The Idiots Guide
Sometimes it's about "ADULTING" enough for the day, and other times it's about Keeping a job, Feeding the family, Educating the kids, and Buying the stuff.
Most of us were taught how to read, write, and math good.
But never taught how to file taxes, change a tire, or cook a meal.
How in the world have we survived?
Well, have no fear, the Idiots are here to guide you.
We don't know much more about all the stuff but we might be just a little further down the road than you.
Make no mistake, most of our advice is more like don't try this at home.
Hope it helps!
The Idiots Guide
What If The Battery Never Existed? Ep73 TIG
Could a simple clay pot be the ancestor of modern battery technology? Embark on a journey through time as we unravel the captivating history and evolution of batteries, starting with Alessandro Volta's groundbreaking voltaic pile. We'll uncover tales of ancient devices that hint at electricity's early discovery and revisit quirky experiments with frog legs that baffled early scientists. This exploration underscores the battery's indispensable role in shaping innovations like the light bulb, transforming how we illuminate our world.
Imagine electric cars ruling the roads long before gasoline engines. We shed light on this misconception, tracing the pivotal role of lead-acid batteries in the early automotive era. As we explore Henry Ford's revolutionary assembly line, discover how mass production and the availability of fuel propelled internal combustion engines to dominance. This discussion not only highlights the intersection of history, capitalism, and marketing in technological advancement but also challenges our understanding of transportation's evolution.
Fast forward to the future, where nuclear diamond batteries promise a power revolution. We dive into the intriguing potential of these long-lasting energy sources and their implications for technology and sustainability. Reflecting on a world without batteries, we ponder the crucial role these powerhouses play in our daily lives, from communication to medical devices. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation celebrating the unyielding impact of battery technology on modern society.
Today on the Idiot's Guide, we're talking about the story of one of the most electrifying inventions of all time the battery. Now imagine your life without it no smartphones, no electric vehicles, no backup power for emergencies. Batteries are everywhere, powering the devices and systems that define modern living. But where did it all begin and how did we go from Alessandro Volta's early experiments with frogs to today's high-capacity lithium-ion batteries? In this episode, we'll explore the invention of the battery, its evolution over time and how this unassuming innovation has transformed society. So plug in, let's get charged.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, adam Richardson, aka the Profit Hacker, and I'm joined by the man in charge, mr Joe Haslam. Welcome to the Idiot's Guide. So a lot of what I I guess I was thinking about the scope of this episode and, like the, the scope of batteries in our society and about everything that batteries goes into. And I have to say that the inventor of the battery has like. It's surprising to me how few people actually know, because this dude like more than the light bulb. This is the reason the light bulb can even exist in the first place. Like, the generation of electricity is ultimately what you're talking about here, because a battery in and of itself is a self-contained generator of electricity. Ultimately, that's what it was.
Speaker 2:Or a holder of an electrical charge.
Speaker 1:Okay that's fair, but in the sense of how it creates the electricity, okay, that's fair, but in the sense of how it creates the electricity, that's essentially the original development of the battery, or the existence of it, or what they call the voltaic pile. So 1800, beginning of the 1800s, is really that first true battery? And essentially the voltaic pile is what's called. Basically it's this alternating discs, so it's zinc and copper alternating and you know, or other metals, if if you had, but separated by a cloth material and then soaked uh, or paper that's soaked in salt water and then essentially, as that's going through, because of the contending metals that you're working with and the salt water solution, I don't know the elemental compound that would basically, in that point, generate electricity, do you?
Speaker 2:but it creates an electrical current the NACL, this this sodium chloride water.
Speaker 2:So, so I'm not going to go into how electricity works, but essentially the reason the salt water and all that stuff works is because you have free electrons, that because of the differing metals, they're doing a pull and a push of those electrons that are freely moving through the salt water and then you get into a lot of that. You know again, I'm not going to go into how electricity works, uh, in a battery, but that's the idea is that you are pushing the electrons through and the movement of the electrons is electricity, okay, and so that's when you've got those free electrons from the salt water. That is then what is creating that that move, or capable of taking those electrons and moving it through this, uh, I don't want to say opposing metal, because opposing would be more magnetic features, but it's moving it through the different metal plates.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm assuming the atomic makeup of each metal helps with some level of why it's conducting electricity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you have to have certain metals.
Speaker 1:Not any metal will work with this, and that's because the way, like I got this tinfoil that's Reynolds and this one from Kroger and it's not working.
Speaker 2:It's because of the way that the metal is interacting with the release of the electrons and the attraction. And um, oh, why can't I think of the opposite of attraction?
Speaker 1:um, uh, I just think about when opposites attract. I don't know why, but that's where I went.
Speaker 2:That moves the electrons through it, and the movement of the electrons detracts the electricity.
