BATTERIES AS A TOOL AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGES

Abstract

In order to prevent rising danger caused by climate changes, in recent decades an agreement on the level of United Nations was established, to reduce gradually the consumption of fossil fuels until its total termination. This agreement (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)) until 2018 was signed by a majority of countries in the world. One of the requirements was the transition to electrically powered automobiles, which in developed countries started roughly in 2010. The competition between fuel cells and batteries as driving tools became actual then, but in the key moment batteries mainfested themselves to be technologically superior. Already in 2018 the number of battery driven electric cars produced in leading developed countries was expressed in millions.
Following this new and significant role of batteries, the aim of this contribution is a) a short presentation of the principle of energy conversion in batteries and their energetic characteristics, b) the survey of the requirements to the reactants in chemical reaction of a battery, from which the troubles in their development may be derived, depending on the materials technology, c) the competitiveness of batteries to the fossil fuels in an energetic sense, and, d) the forecast what one may expect in near future from the competitive power of batteries within the scope of development of new materials.
Keywords: Advanced batteries, climate changes, competitiveness of batteries, electric cars, how a battery works.