{"id":283,"date":"2023-04-10T16:57:10","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T16:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/?p=283"},"modified":"2023-08-16T11:40:43","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T11:40:43","slug":"doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Doc Brown Would Be Proud (Part 2 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Doc Brown Would Be Proud (Part 2 of 2)\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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From the People, Planet, Profits & Projects Blog\nby Richard Maltzman, Dave Shirley\n<\/h5>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIn Part 1 of this post, I introduced you to (probably re-introduced you) to Dr. Emmett Brown, that slightly wacky scientist of Back To The Future fame. I referenced several articles, and in this one I\u2019ll continue with those and others, like this one from Clean Technica<\/a>, which opens like this:\n\n

\n\n“Researchers at MIT, led by professors Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang-Shao Horn, have discovered that mixing cement, carbon black, and water in certain proportions results in concrete that doubles as a supercapacitor <\/a>that is able to store electrical energy. I like how Professor Masic wraps it up.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u201cYou have these at least two millennia old materials (carbon black and cement) that, when you combine them in a specific manner, you come up with a conductive nanocomposite, and that\u2019s when things get really interesting.\u201d, he says.”<\/em>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSo, great. We have our \u2018conductive nano composite\u2019 \u2013 our own \u2018flux capacitor\u2019. Now what?\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWell, the best place to start is to remember that we\u2019re literally talking about something foundational. The foundation of a home, the foundation of a wind turbine, the foundation of a highway. If all of these things which were formerly structural are now sources of energy storage, well, that changes things.\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCharging your car just by driving on the road\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDoc Brown may have famously said, \u201cRoads, where we going we don\u2019t need roads\u201d. But we still do, and we need electric cars to be easily charged. How about if that was done by \u2026 just driving? This has been attempted in the past (see this article about Sweden\u2019s first swipe<\/a> at it), but these required installing electrical rails in the road. Forget that \u2013 with supercapacitors, the job can be much easier.\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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From an\u00a0article in New Zealand\u2019s DrivenCar Guide<\/a>\u00a0magazine:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The researchers propose an intriguing concept: integrating this technology within a concrete road could potentially facilitate on-the-go charging for electric vehicles, akin to the principles employed in wireless phone chargers. With this application, the road surface would become a battery while solar panels or windmills provide continuous power.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Don\u2019t get too excited yet, though.\u00a0 There is more project work (development projects!) needed to get this to scale.\u00a0 The scientists have only produced a button-sized version of the material.\u00a0 Can\u2019t drive too far on a button.<\/p>

Also adding more carbon black does increase the power storage capacity of the material, it also\u00a0decreases<\/em>\u00a0concrete strength. There will be research needed to find the \u2018sweet spot\u2019 \u2013 probably between 3 and 10 percent carbon black that retains enough of \u00a0the strength of the material while providing the supercapacitor properties.\u00a0 No good having your car charged but falling through a carbon black hole.<\/p>

Same deal for home foundations. It\u2019s great if your home can store energy down there, but not so good if it falls over.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThere are skeptics (and that\u2019s always a good thing especially when it comes to safety). Witness this article from Eric Worrall, in Waats Up With That:<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEric says:\n

\nMy concern is the application.\n

\nWhen capacitors fail they go with a bang. Old style televisions were notorious for this kind of failure, the loud bang which preceded the magic smoke was usually caused by capacitors suffering catastrophic dielectric failure, and releasing all their stored energy in a fraction of a second.\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat concerns me is, if a TV capacitor explodes, abruptly releasing a few joules of energy, you spill your beer and curse a bit. But if a 10KWh household super capacitor goes, that\u2019s 36 million joules of energy \u2013 equivalent to 8.6Kg of TNT<\/b>, enough to turn your house into a sizeable crater.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t10KW (10,000 watt hours) x 3600 seconds in an hour = 36,000,000 joules of energy\n