Speaker 1:Okay, essentially. So what happened with the voltaic pile is they connected a wire to it and found it flowed a current through that wire. Yep, what's interesting is, as I was doing a little bit of research on this, they, they, they originally before kind of this earlier experiments of development of of electricity, just the current of electricity, where they'd use frog uh legs, frog parts, and they would connect them through different like series points and then run, like a vinegar based solution over it, and they believed that electricity at this time was being developed because of the muscular makeup of the frog legs and that's why it was doing that, which is not it. But that's essentially the earlier formation of how they were trying to find electricity. Is that in nature there's a level of electrical current flowing through, at this point, frog legs? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Now we credit him as the developer of the battery. Unfortunately, there are a lot of evidences in history that, as is usually the case in the East, they discovered these things long before we discovered it in the West and had been using it for a long time. So in clay pots they had different metals and different liquids and they were able to generate a very, very small, but a voltage through those pots. Uh, and they believe those were the original batteries. I'm curious what they were powering. They don't know.
Speaker 1:Um, cell phone, there was chargers.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it was the time traveler going back. He needed to power up his cell phone.
Speaker 2:I think I can make a voltaic pile by yeah and so, uh, there's actually a really great mythbusters episode on this in the early mythbusters um where they try to recreate the um technology. But that was, more realistically, probably the first development. It just never made it into mainstream technology to be used across the globe, and so it's these. You know, like we talked about last time with you know, the great marketing capacity. That's what makes technology usable, not the technology itself, the marketability of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think what's interesting is like this was a foundational piece to like the development of electricity in general, giving giving the ability to. You know, have scientific experiments, you know, and really a lot of other electric discoveries that are in our history, much like the telegraph. On our next episode we'll go in a lot more detail about the telegraph and its evolution from there. But, um, or you know, even even in the sense of earlier motor vehicles and to this day we still, all motor vehicles have to have a battery. Even electric vehicles are batteries. You know so batteries have been an essential ingredient in pretty much everything in our modern history's development, you know so, even things that run on electricity.
Speaker 2:So even though our camera here is plugged in, there is still a battery in that camera.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Everything that we use has some kind of battery. Even when we talk about solar power, solar farms, we are not just directly getting the power into the solar panels and then that goes directly out. What they're doing with that is they are building, they're taking that electricity and putting it into batteries for use later when we uh have uh power plants, anything like this. They are putting that into batteries so that when there are surge times, when there's a greater need for it, they can't just I mean they do, but they can't just immediately increase the capacity of what they're doing, how much coal they're burning, how much whatever they're doing is being done. They take all that and they put it into batteries and that way it keeps it stable. Otherwise you've got huge spikes in energy output and then huge troughs in energy output, and that is inefficient and you can't use that.
Speaker 1:And so that's why, when you talk about you know, the ability to use this, you know, and the movement forward for any technology, batteries are necessary in order to balance the usage of the electricity for everyday use you know, one of the things as far as this, like the impact of batteries on our society, has really revolutionized basically anything with electrical current in it, you know, and also giving way or leading the way to a lot of portable energy sources. You know that kind of stuff where we're looking at, oh man, just the size of batteries is impressive to me. The size of batteries is impressive to me to think about, like the tiniest little pill size battery that will last in a, in in devices, for, you know, a number of years before you're having to look at replacing that little dinky battery. Um, you know, and, and you know this leading to the. You know the, the invention of this, the discovery of electricity, um, is has been a big part of what really electrifies everyone's home. You know, to walk in and turn the light switch on is credited all the way back to these, these early, early inventions.
Speaker 1:You know your smoke detector in your house, your, you know, just just think, just rattle off a couple of things in your house that run on. You know battery powered, an alarm clock, you know a lot of them have a backup battery in them. If you plug them into the wall, the power goes out. Your alarm clock's not going to go done. Most, actually, what's interesting is most electric devices stoves, microwaves, coffee makers. Usually they'll have a little tiny battery. That's a backup, so that it preserves the settings if there's a power outage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, old computers used to have this. So when I was a kid we had a Commodore 64, we had 286s, 386s, 486s. If you're a computer person, you know what I'm talking about. Um, but within there, uh, you had. So we think about batteries today in like a laptop. You know the big bulky battery that can pop out whatever. Um, they had little batteries. You know probably about that size. See that.
Speaker 2:Um we'll zoom in yeah just little tiny batteries, and I still remember all the ones that I saw on our computers were all red, but little red batteries that were sitting in there, and if you took that out, you lost everything on your computer, and so you had to make sure that battery was always good.
Speaker 1:Well, I think on desktops they still have that. They still have a little tiny power cell that's in there. That's for that reason, so that if you have a complete destruction of power, it will supply enough and for long enough to where it'll preserve the data that's on there.
