received numerous science-writing awards. |
For more than 70 years it was mankind's only source of electricity. Its development helped kindle the great revolution in science and technology that characterized the nineteenth century, contributing to such inventions as the telegraph, the electric motor, the telephone, and the electric light. Without it thousands of devices in virtually every area of modern life would stop working. It is the key to decreasing the world's dependence on dwindling supplies of crude oil by making electricity the principal form of energy for motor vehicles.
The device is the humble, little-appreciated electric battery. After almost a century in the doldrums, the battery once again is an indispensable source of electricity and instrument of technological advance. It is now finding an amazing assortment of applications in modern society. Americans use an estimated 900 million battery-powered devices--50 percent more than a decade ago. They spend $2,5 billion each year on batteries, the only generally available device that allows electricity to be stored, transported, and used in almost any setting.
Batteries have given society devices that range form the frivolous to the momentous, new toys and new tools, instruments of life and weapons of mass destruction. Tiny battery packs recharged by solar cells supply current for spacecraft orbiting the earth. Monster storage batteries weighing 2,000 pounds provide backup power on submarines cruising deep below the ocean surface. Batteries provide years of reliable current in implantable cardiac pacemakers that prolong thousands of lives each year. But they also provide the instantaneous bursts of current that explode nuclear warheads. Batteries power computer memory chips; laptop computers; hearing aids and artificial hearts; electronic watches, cameral, and pocked calculators; portable radios, tape recorders, and televisions; cordless tools and appliances; rechargeable flashlights; toy trucks and mechanical dolls; and even electric socks. They provide emergency power supplies for hospitals, nuclear power plants, and strategic missile silos.
Battery technology itself has undergone a revolution. The standard cylindrical dry cell of the past has been joined by batteries in hundreds of new shapes and sizes. Button-cell batteries that weigh 1/20th of an ounce power wristwatches for years without replacement. New maintenance-free automobile storage batteries that never need added water have appeared. Small, powerful nickel-cadmium or "nicad" rechargeable batteries have made possible a whole generation of cordless tools and appliances. Alkaline batteries that far outlive standard dry
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