[03-28-2017] WTAG – Craig Peterson
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Transcript
WTAG_2017-03-28_What-is-the-Future-of-Lithium-Ion-Batteries
Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.
Airing date: 03/28/2017
What is the Future of Lithium Ion Batteries? – How Can We Take Care of Our Current Batteries?
Craig Peterson: Have you ever wondered what the real rules are to keep your batteries safe? You know, everything from smartphone through, frankly, your car. How should you charge them? How should you treat them? And we answered another big question today too which is what is the future of these batteries? Am I going to be able to finally drive from New York to Washington, DC? We talked about that and of course a whole lot more with Jim Polito. Here we go.
Jim Polito: We’re going to talk about 6 persistent phone charging myths debunked. We’re going to get to all that because 6 is, forget it. It may as well be a landline now. But you’re going to talk about that. But I want to talk about the exploding phones. Now it was the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Are we ok now with exploding phones? Have they solved the problem?
Craig: Well the bottom line is no. There’s a guy, his name is Goodenough. He is a professor.
Jim: Whoa. Wait a second. Hold on. You can’t drop that and not… his name is Goodenough?
Craig: Goodenough. That’s his last name.
Jim: Ok. You mean it’s like Goodenough. But pronounce it good enough?
Craig: It is spelled G-O-O-D-E-N-O-U-G-H.
Jim: Yeah. So it’s like somebody asks a woman, who’s your fiancé? Well he’s Goodenough.
Craig: That’s the guy.
Jim: Yeah.
Craig: He’s 94 years old now. But yeah, that’s the guy.
Jim: Okay. He’s Goodenough.
Craig: Yeah. He’s got some money.
Jim: Is this guy. But I say Craig, is this guy brilliant? Yeah, he’s Goodenough.
Craig: He is. He’s the guy that invented the lithium-ion batteries.
Jim: Ok.
Craig: And we’ve got them everywhere now. If you have a smartphone, a phone phone, a laptop. If you have a Tesla, they all have these lithium-ion batteries in them. And the reason everyone’s using that technology, and there’s variations on the lithium-ion, but the reason everyone’s using that technology that he came up with here of, wow, 20, probably 30 years ago when he first invented it, is you can pack a whole lot of power in a very small space. And that’s what we need, right? You remember the old batteries? You remember the NiCad?
Jim: Yeah. They’re terrible.
Craig: Nickel metal hydride.
Jim: Oh, I had them in when I was learning media in the dark ages. You had these batteries that you put it in the cameras. They were like bricks. Not the brick ones you see in the back of them now. But the real crappy brick ones and I mean after you recharge them a few times, it was done.
Craig: Yeah, yeah. Because of the memory in them. So that’s where a lot of the miss come from. But we got all of this power in this small space. And what’s happening with the current batteries is that basically inside, they start to grow crystals.
Jim: Ok.
Craig: If the batteries are manufactured right, those crystals can cause it to short out. And you’ve got all of that power now, all of a sudden going through a short circuit inside the battery. And the battery can’t swell. It can’t get bigger because of the design defect. It’s going to overheat and catch fire.
Jim: There we go.
Craig: And so that’s what happened with Samsung. And Samsung was using a couple of battery manufacturers, one of them being their own and really kind of blew it on that particular phone model. But all… it is every phone. Apple iPhones have caught fire. It’s rare but that happens. It’s not like you can’t bring your Galaxy, was it the Tab 7?
Jim: I think it was the Note 7.
Craig: The Note 7. I think you’re right. It was the Note 7. You can’t bring that on the airplane because there was such a major design defect. And the reason why Jim, is because Samsung was trying to beat Apple to market. Apple was coming out with the iPhone 7. They had announced the date it was going to come out so Samsung got really busy and came out with these phones and made them fast and that’s what’s blamed for all of these problems, some people getting burned and things. So it’s the battery technology that’s flawed. And at the end of this make sure you give me another 2 minutes. Well let me do it right now Jim because I think this is important.
Jim: Ok.
Craig: Goodenough, John Goodenough, designed the lithium-ion battery. I already established that. He’s a professor, in fact, he’s the head of the engineering department down at the University of Texas. He’s 94 years old. He just designed the replacement for the lithium-ion battery. He’s come up with a battery that holds 3x as much power as a lithium-ion battery. Charges-recharges in minutes. And will not overheat. And will not catch fire. And will not explode.
Jim: Wow.
Craig: So think about that Jim. You Tesla that you drive every morning. You and Danny both.
Jim: Yeah, yeah. We’re on the Tesla, yeah.
Craig: Your Tesla, you know right now you might get 300 miles out of the thing. But with these new batteries that are going to, hopefully, hit the market here. There’s some people who are saying that maybe Goodenough is a little crazy enough.
Jim: Yeah.
Craig: And that they’re disobeying the laws of Physics. But the guy is brilliant and he’s done some amazing things. But you will be able to drive your electric car, your Tesla or whatever, from Boston all the way on down to Washington, DC.
Jim: Ok. That makes it better.
Craig: And by the way, when you need to plug it in and charge it, you’re done in 10 to 15 minutes. Which is about how long it takes to fill up gas anyway.