Speaker 2:Yep, otherwise you lose everything. Right, if you do not have that electricity, you lose everything, and it's crazy to think that this little tiny battery is preserving all of that data. Yeah, and we would not have it without it. So even when you've got your computer plugged in all the time, everything there is still a little battery that is maintaining the integrity of all of that information.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and obviously at this point you're not talking about little tiny batteries that are powering, you know, computers from back in the 90s, 80s, you know. I think that's what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 1:But like you know, you're talking larger cell elements of this, because you know the earlier form batteries would be something that would be a power supply for something, uh, like the telegraph. Okay, yeah, and you know batteries for that made sometimes those telegraph systems gave it some level of portability to it, but you know, you're still it's, it's, it's an. It's interesting to me think you know, again, we'll dive a lot more in detail on the telegraph in the next episode, but this is really kind of like one of those foundational pieces that helped, you know, catalyze the, the, the other future inventions and still to this day continues to be that. It's a huge, reliable source and, honestly, our society is pushing to move in that direction. But, hey, guys, if you're feeling powered up by this story, then give us a like and hit that subscribe button. It's a small charge for you but a huge boost for this channel. So let's keep the energy flowing. You don't like that. It's, it's punny. You get to. I have to do dad jokes. I get puns, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll grant you that I will grant you that if you don't want puns, you write it all right, puns are great.
Speaker 1:These puns are just awesome okay, so let's talk about this evolution of the battery technology, because we've alluded to it. It's it's pretty much everywhere. It's prevalent in everything you can imagine, to the tv remotes that we turn on, and we're really annoyed when the battery is going dead. I get that like an indicator on my roku um and it says your battery's got this much left and I'm like that means my volume's not gonna work. You know that means I won't be able to type. You know, like whatever, it doesn't matter what it is, it's just like this little basic controller. It seems devastating to me because then I'm like I have no idea if I have any more AAA batteries, so when this happens I don't know what I'm going to do all weekend.
Speaker 2:Well see, remote control. That's just what you call kids, right? That's true. Remote control, not anymore dude.
Speaker 1:You don't have to go smack the kid and he goes over and changes the knob.
Speaker 2:There's no knob.
Speaker 1:There's still little buttons on the bottom of the tv that you can I'm pretty sure I have no idea where those buttons are on my tv.
Speaker 2:I don't even know if they exist maybe on some of the newer smart tvs, I don't know, but oh, they exist on my tv.
Speaker 1:However, roku is just a stick. So if you don't have the remote, you're done okay, I'll grant you that. So, but okay, going back a little bit, before the Roku TV remote went out of batteries, 1950 or 1858, you have lead-acid batteries, revolutionizing really, transportation, a lot of the vehicles, when you, when you first, I don't know, like 1850s, I don't know you're talking about, like henry ford, in the like early, early 1900s. So what transportation of automobiles in 1859?
Speaker 2:oh, they had automobiles before henry ford. So what a lot of people don't realize I guess you're right.
Speaker 2:So he revolutionized like the the manufacturing yeah, okay, so yeah so his ability to that's true mass manufacture. These meant that the everyday person could then afford it. So instead of paying, I mean money back then. I mean we're talking about almost 200 years, so monetary exchange is a little bit different when we're talking about dollar values. But imagine, instead of spending $150,000 for a vehicle, which would be the average price of a vehicle Only rich people could afford that.
Speaker 1:Fair enough.
Speaker 2:The Model T because it wasn't, or I think it was the Model A first, because it wasn't custom. It was manufactured in a oh, I use this word all the time. Anytime I'm talking about efficiency in any process I use this phrase. What is it? It's the assembly line. Wow, brain fart there.
Speaker 2:The use of the assembly line that you were specialized in a certain part of the manufacturing process, so you were great at that, and then it went to the next person, and then the next person instead of one person doing everything.
Speaker 2:You know, the conveyor belt, all those kinds of things revolutionized the ability to produce these vehicles in a standard format, just drastically dropped the price, and so now you could get a vehicle for $20,000 instead of $150,000, which meant that the everyday person could now afford to buy a vehicle. It wasn't just a rich person's activity. So that was what Henry Ford really did to the automobile industry. But before then and actually people think that these electric cars are like a brand new invention no, electric cars were the original cars. We had electric cars and they were actually more popular than gas-fueled cars back when cars were originally being used, and so the idea that electric cars being something new is not the case. Electric cars were actually more popular and more prevalent back then, with the advent of the manufacturing process and being able to mass produce. Batteries and electricity wasn't as available to the everyday person, and so the internal combustion engine, which could be mass produced and mass used, became the standard format for anything, but you still had to start it.
Speaker 1:So 1859. Sorry did I go on a tangent there. We're going to go to batteries and stay there for a little while. Maybe we'll have a motor vehicle revolution, I don't know, we'll see. Anyway, so ultimately, this has been an essential ingredient in vehicles since their inception. Possible was absolutely. Probably. You know, it could have been the more likely scenario had we not found, you know, the combustible engine and it moving to our thinking that that was an easier commodity to produce than, necessarily, the lead acid batteries that were being used in motors.
