For many years, few metals drew bigger yawns from mining executives than lithium, a lightweight element long associated mostly with mood−stabilizing drugs.

Suddenly, the yawns are being replaced by eurekas. As awareness spreads that lithium is a crucial ingredient for hybrid and electric cars, a global hunt is under way for new supplies of the metal.

SAN DIEGO, California (AFP) − US researchers unveiled a vehicle Thursday that earns money for its driver instead of guzzling it up in gasoline and maintenance costs.

The converted Toyota Scion xB, shown at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science here, is the first electric car to be linked to a power grid and serve as a cash cow.

SANTA FE, N.M. − Rancher Jack Chatfield sees untapped value in the spaces that lie beneath New Mexico's dusty landscape. But he said the state needs to first decide who owns them.

Scientists are looking at underground fissures and caverns as places where carbon dioxide emissions captured from fossil fuel power plants can be stored. Carbon emissions are among the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. The underground space also could store compressed air as part of a process to generate clean electricity.

A "digital quantum battery" concept proposed by a physicist at the University of Illinois at Urbana−Champaign could provide a dramatic boost in energy storage capacity−−if it meets its theoretical potential once built.

The concept calls for billions of nanoscale capacitors and would rely on quantum effects−−the weird phenomena that occur at atomic size scales−−to boost energy storage. Conventional capacitors consist of one pair of macroscale conducting plates, or electrodes, separated by an insulating material. Applying a voltage creates an electric field in the insulating material, storing energy. But all such devices can only hold so much charge, beyond which arcing occurs between the electrodes, wasting the stored power.

Imagine wrapping paper that could be a gift in and of itself because it lights up with words like "Happy Birthday." That is one potential application of a new biodegradable battery made of cellulose, the stuff of paper.

Scientists worldwide are striving to develop thin, flexible, lightweight, inexpensive, environmentally friendly batteries made entirely from nonmetal parts. Among the most promising materials for these batteries are conducting polymers.

The trouble with hydrogen as an energy source is that, as a gas, it´s not very energy−dense, it can explode, and it´s tough to transport.

So for the last 5 years the Iowa Energy Center at Iowa State University has been holding annual conferences on the use of ammonia as a fuel, and some of that dreaming is now coming out of the lab.

Rechargeable zinc—air batteries can store three times the energy of a lithium—ion battery.
By Kevin Bullis Wednesday, October 28, 2009

A Swiss company says it has developed rechargeable zinc—air batteries that can store three times the energy of lithium ion batteries, by volume, while costing only half as much. ReVolt, of Staefa, Switzerland, plans to sell small "button cell" batteries for hearing aids starting next year and to incorporate its technology into ever larger batteries, introducing cell—phone and electric bicycle batteries in the next few years. It is also starting to develop large—format batteries for electric vehicles...(more)