Jim: So that’s incredible. Ok. That makes that stuff worthwhile.
Craig: It’s going to change everything.
Jim: Yeah. Because I’m not buying a volt, well first of all, I’m not buying a Tesla. I’m not spending that kind of money in getting an electric car I have to plug in. If I’m spending that kind of coin, if I had that kind of coin to spend on a car, it wouldn’t be on a Tesla. But a Chevy Volt, our good friend from Consumer Reports Mike Quincy likes. He likes the Volt. It’s actually decent if you can put up with having to plug it in. It’s a good commuter car.
Craig: Yeah. And well, you know what Jim, they can’t sell… they can hardly give them away. You know, people just…
Jim: I think the tax break is gone now too, Craig.
Craig: Well, and Tesla’s coming out with the $30,000 car too, by the way. So, boy, we could talk about so many things here. But this new battery tech is already, it’s designed, it’s made. He’s proven it. We’re not sure how long it will take to get it in production. We’re not sure if maybe there’s some things that have been overlooked here. But this is going to change the world. Because your cars will be able to go wherever. You charge your phone once a week. You don’t have the problems of things catching fire anymore and any of your devices. It’s going to be incredible. And by the way, they’re even lighter than the current lithium-ion batteries.
Jim: Really?
Craig: So, it’s called Lithium Glass. If you want to look it up online, I’ve got a lot of information up in my website. But you can also just Google for it. Search for him. John Goodenough.
Jim: It’s good enough.
Craig: Let me tell you man this is way better than the…
Jim: I love saying it. I love saying it. Alright.
Craig: So let’s talk about the battery charging here. Real quick myth.
Jim: Ok.
Craig: And this came from the old battery technology hanging on. People think that charging your phone overnight is bad. No. Plugging your phone ok? You used to run them all the way up and all the way down like those batteries you’re talking about. You don’t have to do that anymore. You just plug it in. You get about a thousand cycles with lithium-ion batteries. And a cycle means, a full charge-discharge cycle. But let’s say you used half of your battery today. And you use half of your battery tomorrow and you recharge them both times. That’s one cycle. So if you go through 50% of your battery every day, you’ve got 2,000 cycles. That’s a lot of years of life out of the batteries. So don’t worry about it. Leave in your phone plugged in 24/7. It’s ok but you should use the batteries a little bit. Leaving your phone on 24/7 is fine.
Jim: Ok. Good. That’s good. I like that.
Craig: And if you’re buying a charger, get a name brand charger. Get it from your device or my favorite 3rd party charger is Anker. A-N-K-E-R. They’re safe. Many of these other Chinese manufactured chargers, they catch fire. They overcharge your phone. And can even cause your phone to have major problems including fires. And one woman in Australia two years ago died because she had bought a cheap charger and was using her phone in the bath tub, which is probably not a great idea.
Jim: Not a great idea. No, no, no. I saw that in a James Bond movie. He pushed the bad guy into a tub, and the guy was reaching for a gun and he kicked like an electric heater into the tub with the guy. It was all over.
Craig: It was all over. One more. Location services are not killing your battery.
Jim: Oh, they’re not?
Craig: Their GPS used to be a battery hog. Nowadays it’s not so much. And you want to use those services anyway. So leave them on. Our batteries in our phones today are going to last a full day with or without them.
Jim: Craig this was completely worth the price of admission. And I know there’s a whole much more. A whole lot more. And so, if people text my name, Jim, now get ready to write this down folks, to this number.
Craig: 855-385-5553.
Jim: Ok. Say it again.
Craig: It’s 855-385-5553.
Jim: Ok. Standard data and text rates apply. Craig Peterson will send you this information. Everything else. He will not pester you. You will get occasional updates from him. But they’re all good and he’s not going to sell you something. Just get onboard. Craig Peterson, our Tech Talk guru. Craig, I want to thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Craig: Alright. Thanks Jim. You got here first by the way to start talking about this. I haven’t seen this on any other media. John Goodenough. Great guy.
Jim: Well it’s you. I just happen to be the conduit. So you should be, I mean, give yourself the credit. But I love the name Goodenough.
Craig: I was a keynote last night. A keynote speaker and yeah. I kind of wrote, my wife wrote my introduction. So it was really kind of cool.
Jim: I like it. I like it. Now don break your arm patting yourself on the back. You can go right ahead and do it. Ok, your shoulder at least. Alright. Thanks.
Craig. Craig Peterson everybody. A great guy.
Craig: Hey, a quick shout out to all of our new subscribers. I was the keynote speaker last night over at Newburyport Five Cents Savings Bank. It was just amazing how well they’re doing. This is their annual meeting with all of the directors and it was interesting because I had no idea that these types of banks existed. And it’s a small bank. It’s been in business for a long time. They’re expanding. And it’s totally, totally community. It’s the way I’ve always expected a bank to be. So welcome aboard all of you who are listening here today and for all of our current listeners, hey thanks for listening and subscribing at http://CraigPeterson.com/iTunes. We’ll be back later with more.
Show Notes
Joined Ken and Matt for another Wednesday of tech updates. We talked about why the new Samsung S8 will have battery issues, including some myths of battery charging.
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