Speaker 2:Again, it all goes back to marketing. So that's true. The, the big oil bear, there's a, there's an element of capitalism in everything we're talking about.
Speaker 1:So, no matter what, it is an inherent issue. Like you will have it in everything, doesn't matter if we're talking about toothpaste or we're talking about batteries or anything, or red dye number seven whatever your history and I'm not talking about, like conspiracy theory history that's crappy history read the real history.
Speaker 2:Read the history from you know the, the adages, the, the winners. Write the history great. It's not always 100 accurate, but it still gives you an insight into what happened in the past. Read the history, look at what happened in the past so you can understand how all this happens. We're giving you a lot of information here, which is the whole point of the idiot's guide, but you know understanding a lot but useful exactly, um, but so I mean those lead acid batteries where you had.
Speaker 2:They were extremely dangerous. Lead's dangerous acid, is dangerous, but they were usable. And this was brand new technology. Most new technology is extremely dangerous because we find the easiest format of it and then we refine it over time.
Speaker 1:So then we move to a little bit more of a metallic element. You have nickel, cadmium and alkaline batteries, really kind of getting the era of portabilities, you know the boom box you're holding above your head, those kind of things. That's now what we're talking about. But even more so the batteries get smaller. So now you're getting, you know, d size batteries or double a size batteries, or you know, I remember the big chunky. Uh, what are what is there? Not nine volts, nine volts or the square little squares, but the big squares.
Speaker 1:Yeah, remember the old flashlight batteries.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah. No, we used those, the big clunkies. I think they were also nine volts. I think so, yeah, yeah but we used them for model rockets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you had posts on them, so you had the ability to so you'd take the leads, put them on.
Speaker 2:So, you'd have your uh rocket engine, put the leads in there and then you attach it, turn it on up.
Speaker 1:It went they don't even make them anymore. Like, the closest thing you'll get to that is a pack that's like rechargeable for power wheels. That's it like. Other than that, like you're, you're gonna get you know. But back in the day, man, I remember buying those for flashlights for camping trips, because they didn't take D batteries, they took the big freaking square.
Speaker 2:And the idea here is you've got new materials that produce the same kind of result. If you try to take around a lead acid filled container and you spill that, you run the risk of completely damaging yourself well as a mechanic.
Speaker 1:That was the issue with batteries. You know, like up up to like, my first vehicle was that way, but first couple vehicles was careful because even though I still had, like they say, the battery acid, well, the reason why your posts on your car battery corrode and they get all stuff, guys, it's still there. It's still in batteries to this day. Agm batteries really stupid expensive batteries are still an alternating plate battery, just like lead acid batteries are. So you're still. There's a possibility you pop a cap and that liquid gets on you. It's going to burn a hole through your pants, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and so it's in a car. It's more stable because you're not walking around with this and, yes, it's still extremely dangerous, but you know that you've got all the handles and everything holding it in.
Speaker 1:Unless your car does jumps, then you have a really cool car. But you probably should put a lid on that battery so it doesn't spill all over your engine but figuring out new metals, new liquids to be able to contain.
Speaker 2:That means that now you have the same result, but it is safer to move. Yeah, and that's when we go to now lithium ion batteries, which are again the same kind of methodology. It's just contained and it is the. The energy exchange is much more stable, unless you shoot it with a crossbow. I think that's what mark rober did recently on a video uh, exploding a lithium-ion battery. He does weird stuff.
Speaker 1:Really. Yeah, I've got to find that video. We'll link it in the description.
Speaker 2:But yeah. So once you have more control and more safety with these, they become much more common. Same thing with electricity. When we talk about electricity and the, the currents that we're going through is extremely dangerous, but as it got safer, we have electricity and power poles going everywhere now yeah uh, and so that meant that now we have a much more portable. We could have them in our phones, we can literally have them in our pockets now. You know I've got my car keys here that have a battery inside.
Speaker 1:You know I can take this and I can pop this and my car is telling me right now that my battery and my key fob needs to be replaced.
Speaker 2:It's running low yeah, so I have a battery just sitting in my pocket. This would be just completely unheard of a hundred years ago.
Speaker 1:I have a tiny battery on my wrist that's rechargeable, so in my watch, so same thing.
Speaker 2:I mean you're, you're walking around with you know, power generation.
Speaker 1:So you know, now we move to things like solid state batteries, graphene batteries, and you know there's potential for what's called the nuclear diamond batteries. And I brought this up to Joe and he looked at me funny like yeah, right, and then he went and looked it up and it exists, in a way that I did a terrible job explaining but it exists, at least at this point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they originally. I think the first one that was developed was in 2017, but it wasn't in any way usable. But just in December of last year, they have created a much more usable version of this nuclear diamond battery. So it's still it's not even as far as the press releases and everything. I don't even think it's a month old yet, which I'm really excited about. I read that.
