MIT researchers discover new energy source

[JoeTheJuggler]

I refer to flywheels as batteries all the time, as long as it's storing and reproducing electricity.

That's not the way the word "battery" is conventionally used.

I recognize a battery is a way to store and convert energy (specifically electrical energy), but that doesn't mean that anything that stores and coverts energy is a battery.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Another link:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/41978

 

[Dilb]

That's not the way the word "battery" is conventionally used.

I recognize a battery is a way to store and convert energy (specifically electrical energy), but that doesn't mean that anything that stores and coverts energy is a battery.

Sure it does. Just like people don't care that it's not necessarily an actual battery of voltaic piles, if people could go buy pre-spun Duracell flywheel-AAs, they'd call them batteries. The fact that all the batteries people experience on a day-to-day basis are chemical doesn't mean they need to be that way.

Fuel cells are even closer to common batteries, as they're still chemical reactions, the only difference is fuel cells aren't necessarily sealed. If it were possible, batteries wouldn't be completely sealed either, hence the (unsuccessful) history of air-metal batteries. Or you can reverse it, and have a sealed-up fuel cell that differs from an everyday battery only in that it uses carbon compounds rather than a metal.

If NASA is ok with called RTG's "nuclear batteries", I'm pretty confident people won't be bothered by fuel cell batteries either.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Leaving aside the impossibility of "creating" energy, how does your definition distinguish a fuel cell from a battery?

Best I can tell, both are devices that store and release energy. Both store energy in some kind of chemical form and convert it to some other form. I think the main difference is the type of chemical reaction that causes the conversion.

ETA: And as I read more, I would say a fuel cell is a specific kind of battery. So I take back my objection to calling this thing some type of battery. . .I think. I still don't know much about it--what is the fuel, and what exactly is a "thermopower wave"? Is it heat or electricity or something else?

Well, when I said "creates energy" I meant in the way a power plant "creates energy" by burning wood and turning that to electricity.. though I now realize that's just converting chemical energy into electricity, just the way a battery does. I was just giving "burning" reactions special treatment.

When I speak of batteries, I think of something that can be recharged by channeling current through it. This, and fuel cells, don't apply, since you need to insert fuel into them to charge them. Apparently this isn't the actual definition, though.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Batteries are not a source of energy. Fuel cells are not a source of energy. Gas tanks are not a source of energy. They are all just storage mechanisms.

So we are calling internal combustion engines long term solar batteries then? Relabel all fossil fuels as solar energy.

Fuel cells can be a way of using energy, if it is say using alcohol or methane then it is about were the methane comes from.