Hybrid future?

So not directly about Hybrid's, but the talk of Li-ion battery packs might give one pause...

"Dell plans to recall more than four million laptop batteries with components from Sony that can pose a fire hazard. It is the largest PC-related recall in Consumer Product Safety Commission history...

Dell's move follows a series of smaller recalls of lithium-ion batteries, and comes at a time of intense scrutiny of the battery technology -- particularly on airplane flights. Now that lithium-ion-powered laptops and MP3 players have become favorite carry-ons for many air travelers, transportation officials are evaluating the safety risks posed on airliners and whether tighter restrictions are required. The dangers of battery-related fires in laptops aboard airlines were the subject of a page-one article in The Wall Street Journal yesterday."

I do trust that the problems will be worked out, but no easy answer.


More Here: Need for Battery Power Runs Into Basic Hurdles of Science - New York Times

"But scientists are running into some basic hurdles of chemistry and physics. The more energy they store in a small package, the more volatile and dangerous that package becomes.

The volatility of batteries in laptops, and those powering millions of portable consumer devices from cellphones to power drills, was made apparent Monday with Dell’s recall of 4.1 million laptop batteries. Dell said the batteries, made by Sony, could catch fire because of a problem in the manufacturing process.

Though the chance of a flaming notebook is small, the number of incidents involving burning batteries is rising each year because there are so many more devices using small and powerful power sources.

There is another pressing reason for the quest for improvements: battery-powered cars. An electric car needs a power source that is 2,000 times as powerful as a laptop battery. “That size would be extremely dangerous,” said Sanjeev Mukerjee, a chemistry and chemical biology professor at Northeastern University. “This technology has a downside, and that is that it is very sensitive to how it is manufactured.”

The potential for fire in a lithium-ion battery is a result of its chemical composition. Contained in that small package are all the elements needed for a fierce blaze: carbon, oxygen and a flammable fluid. The battery is made of a thin layer of lithium cobalt oxide, which serves as the cathode, and a strip of graphite, the anode. These are separated by a porous insulator and surrounded by fluid, a lithium salt electrolyte that happens to be highly flammable."