Comments on: A Battery With a Million Times More Energy Than Chemical Batteries http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2009/10/12/a-battery-with-a-million-times-more-energy-than-chemical-batteries/ News and Views for Making and Saving Money in New Energy and Fuel Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:28:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: donb http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2009/10/12/a-battery-with-a-million-times-more-energy-than-chemical-batteries/comment-page-1/#comment-33996 donb Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:03:20 +0000 http://newenergyandfuel.com/?p=3277#comment-33996 The original posting states: <i>Brian Wang at nextbigfuture.com has dug into this and says with another quote from Kwon, “The radioisotope battery can provide power density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chemical batteries.”</i> It should really state that the radioisotope battery can provide ENERGY density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chamical batteries. Energy and power are related, but are not the same thing. Energy is how much work is done. Power is how fast you do that work. For example, you can drive a car up a hill. It takes a given amount of energy to do that. To drive it up the hill quickly takes a lot of power. Driving up the hill slowly takes less power. But in both cases, getting the car up the hill represents the same amount of energy. The original posting states:
Brian Wang at nextbigfuture.com has dug into this and says with another quote from Kwon, “The radioisotope battery can provide power density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chemical batteries.”

It should really state that the radioisotope battery can provide ENERGY density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chamical batteries.

Energy and power are related, but are not the same thing. Energy is how much work is done. Power is how fast you do that work. For example, you can drive a car up a hill. It takes a given amount of energy to do that. To drive it up the hill quickly takes a lot of power. Driving up the hill slowly takes less power. But in both cases, getting the car up the hill represents the same amount of energy.

]]>