Somebody should have a site which shows 1, 2, 5, and 10 years ago in battery technology announcements. There's at least one major battery breakthrough claim each month. These guys should shut up until they can at least light up an LED in the lab.
Could be worse. Remember uBeam, the ultrasonic power people? They're now called "Sonic Energy".[1] Still doesn't really work.
Those all kinda dried up and what most of us have available in its stead is these 'breaking news' things where every bench-top experiment that got a research grant approved gets written up.
This is not even remotely the same thing. Articles like this aren't talking about the near future. It's not even science fiction. It's fiction fiction. Maybe even fantasy. And I have much better authors to chose from if that's what I'm after.
> It's not even science fiction
No, it's science.
When it has been replicated it's theoretical science. But it's still a variant on the XKCD joke about how everything (including guns) kills cancer in vitro but that doesn't mean you can use it to cure cancer.
Lab-only experiment might clue the next person into a phenomenon that can make it out of the lab. But making it news when it hits the scientific journals has been a sore subject for a lot of people, and seems like it always will be, and that it might even get worse before it gets better. We call a lot of things 'science' that haven't followed the scientific method, and it's exasperating.
This is not the first time materials sciences people at UIUC have looked at self-healing materials. Twenty+ years ago they were looking at lacing concrete to repair small cracks. Really cool stuff... that has not made it out of the lab as far as I'm aware.
https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice
Got a little wild over the holidays but typically just responds with "In Mice!" to all of the overwrought headlines about miracle cures.
I figure with the PV breakthroughs, we should soon have 200% efficient solar cells matched with 200% efficient batteries. :)
On the other hand, I think it's wonderful that solar and batteries might be getting the right kind of attention after regan era setbacks.