Speaker 1:I haven't read too much about it. The energy potential is what excites me, because I'm like that's you're talking about, like you think of nuclear powered subs and their ability to sustain for a length of time. I don't know, this is my simpleton brain thing, idiot guide.
Speaker 2:Emphasis on the idiots.
Speaker 1:But my brain thinks that you know, ok, a nuclear power sub is has the ability to sustain power for a very, very, very, very, very long time. Ok, independently, as opposed to go. Oh, very, very, very long time. Okay, independently, as opposed to go. Oh, we got to come to surface to refuel, you know, no, like that's why it's a nuclear power sub. And if you're harnessing that technology or that power source in side of a diamond, then what are you? You know, what are you experiencing at that? What kind of energy levels, and I might be completely off. And it's not even the same nuclear energy. It's not. Okay, whatever I'm done, yeah, this is my last episode.
Speaker 1:Everyone. I have no idea why I'm even here. I have overqualified myself as an idiot. Well, that's the whole idea.
Speaker 2:We are the idiots guys. I mean idiots leading idiots. But no, from what I read, I just read it really quick. Um, so I I could be slightly wrong in some of these numbers, uh, but it has about uh a fifth of the power generation of a double a battery. So it doesn't come close to the power that's being but I mean, it's a, it's a little diamond, so you wouldn't expect it to, but it has uh less energy generation as far as the the power, like its output.
Speaker 1:Yeah, its output is about a fifth of a like you have a nine volt, you're gonna go like okay, I don't know what the voltage on a AA is, but One and a half volts, and this again, I can't remember what the detail was.
Speaker 2:If you use up that battery, if you use it at its maximum charge, it would last about 24 hours off of that battery if it's fully utilized. Fully utilized, uh. And that's where the, this nuclear diamond, comes in. Is that little diamond, the, the? What they're using for it is carbon 14. It will last 5 000 years, so very little output, but over a massively long time. And so put a bunch of these together and now you've got more energy generation for a significant amount of time. And so that's the power of these uh nuclear diamonds is that they will produce the energy for a lot long time without any uh corrosive uh chemicals, without any movement required. So normally, in order to create power, what you do is you create electromagnetic field around something like copper, and that creates the electricity field so the source of power is unique to this because it's not off of the traditional thinking about how a battery is generating electricity.
Speaker 1:This is, this is generating electricity in a in a unique way no, yes and no.
Speaker 2:So far, I'm striking out so so again, I am still learning about this.
Speaker 2:Uh, nuclear batteries uh, or this is a hard quiz, joe, but from my understanding, um, so what happened any? And what they're doing is anything that is radiating. So we talk about radiation a lot and how dangerous radiation is. Well, these lights are the. The light that we see is radiation. Yeah, so it is we. It is just visible radiation, we. It's. It's light as part of that radiation spectrum. Um, so things like x-rays are on that light spectrum, it's just, they're dangerous to our bodies.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So infrared light, x-rays, ultraviolet, all these kinds of things are microwaves, also the same thing. They're all functions of the movement of light, it's just some are dangerous, some are not. So anything that has radiation is emitting some form of energy. These lights are emitting it in the form of visible light, whereas a microwave is emitting microwaves in order to heat up our food or sending information, if you're talking about microwave telecommunications, things like that, about microwave telecommunications, things like that.
Speaker 2:But what's happening is carbon-14 gives off a radioactive signal, it's radiating something. The problem with it is that radiation can be harmful if we're too close to it, and so what they've done with the diamond is they have been able to put that carbon-14 into the diamond. That is radiating energy, but that's why it's so low, low, low-powered is because it's just normal radiation that doesn't generally impact anything and we can't use it because it's so low-powered. But also the radiation can be potentially harmful, and so the diamond, the structure in the diamond, is able to contain the negative radioactive properties, so the part of the radiation that would harm us, but while still allowing the energy portion of the radiation to release, the energy portion of the radiation to release.
Speaker 2:So I am again just reiterating some of the stuff that I've read. Some of this I know because of you know just that's how radioactive things work, that's how radiation works, that's how light works, etc. Etc. Etc. Um, how it works in the the diamond, I don't have a full understanding of yet. I'm I'm literally going to research this as soon as we're recording Tune in for it.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about this in an update on a future episode.
Speaker 2:That's the idea behind these nuclear diamond batteries is. It is emitting a radioactive charge. It is containing the negative radiation while allowing the power side of which. This is how I don't know how it's working, because radiation is the power and vice versa. Sure, I I've got to research this because I need to find out exactly how they're doing this but it is containing the negative, allowing the energy to release um, and so that's how these batteries work and why they're so low power, because it's they're using a generally safe radioactive element in order to uh make it safe to be around and not overpower. I'm assuming the diamonds, uh negative component, uh, protective thing, I think, the element.