\n36,000,000 joules \/ 4,184 joules \/ gram = 8,604g = 8.6Kg of TNT<\/b>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEven more interesting, brittle materials like concrete are vulnerable to mechanical shock. So that 8.6Kg of TNT equivalent, enough to utterly destroy a normal house, could trigger a chain reaction of adjacent dielectric failures, resulting in thousands or even millions of houses abruptly releasing their stored energy. And that\u2019s not even considering the energy storage requirements of even greater concentrations of energy, like high-rise apartments and office buildings.\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The failure of 115 adjacent household storage super capacitors holding 10KWh could release a kiloton of force \u2013 think the\u00a0Beirut explosion in 2020<\/a>.\u00a0 Worse, each additional household energy storage system recruited into the chain reaction and\u00a0 explosion would increase the risk to the next house.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0I\u2019m thinking, that would not be a good day to visit town.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Of course, all this risk could be mitigated by using expensive spring or rubber loaded mounts and shock resistant supports, to minimise the risk of the house foundation capacitor detonating because of an adjacent explosion. I\u2019m sure no building contractor would be tempted to cut corners and use cheap, substandard shock protection components, right?<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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See an example of a capacitor blowing up in slow motion here (and imagine this scaled up by Doc Brown levels of magnitude).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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This type of advocacy for \u2018what could go wrong\u2019 is so needed, and it\u2019s best to consider this NOW, not after the first 10,000 kM of roadway and 300,000 homes are built.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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So: more \u00a0project work to do, but this is quite certainly a breakthrough that will lead us\u00a0Back to a green Future.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doc Brown Would Be Proud (Part 2 of 2) From the People, Planet, Profits & Projects Blog by Richard Maltzman, Dave Shirley In Part 1 of this post, I introduced you to (probably re-introduced you) to Dr. Emmett Brown, that slightly wacky scientist of Back To The Future fame. I referenced several articles, and in this one I\u2019ll continue with those and others, like this one from Clean Technica, which opens like this: “Researchers at MIT, led by professors Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang-Shao Horn, have discovered that mixing cement, carbon black, and water in certain proportions results in concrete that doubles as a supercapacitor that is able to store electrical energy. I like how Professor Masic wraps it up.\u201cYou have these at least two millennia old materials (carbon black and cement) that, when you combine them in a specific manner, you come up with a conductive nanocomposite, and that\u2019s when things get really interesting.\u201d, he says.” So, great. We have our \u2018conductive nano composite\u2019 \u2013 our own \u2018flux capacitor\u2019. Now what? Well, the best place to start is to remember that we\u2019re literally talking about something foundational. The foundation of a home, the foundation of a wind turbine, the foundation of a highway. If all of these things which were formerly structural are now sources of energy storage, well, that changes things. Charging your car just by driving on the road Doc Brown may have famously said, \u201cRoads, where we going we don\u2019t need roads\u201d. But we still do, and we need electric cars to be easily charged. How about if that was done by \u2026 just driving? This has been attempted in the past (see this article about Sweden\u2019s first swipe at it), but these required installing electrical rails in the road. Forget that \u2013 with supercapacitors, the job can be much easier. From an\u00a0article in New Zealand\u2019s DrivenCar Guide\u00a0magazine: The researchers propose an intriguing concept: integrating this technology within a concrete road could potentially facilitate on-the-go charging for electric vehicles, akin to the principles employed in wireless phone chargers. With this application, the road surface would become a battery while solar panels or windmills provide continuous power. Don\u2019t get too excited yet, though.\u00a0 There is more project work (development projects!) needed to get this to scale.\u00a0 The scientists have only produced a button-sized version of the material.\u00a0 Can\u2019t drive too far on a button. Also adding more carbon black does increase the power storage capacity of the material, it also\u00a0decreases\u00a0concrete strength. There will be research needed to find the \u2018sweet spot\u2019 \u2013 probably between 3 and 10 percent carbon black that retains enough of \u00a0the strength of the material while providing the supercapacitor properties.