Science and Technology Group
Next Meeting: Prof David Howey, Batteries and Beyond
25th April, 2018
The planet's electric supply grids have been described as "the world's largest supply chains to operate without the benefit of warehouses". With fossil fuel generation, because the chemical energy in coal, oil or gas could be stored at negligible cost until it was needed, storage of electrical energy was not important. Now, much of our electricity is being produced from the energy of wind, sunlight and the tides. Energy from these sources cannot be stored so if it is not to be wasted we will need to have a way of storing it. The alternative is to have the huge capital cost of a backup network fossil fuel stations, something which would seriously damage the economics of renewable generation to which this country is committed under the Paris Climate Accord.
Without better batteries, owners of electric cars will forever suffer from 'range anxiety'. Having one's phone go flat is bad enough, just imagine being stranded miles from the nearest charge point, without the option of getting a lift to a filling station for a can of petrol. Sadly, Moore's Law does not apply to batteries, and a lead-acid accumulator has much the same capacity (and weight) as it did 160 years ago, when it was invented.
Battery technologies have have improved, but this improvement always lags the increasing demands on batteries in a way that threatens the game-changing technologies of the future. Our speaker will talk about whether this lagging performance will persist and delay the much needed advances, or whether the huge resources devoted to improving battery technology over the last few decades at last pay off.
Further Reading
Dr Mohammad Al-Ubaydli is the CEO of Patients Know Best, which he founded in 2008. He trained as a physician at the University of Cambridge; worked as a staff scientist at the National Institutes of Health; and was a management consultant to US hospitals at The Advisory Board Company. Mohammad is the author of seven books, including Personal health records: A guide for clinicians and Streamlining Hospital-Patient Communication: Developing High Impact Patient Portals. He is also an honorary senior research associate at UCL medical school for his research on patient-controlled medical records. In 2012 he was elected an Ashoka Fellow as a social entrepreneur for the contributions he has made to patient care.
| Month | Day of Month | Speaker | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| February | 21st | Dr James Luke | Recent Developments in Artificial Intelligence |
| March | 14th | Mr Simon Wright | Gene Editing and Intellectual Property Law |
| April | 25th | Prof David Howey | Energy storage technologies - batteries and beyond |
| May | 23rd | Dr Mohammed Al-Ubaydli | Patient-Centred Medicine |
| June | 12th | Dr Vinton G Cerf | Google and the Internet |
| September | 18th | Mr Romain Kidd | 3D Printing |
| October | 15th | Prof Paul Newman | Mobile Autonomy |
| October | 28th | Dr Gary McLean | Towards a Vaccine for the Common Cold |
2019 Programme
Provisional dates for 2019 are as follows:
| Month | Day of Month | Speaker | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 23rd | ||
| February | 27th | ||
| March | 27th | ||
| April | 24th | ||
| May | 29th | ||
| June | 26th | ||
| September | 18th | ||
| October | 23rd | ||
| November | 27th |