Speaker 1:See, now I sound like an idiot so nuclear diamond batteries just sound really super cool but also extremely expensive because even cubic zirconium if they were using that, I don't know, like I don't know if it's using that or a true diamond, okay.
Speaker 2:Diamonds aren't expensive.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, okay, whatever. So I'm not even like we're not going to Joe batteries, we're staying in the lane. Focus, focus.
Speaker 2:I think we're having some ADHD problems today. Yes, lots, tons, tons focus focus.
Speaker 1:I think we're having some adhd problems today. Yes, lots, tons, tons. We chatted for an hour and a half before we hit record. So you know I I guess for me it just it sounds really cool. The idea of using batter or diamonds to do that, or nuclear energy sounds like that's all really kind of fascinating.
Speaker 1:We're having huge advances in fusion technology, but, like you, said, it might be a low output, but massing together a pile of them could create a better source for something. Your AA battery now possesses a handful of these you know nuclear diamonds. Instead of them being, you know, a AA battery, that's just a lithium ion.
Speaker 2:Well, you talked about your Roku remote going out. Yeah, you know, the idea behind these nuclear diamond batteries is that you plug one of those things into your Roku remote.
Speaker 1:That thing's going to last 5,000 years and it'll probably like glow, like a flashlight, when I need a flashlight to just kidding, um, I okay Idiot. So the whole point of all this and the development and you were talking about like a future concept at this point, is, you know this this created the mobility of our entire society worldwide cars, airplanes, space exploration none of that would happen without batteries. And then you talk about how even our consumption of of information, from Walkmans in, you know, in the eighties and nineties, discmans to iPods, now we have smartphones, wireless, everything, and you know we think, oh man, it's such a torture when I have to plug my headphones in, it's so terrible. Why can't I use Bluetooth technology? Oh, there's a delay in the audio with the Bluetooth technology when I'm watching it. Okay, we'll get rid of that. All of that is battery powered. Like it is fascinating.
Speaker 1:And this rise of, then renewable energy, where we have not just battery development but storage devices. Because of those batteries they are dual purposed and we can look at ways to generate more power to put into that battery cell in order to make it, you know, sustain that energy for longer periods of time. Look at other energy sources nuclear and diamonds in order to have elongated energy sources so that we aren't having to deplete other things, other environmental elements, just for our demands of our society. So there's a lot of really cool things that we could do but also that impact our everyday world.
Speaker 1:You think about, you know, tesla's contribution to the innovation of electric vehicles and home energy storage systems like Powerwall. So I have solar at home. I do not have a battery on my house. I'm kind of giving money to the power company at this point. Why? Because my house generates enough solar power that it powers my house all summer long. I don't pay a dime for my air conditioner to run constantly. If I wanted it to, I could keep it 58 degrees in my house because my my AC would die, but um, I could and not pay for it because of my solar power yeah, we won't go into the environmental impacts of running an air conditioner now with power.
Speaker 1:Now, if I had my uh, you know, a battery, a power wall on my house, then it's it's also the benefits of the fact that I have storage of of power, so when I'm not using it's, it's collecting there, so that when I have a cloudy day or some other day that maybe my, my spike in power is not as great, it's still not impacting the grid, and so that's, that's a possibility for energy independence. But but right now, like you see, you see this stuff continuing to develop and it's just going to continue to get better and better. So, before we move on, I want to talk about powering up another critical part of your life Finances. Our financial empowerment. Membership is designed to give you the tools, insights and support you need to take control of your money the tools, insights and support you need to take control of your money, whether you're just starting out or looking to supercharge your financial goals. This membership is your perfect energy source. It's a pause for effect. Check out the link in the description to join today. Subscription to join today.
Speaker 1:Okay, terrible, terrible, terrible. One of the last things that I want to get to is you know, and and a lot of what we've been really addressing is kind of a what if scenario. What if the battery didn't exist? What if we didn't have batteries? There wouldn't be smartphones, there wouldn't be laptops, cell phones, electric cars, reliable flashlights, you know, alarm clocks would be late everywhere clocks, everything runs on batteries literally yeah, you name it hearing aids.
Speaker 1:What?
Speaker 2:pacemakers. Wait what?
Speaker 1:everything the world doesn't run on duncan, the world runs on battery that's the reason why I say this guy deserves a whole lot more credit than I believe he's getting, because I can say the voltaic pile and we talk about that at the very beginning of this but like legitimately the the founding five, he should be on mount rushmore like you know more science.