\u00a0 No good having your car charged but falling through a carbon black hole. Same deal for home foundations. It\u2019s great if your home can store energy down there, but not so good if it falls over. There are skeptics (and that\u2019s always a good thing especially when it comes to safety). Witness this article from Eric Worrall, in Waats Up With That:Eric says: My concern is the application. When capacitors fail they go with a bang. Old style televisions were notorious for this kind of failure, the loud bang which preceded the magic smoke was usually caused by capacitors suffering catastrophic dielectric failure, and releasing all their stored energy in a fraction of a second. What concerns me is, if a TV capacitor explodes, abruptly releasing a few joules of energy, you spill your beer and curse a bit. But if a 10KWh household super capacitor goes, that\u2019s 36 million joules of energy \u2013 equivalent to 8.6Kg of TNT, enough to turn your house into a sizeable crater.10KW (10,000 watt hours) x 3600 seconds in an hour = 36,000,000 joules of energy 36,000,000 joules \/ 4,184 joules \/ gram = 8,604g = 8.6Kg of TNT Even more interesting, brittle materials like concrete are vulnerable to mechanical shock. So that 8.6Kg of TNT equivalent, enough to utterly destroy a normal house, could trigger a chain reaction of adjacent dielectric failures, resulting in thousands or even millions of houses abruptly releasing their stored energy. And that\u2019s not even considering the energy storage requirements of even greater concentrations of energy, like high-rise apartments and office buildings. The failure of 115 adjacent household storage super capacitors holding 10KWh could release a kiloton of force \u2013 think the\u00a0Beirut explosion in 2020.\u00a0 Worse, each additional household energy storage system recruited into the chain reaction and\u00a0 explosion would increase the risk to the next house. \u00a0I\u2019m thinking, that would not be a good day to visit town. Of course, all this risk could be mitigated by using expensive spring or rubber loaded mounts and shock resistant supports, to minimise the risk of the house foundation capacitor detonating because of an adjacent explosion. I\u2019m sure no building contractor would be tempted to cut corners and use cheap, substandard shock protection components, right? See an example of a capacitor blowing up in slow motion here (and imagine this scaled up by Doc Brown levels of magnitude). https:\/\/youtu.be\/6WUxgmMDts4 This type of advocacy for \u2018what could go wrong\u2019 is so needed, and it\u2019s best to consider this NOW, not after the first 10,000 kM of roadway and 300,000 homes are built. So: more \u00a0project work to do, but this is quite certainly a breakthrough that will lead us\u00a0Back to a green Future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_canvas","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pmiwbc-blog"],"yoast_head":"\nDoc Brown Would Be Proud (Part 2 of 2) - PMI West Bengal Chapter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Doc Brown Would Be Proud (Part 2 of 2) - PMI West Bengal Chapter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Doc Brown Would Be Proud (Part 2 of 2) From the People, Planet, Profits & Projects Blog by Richard Maltzman, Dave Shirley In Part 1 of this post, I introduced you to (probably re-introduced you) to Dr. Emmett Brown, that slightly wacky scientist of Back To The Future fame. I referenced several articles, and in this one I\u2019ll continue with those and others, like this one from Clean Technica, which opens like this: “Researchers at MIT, led by professors Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang-Shao Horn, have discovered that mixing cement, carbon black, and water in certain proportions results in concrete that doubles as a supercapacitor that is able to store electrical energy. I like how Professor Masic wraps it up.\u201cYou have these at least two millennia old materials (carbon black and cement) that, when you combine them in a specific manner, you come up with a conductive nanocomposite, and that\u2019s when things get really interesting.\u201d, he says.” So, great. We have our \u2018conductive nano composite\u2019 \u2013 our own \u2018flux capacitor\u2019. Now what? Well, the best place to start is to remember that we\u2019re literally talking about something foundational. The foundation of a home, the foundation of a wind turbine, the foundation of a highway. If all of these things which were formerly structural are now sources of energy storage, well, that changes things. Charging your car just by driving on the road Doc Brown may have famously said, \u201cRoads, where we going we don\u2019t need roads\u201d. But we still do, and we need electric cars to be easily charged. How about if that was done by \u2026 just driving? This has been attempted in the past (see this article about Sweden\u2019s first swipe at it), but these required installing electrical rails in the road. Forget that \u2013 with supercapacitors, the job can be much easier. From an\u00a0article in New Zealand\u2019s DrivenCar Guide\u00a0magazine: The researchers propose an intriguing concept: integrating this technology within a concrete road could potentially facilitate on-the-go charging for electric vehicles, akin to the principles employed in wireless phone chargers. With this application, the road surface would become a battery while solar panels or windmills provide continuous power. Don\u2019t get too excited yet, though.\u00a0 There is more project work (development projects!) needed to get this to scale.\u00a0 The scientists have only produced a button-sized version of the material.\u00a0 Can\u2019t drive too far on a button. Also adding more carbon black does increase the power storage capacity of the material, it also\u00a0decreases\u00a0concrete strength. There will be research needed to find the \u2018sweet spot\u2019 \u2013 probably between 3 and 10 percent carbon black that retains enough of \u00a0the strength of the material while providing the supercapacitor properties.