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A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that she says could last 400 years

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going." ⚡️⚡️

Steve Zylius/University of California, Irvine.

UCI doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai has developed a nanowire-based technology that allows lithium-ion batteries to be recharged hundreds of thousands of times.

There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

A team of researchers at UCI had been experimenting with nanowires for potential use in batteries, but found that over time the thin, fragile wires would break down and crack after too many charging cycles. A charge cycle is when a battery goes from completely full to completely empty and back to full again.

But one day, on a whim, Thai coated a set of gold nanowires in manganese dioxide and a Plexiglas-like electrolyte gel.

batteries, renewable energy, energy, renewable batteries, rechargeable batteries, innovationBatteries being recycled at WRWA, London. Nov ‘21Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

"She started to cycle these gel capacitors, and that's when we got the surprise," said Reginald Penner, chair of the university's chemistry department. "She said, 'this thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it's still going.' She came back a few days later and said 'it's been cycling for 30,000 cycles.' That kept going on for a month."

This discovery is mind-blowing because the average laptop battery lasts 300 to 500 charge cycles. The nanobattery developed at UCI made it though 200,000 cycles in three months. That would extend the life of the average laptop battery by about 400 years. The rest of the device would have probably gone kaput decades before the battery, but the implications for a battery that that lasts hundreds of years are pretty startling.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

“Mya was playing around, and she coated this whole thing with a very thin gel layer and started to cycle it,” said Penner added. “She discovered that just by using this gel, she could cycle it hundreds of thousands of times without losing any capacity.”

“That was crazy,” he added, “because these things typically die in dramatic fashion after 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 cycles at most. ”"The big picture is that there may be a very simple way to stabilize nanowires of the type that we studied," Penner said. "If this turns out to be generally true, it would be a great advance for the community." Not bad for just fooling around in the laboratory.

Since her discovery, Mya Le Thai has gone on to a successful career as the Principal Scientist with the Enevate Corporation,

This article originally appeared eight years ago.

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Heroes

These two posts from Arnold capture why we need clean energy now. Not in the future. Now.

The Governator says fossil fuels aren't worth 7 million sick. We don't think so either.

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League of Conservation Voters

In case you missed it: Arnold Schwarzenegger, former governor of California and star action movies like "Terminator" and "Predator," dropped some truth bombs on Facebook Monday morning.

"I don't give a **** if we agree about climate change."

That's the title of a Facebook post by Schwarzenegger. He titled it that because, even if everything scientists are saying about climate change is completely wrong (which it's not), we should already be moving to clean energy anyway.

"Do you believe it is acceptable that 7 million people die every year from pollution?" he asks. Burning fossil fuels creates pollution, sickening and killing millions of people every year.

In China, citizens spend millions on masks, like this one, hoping to avoid air pollution. Image from Nicolò Lazzati/Flickr.

"Do you believe coal and oil will be the fuels of the future?," Schwarzenegger asks, “Besides the fact that fossil fuels destroy our lungs, everyone agrees that eventually they will run out. What's your plan then?"

As the actual definition of "renewable" would suggest, renewables won't run out. And they're usually a good deal, too — California's energy investments are already paying off.

"I don't want to be the last investor in Blockbuster as Netflix emerged," he said.

Schwarzenegger lays out some realities about climate change in his second post, a Q&A video.

Image via Arnold Schwarzenegger/Facebook.

The video features Arnold standing in front of the Arc de Triomphe, taking questions from fans. Arnold was in Paris along with the current governor of California, Jerry Brown, to give a speech at the COP21 climate change talks.

Arnold fielded these questions about subjects like how teachers can explain climate change to their students and what the average person can do about climate change, while also warning against finger-pointing and divisions both internationally and within U.S. politics.


During his tenure as governor of California, Arnold worked with businesses and legislators to incentivize clean energy. Image from Bloom Energy/Flickr.

"I don't see it as a political issue," he said. "I think the Democrats and Republicans have to work together on this. It's a people's issue."

But the best was what he'd say to the people who say fixing climate change is impossible.

"I have heard people say that it's impossible," said Arnold.

"I've heard this my whole life. I've heard 'it's impossible' my whole life about everything. If I wanted to go to America — they said it's impossible. When I wanted to be a body-building champion — they said it's impossible. When I wanted to be a movie star — they said it's impossible. When I ran for governor — they said it's impossible. So I heard it all the time."

"So I took the words 'impossible,' 'can't be done,' and 'no' out of my vocabulary," said Arnold.

Image via Arnold Schwarzenegger/Facebook.

"If we all work together we can solve this problem."

It's a great video that's well worth a watch. If you agree with Arnold that clean energy just makes sense — that fossil fuels aren't worth an estimated 7 million sick — sign this petition from the League of Conservation Voters which tells Congress to spur fossil fuels and support the EPA's Clean Power Plan.