Speaker 2:There should be a mount rushmore of scientists. I'm just saying you know.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, maybe that's too far. Maybe my you agree with my opinion on that, but either way, he's not there right now. I just think that he's not getting as much credit as I believe he could be getting, and he might have some element of capitalism involved in it I don't know necessarily his upbringing or his level of sponsors like our last episode and beating up on Edison you know, beating up on Edison but, um, but but. But in this idea is to go. Like the level of dependence that we have on batteries and the continual development and revolutionizing everything all along the way is credited to someone that nobody really knows. They think the Energizer bunny is that what you're talking about? Is that? No, oh, that's not it, that's just a brand, you know, but but that's the reality is it's like I? I can't remember anything past that. I just think of pink bunny with drum. You know, dunk, dunk, dunk. So this is revolutionized communication. So how, if we didn't have a battery? You know, smoke signals, I can't blink a flashlight that doesn't work, I don't have batteries.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean you could, but it would be a lot.
Speaker 1:It'd be a lantern with a shutter like open and close, like that.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's what they used to do on ships like our lighthouses you know we have the gas lights and but yeah, I mean it would be a different way of looking at everything.
Speaker 1:Transportation, no space exploration, oh yeah definitely no space exploration.
Speaker 2:I mean, you think about, you know, I've got flashlights for you know, emergency flashlights that I always take with me if I go camping, or I've just got them at home, but they just have a magnet and then copper coils and so you have to charge them up. Or you've got ones where you crank I'm not going to show you have to charge them up. Or you've got ones where you crank uh, I'm not going to show you how to charge up mine, because that will become a meme of itself. Um, but you have to take the flashlight, you have to pass the magnet through the uh, copper coil.
Speaker 2:use your imagination, just imagine shake weight, but it's a flashlight when it when charged, but you have to do that for a good 15 minutes in order to get the battery to be charged enough to actually use it. Yeah, and so you could. It has a capacitor, but that in and of itself is a battery, I mean, I think you know?
Speaker 1:no, no mars explorer we have. We have a rover on mars that is solar powered, charging batteries, and it goes for a number of years. It's still. I think one one just recently went offline. I can't remember if it's on the moon or on mars, but but yeah, I mean just recently had a rover go offline we'd only ever able to be able to function when there's sunlight out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, or someone would have to be sitting on a bike all the time running that generator fire.
Speaker 1:Like you know, pitchforks and you know like the torch we can go back to the steam, yeah yeah, that's true, you know, so yeah that's that's how far back you have to go.
Speaker 2:yeah, is Is the steam engine. I mean, that's old, old technology to be able to develop that without batteries.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it would disrupt every level of transportation that we know of to this day, yep, and we would have to go back to that kind of travel. I mean imagine shoveling coal into a steam engine to get to the grocery store, so you could buy groceries yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean thinking about mass transportation. You've got trams, you've got here, we have tracks, we have front runner. All of those are electricity, all of those are battery powered.
Speaker 1:I'm going to look up at the sun and be like what time is it? It looks about 2 pm.
Speaker 2:I actually know a guy. He learned how to do this and he could just put his hand up and he'd know exactly what time it was.
Speaker 1:I remember watching that on Crocodile Dundee and being so impressed. You know I'm like that's not true, but it's funny, it actually is a thing. Oh, I know it's a thing you go off of it, he explained it?
Speaker 2:I have no idea.
Speaker 1:I can you face a certain direction. You make sure, like all, that you can use your shadow on the ground.
Speaker 2:I can orient here with the best of them. But figuring out the time of day, that's a problem for me. I mean my best ability to manage the time of day. You take your walking stick and you stick it in the ground and then you can track, basically making it a sundial. That's the best I can do for time tracking if I'm in the wilderness.
Speaker 1:But his ability to just put his hand up and he knows where the horizon is, whatever, and being able to tell the time is just staggering so, you know, I I think what's interesting is like, if all of that stuff wasn't there, if we didn't have batteries, if they were not, you know, all of a sudden batteries went kaput. You know what other, what other technologies like? There's so many different things that we would have a chasm of development. Or you know things that were revolutionized just because of this simple element. Yeah, you know, I would even say it goes far as to say like if electricity existed but batteries did not, we'd still be in a tough spot. Oh, we would, because batteries are kind of like the storage locker for energy, the capacity of electricity. Then you are tied to wherever you are getting that electrical source from, yep, and that just doesn't move our society.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would be a completely different world without a battery.
Speaker 1:Yep, even conversation-wise world without a battery. Yeah, you know, even conversation wise, like I, I, you know, early on I talked about the telegraph. It's not necessarily the, you know, I, I believe electricity plays a role in the telegraph, but not necessarily a battery, other than you know some of the power cells that are probably within the, the amplifier of of that telegraph system. So, yeah, you know, but I I think that's more radio tech than it is actually telegraph, but anyway. So ultimately, I think one of the things, maybe the the absence of batteries would lead to what kind of environmental changes, you know, would we see the same issues that we're dealing with today?