\u00a0 No good having your car charged but falling through a carbon black hole. Same deal for home foundations. It\u2019s great if your home can store energy down there, but not so good if it falls over. There are skeptics (and that\u2019s always a good thing especially when it comes to safety). Witness this article from Eric Worrall, in Waats Up With That:Eric says: My concern is the application. When capacitors fail they go with a bang. Old style televisions were notorious for this kind of failure, the loud bang which preceded the magic smoke was usually caused by capacitors suffering catastrophic dielectric failure, and releasing all their stored energy in a fraction of a second. What concerns me is, if a TV capacitor explodes, abruptly releasing a few joules of energy, you spill your beer and curse a bit. But if a 10KWh household super capacitor goes, that\u2019s 36 million joules of energy \u2013 equivalent to 8.6Kg of TNT, enough to turn your house into a sizeable crater.10KW (10,000 watt hours) x 3600 seconds in an hour = 36,000,000 joules of energy 36,000,000 joules \/ 4,184 joules \/ gram = 8,604g = 8.6Kg of TNT Even more interesting, brittle materials like concrete are vulnerable to mechanical shock. So that 8.6Kg of TNT equivalent, enough to utterly destroy a normal house, could trigger a chain reaction of adjacent dielectric failures, resulting in thousands or even millions of houses abruptly releasing their stored energy. And that\u2019s not even considering the energy storage requirements of even greater concentrations of energy, like high-rise apartments and office buildings. The failure of 115 adjacent household storage super capacitors holding 10KWh could release a kiloton of force \u2013 think the\u00a0Beirut explosion in 2020.\u00a0 Worse, each additional household energy storage system recruited into the chain reaction and\u00a0 explosion would increase the risk to the next house. \u00a0I\u2019m thinking, that would not be a good day to visit town. Of course, all this risk could be mitigated by using expensive spring or rubber loaded mounts and shock resistant supports, to minimise the risk of the house foundation capacitor detonating because of an adjacent explosion. I\u2019m sure no building contractor would be tempted to cut corners and use cheap, substandard shock protection components, right? See an example of a capacitor blowing up in slow motion here (and imagine this scaled up by Doc Brown levels of magnitude). https:\/\/youtu.be\/6WUxgmMDts4 This type of advocacy for \u2018what could go wrong\u2019 is so needed, and it\u2019s best to consider this NOW, not after the first 10,000 kM of roadway and 300,000 homes are built. So: more \u00a0project work to do, but this is quite certainly a breakthrough that will lead us\u00a0Back to a green Future.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PMI West Bengal Chapter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-04-10T16:57:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-08-16T11:40:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/A1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"542\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"543\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dhruba\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dhruba\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dhruba\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/#\/schema\/person\/f6ef1a1888f3db594e95fd40238b4f7b\"},\"headline\":\"Doc Brown Would Be Proud (Part 2 of 2)\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-04-10T16:57:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-08-16T11:40:43+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/\"},\"wordCount\":906,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/A1.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"PMIWBC-Blog\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/\",\"name\":\"Doc Brown Would Be Proud (Part 2 of 2) - 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PMI West Bengal Chapter","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Doc Brown Would Be Proud (Part 2 of 2) - PMI West Bengal Chapter","og_description":"Doc Brown Would Be Proud (Part 2 of 2) From the People, Planet, Profits & Projects Blog by Richard Maltzman, Dave Shirley In Part 1 of this post, I introduced you to (probably re-introduced you) to Dr. Emmett Brown, that slightly wacky scientist of Back To The Future fame. I referenced several articles, and in this one I\u2019ll continue with those and others, like this one from Clean Technica, which opens like this: “Researchers at MIT, led by professors Franz-Josef Ulm, Admir Masic, and Yang-Shao Horn, have discovered that mixing cement, carbon black, and water in certain proportions results in concrete that doubles as a supercapacitor that is able to store electrical energy. I like how Professor Masic wraps it up.\u201cYou have these at least two millennia old materials (carbon black and cement) that, when you combine them in a specific manner, you come up with a conductive nanocomposite, and that\u2019s when things get really interesting.