Heroes

What difference can one person really make in fighting climate change? More than you might think.

If we want a sustainable future, we need to stand up and demand action at the Paris Climate Summit.

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Unilever and the United Nations

Hey! You! (yes that's right, you)

You're just like me — a well-intentioned, well-informed, socially responsible, and ridiculously good-looking person who believes in a better world and is also completely and utterly overwhelmed by anything and everything relating to climate change and the environment.

It's cool. I get it. It's easy to feel paralyzed when you're faced with things like this...


And this...

And a 31st U.S. state that looks like this:

While everyone's dancing about numbers like this...

...but no one ever taught you the choreography.

After all, you're just one person (...right?). How can one person have an impact on such a worldwide problem?

Everyone's all like, "Renewable Energy! No more fossil fuels! Reduce your carbon footprint!" and you're over here like, "I'm trying but I can't afford the down payment on a hybrid car, and I still can't figure out what goes into each different recycling bin at my office!"

Even this frog knows that the struggle is real.

The start of a solution is simple: RAISE YOUR VOICE.

Right now, the leaders of nearly 200 nations are meeting in Paris to find a way to change the world. But nothing will happen unless the people — the masses, the all-of-us, like everyone — demands climate action.

Here's the deal: We all came into a world where things like gasoline and plastic are easy, cheap, and convenient. That's the way things work because that's the way that things have been working because someone made a profit once and said, "Yeah this works!" and the rest of the world just went along with it.

OK, so maybe that's a slightly oversimplified version of post-industrial world history.

The point is that renewable energy and cleaner living will actually be easier, cheaper, more convenient, and ultimately better for our health and the health of this floating space rock we call home — but we need every informed, responsible, intelligent citizen of the world to make it happen.


The entire planet has to change The Way Things Are Done and find A Better Way. But that will only happen if we speak up and demand it.

You can make sure your voice is heard by signing this petition to demand climate action at the Paris Climate Summit.

Once that's done, you can share the video below — and tell everyone you know to do the same.

See? I told you it was easy.

Heroes

Ellen never gave up on her dreams. And our dream for the Earth isn't unrealistic either.

100% clean energy may be a big dream, but we're ready to dream big.

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The Wilderness Society

It takes guts to dream big.

Because when you're willing to take a stand, it means you actually care about something. And it's scary — to be open like that. It means placing a part of yourself on the line. It's easier to give in to doubts or peer pressure. To hide.

But we've always loved the people who weren't willing to settle. The dreamers.

We look up to them because they've felt what we've felt — in every job interview, or school application, or confession of love — they felt those same doubts and beat them back. They're the people who inspire us to do what seems impossible.

But, what if Gandhi had gotten cold feet?

Image via Don't Panic London/YouTube.

What if Dr. King never had a dream?

Image via Don't Panic London/YouTube.

What if Ellen DeGeneres had stage fright?

Image via Don't Panic London/YouTube.

The extraordinary IS achievable.

As J.K. Rowling says, "We don't need magic to transform our world." Everyone has the power to do something amazing.

That's what this new video from creative agency Don't Panic and the Here Now project wants people to realize.

Because some people say 100% clean energy by 2050 is impossible.

Could the world really be powered by completely renewable sources? "There are a lot of people who say it is not possible," Stanford professor Mark Jacobson told Upworthy. He's out to prove them wrong.

Jacobson and his team weren't involved in Don't Panic's video, but they havecreated a road map to 100% clean energy for 139 individual countries. Jacobson used today's energy data — projected forward to 2050 — and customized the plan for each country based on their natural resources.

Volcanic Iceland, for example, could use a lot of geothermal, while sunny Italy could get more than half of their power from solar plants.

Iceland's famous Blue Lagoon spa is actually run off heated water from a nearby geothermal plant. Image from Vestman/Flickr.

In fact, many countries are already well underway to becoming carbon free.

People should feel confident that 100% clean energy is achievable, according to Jacobson. And moving to a carbon-free energy system could not only reduce pollution and emissions, but also stabilize energy prices, create jobs, make each country largely energy independent, and bring energy to those without access.

"In the end we'll have a system that's a lot cleaner, a lot safer, and our society should be more stable," he added.

But to achieve this, we still need the same determination and heart that Gandhi and King had.

From Nov. 30 to Dec. 11, 2015, world leaders will be meeting in Paris to try to finally solve the climate change crisis.

We need to show them that we're ready to dream big.

Watch Don't Panic's full video here:

The Wilderness Society also has a dream – to keep southern Australia's Great Australian Bight pristine and free of deep-sea oil rigs. Sign their petition to keep BP at bay and protect this untouched stretch of marine wilderness.

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