Speaker 1:And I know we talked about global warming and how it's not, you know, the sky is not falling, but, um, but it is. It is a realistic situation. We, you know, just recently, california is facing some serious issues, florida faced some serious issues that are our country is getting impacted by some of these things that you know, maybe even 20 years ago weren't as catastrophic and now are coming in a stronger force. And so you're going okay, I got to pay attention to this a little bit Like, even though it's not, the sky's falling, what are we doing now to mitigate that. To see, is this just kind of a you know, our humanity needs to adapt to the changes of the world, naturally, yeah. Or is it something that we can do about it? Yeah, and what?
Speaker 2:if we didn't have batteries.
Speaker 1:Would that have been part of that change?
Speaker 2:that would have helped it I don't know Well, and there's a great thing If you look to the past in England in London it was, I don't remember all the details, but you can look this up there was I can't remember what it's called anymore, but there were a couple of years where in the winter, because of all of the fossil fuel usage, the coal and all those things, because they didn't have batteries, they didn't have those things to be able to control they were using fire. They were using very primitive stuff to be able to run everything. The smog got so bad that you were not allowed to go outside. Yeah, it was. People were dying from inhaling all these toxic chemicals from the air. And and that's where we trace back. You know we we look back to the past. You know there was a large spike in the carbon in the air and things like that. How much that impacted. I mean it was a small area of whatever.
Speaker 1:When? You said like coal engines. You know like you're talking about that. That's the era you're talking about, where you know right now we've done, although we still have a combustion engine, that the type of fuel combustion and the emissions from that aren't as bad as coal. They're tightly managed yes, there's a little bit better mitigation about it, so that there's EPA standards that have to be met by components that are required on vehicles in order to be a combustion engine.
Speaker 2:You can't run them without it. Imagine if we had still been using that level of coal production and, with the population increase over the last 200 years, how much worse would our environment be in? Yeah, if we continue to use those old style technologies, it would just be devastating.
Speaker 1:So you know. Then you move over to like hospitals, critical infrastructure, you know elements of our society I think about like I'd have to carry a satchel for all my money because I'm not going to have it at a bank. You know banks can't keep track of it. It's going to be a vault because you know there's no batteries to run the computers. You know Well, banks would still keep track of it.
Speaker 1:That's what accountants are for. That's why I'd have a satchel. I know you're an accountant, so you're partial to that, joe, but I'd still have a satchel, because satchels are cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bookkeepers keep the books. They keep record of everything. You're probably right. That's what bank clerks used to be. They were clerks. They would keep track of everything.
Speaker 1:How many strikes is this episode so far? Is this a five six?
Speaker 2:12? But yes, banks would not be a problem Because of things like that. The ledger book, the abacus, not the abacus the one next to it. Come on.
Speaker 1:All right, let's take a moment to reflect on this charged journey. Gosh, we started with Volta's Voltaic Pile and then did I say Voltaire earlier I think I said Voltaire, no, voltaic Pile. And then did I say Voltaire earlier, I think I said Voltaire, no Okay, that's a different person, by the way. Yeah, volta's Voltaic Pile so groundbreaking invention that sparked all of it. We traced the evolution of battery technology, from lead acid to lithium ion and explored how. You know even the nuclear diamond batteries, but explored how even the nuclear diamond batteries, but explored how these innovations reshaped our lives. And finally, we looked toward the future, where batteries are not just powering our gadgets and vehicles, but also helping us build a greener, more sustainable world. So there is potential there.
Speaker 1:Here's a thought Batteries are more than just stored energy. They're a symbol of potential, a way to hold power until it's needed at another time. So how are you charging up for the future? Is that a cheesy question? Very, that's perfect. I want you to feel enriched by that. Guys. That's a dad question. Listen here, sonny. How are you charging up for your future? And here's a shiny nickel for listening.
Speaker 2:That's the power plant worker, dad that comes home. You know, I was just thinking today, boy, how are you charging your future?
Speaker 1:What's one way you rely on batteries that you hadn't considered before, and do you think batteries are the ultimate solution for a sustainable future? Or is there something better on the horizon that maybe you know about, but we don't know about and we want to know about? So don't make it a conspiracy theory that we make up. Let the world know. Patent it first. Don't let Edison steal it. Yeah. Don't let Edison anywhere near you or someone that rides with dusk.
Speaker 2:Or the modern version of Edison.
Speaker 1:All right Time for jokes with Joe All right, here we go.
Speaker 2:Why do whales live in salt water?
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 2:I don't know, because pepper water would make them sneeze. Achoo, achoo, make them sneeze.
Speaker 1:Achoo, achoo. Yeah, it was like the cartoons, when the guy's like stuck in the fish and all of a sudden the whale's like the guy shoots out the water hole. All right, we have reached the end of our show for today. Thank you for listening, thank you for watching. Don't forget to hit that like button, hit that subscribe button so you can see what all's happening all the time. Life's too short, so keep laughing and learning and remember idiots have way more fun. Check your shoes.