\u201d, he says.” So, great. We have our \u2018conductive nano composite\u2019 \u2013 our own \u2018flux capacitor\u2019. Now what? Well, the best place to start is to remember that we\u2019re literally talking about something foundational. The foundation of a home, the foundation of a wind turbine, the foundation of a highway. If all of these things which were formerly structural are now sources of energy storage, well, that changes things. Charging your car just by driving on the road Doc Brown may have famously said, \u201cRoads, where we going we don\u2019t need roads\u201d. But we still do, and we need electric cars to be easily charged. How about if that was done by \u2026 just driving? This has been attempted in the past (see this article about Sweden\u2019s first swipe at it), but these required installing electrical rails in the road. Forget that \u2013 with supercapacitors, the job can be much easier. From an\u00a0article in New Zealand\u2019s DrivenCar Guide\u00a0magazine: The researchers propose an intriguing concept: integrating this technology within a concrete road could potentially facilitate on-the-go charging for electric vehicles, akin to the principles employed in wireless phone chargers. With this application, the road surface would become a battery while solar panels or windmills provide continuous power. Don\u2019t get too excited yet, though.\u00a0 There is more project work (development projects!) needed to get this to scale.\u00a0 The scientists have only produced a button-sized version of the material.\u00a0 Can\u2019t drive too far on a button. Also adding more carbon black does increase the power storage capacity of the material, it also\u00a0decreases\u00a0concrete strength. There will be research needed to find the \u2018sweet spot\u2019 \u2013 probably between 3 and 10 percent carbon black that retains enough of \u00a0the strength of the material while providing the supercapacitor properties.\u00a0 No good having your car charged but falling through a carbon black hole. Same deal for home foundations. It\u2019s great if your home can store energy down there, but not so good if it falls over. There are skeptics (and that\u2019s always a good thing especially when it comes to safety). Witness this article from Eric Worrall, in Waats Up With That:Eric says: My concern is the application. When capacitors fail they go with a bang. Old style televisions were notorious for this kind of failure, the loud bang which preceded the magic smoke was usually caused by capacitors suffering catastrophic dielectric failure, and releasing all their stored energy in a fraction of a second. What concerns me is, if a TV capacitor explodes, abruptly releasing a few joules of energy, you spill your beer and curse a bit. But if a 10KWh household super capacitor goes, that\u2019s 36 million joules of energy \u2013 equivalent to 8.6Kg of TNT, enough to turn your house into a sizeable crater.10KW (10,000 watt hours) x 3600 seconds in an hour = 36,000,000 joules of energy 36,000,000 joules \/ 4,184 joules \/ gram = 8,604g = 8.6Kg of TNT Even more interesting, brittle materials like concrete are vulnerable to mechanical shock. So that 8.6Kg of TNT equivalent, enough to utterly destroy a normal house, could trigger a chain reaction of adjacent dielectric failures, resulting in thousands or even millions of houses abruptly releasing their stored energy. And that\u2019s not even considering the energy storage requirements of even greater concentrations of energy, like high-rise apartments and office buildings. The failure of 115 adjacent household storage super capacitors holding 10KWh could release a kiloton of force \u2013 think the\u00a0Beirut explosion in 2020.\u00a0 Worse, each additional household energy storage system recruited into the chain reaction and\u00a0 explosion would increase the risk to the next house. \u00a0I\u2019m thinking, that would not be a good day to visit town. Of course, all this risk could be mitigated by using expensive spring or rubber loaded mounts and shock resistant supports, to minimise the risk of the house foundation capacitor detonating because of an adjacent explosion. I\u2019m sure no building contractor would be tempted to cut corners and use cheap, substandard shock protection components, right? See an example of a capacitor blowing up in slow motion here (and imagine this scaled up by Doc Brown levels of magnitude). https:\/\/youtu.be\/6WUxgmMDts4 This type of advocacy for \u2018what could go wrong\u2019 is so needed, and it\u2019s best to consider this NOW, not after the first 10,000 kM of roadway and 300,000 homes are built. So: more \u00a0project work to do, but this is quite certainly a breakthrough that will lead us\u00a0Back to a green Future.","og_url":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/","og_site_name":"PMI West Bengal Chapter","article_published_time":"2023-04-10T16:57:10+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-08-16T11:40:43+00:00","og_image":[{"width":542,"height":543,"url":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/A1.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Dhruba","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dhruba","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/"},"author":{"name":"Dhruba","@id":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/#\/schema\/person\/f6ef1a1888f3db594e95fd40238b4f7b"},"headline":"Doc Brown Would Be Proud (Part 2 of 2)","datePublished":"2023-04-10T16:57:10+00:00","dateModified":"2023-08-16T11:40:43+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/"},"wordCount":906,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/A1.png","articleSection":["PMIWBC-Blog"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/","url":"https:\/\/pmiwbc.org\/doc-brown-would-be-proud-part-2-of-2\/","name":"Doc Brown Would Be Proud (Part 2 of 2) - 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