Nanotube Supercapacitors

The world has been waiting for the electric car for over a century. In the beginning these cars had many wonderful advantages over a hydrocarbon fuel propelled vehicle. With only one major distinct disadvantage: range. Even the newest and best electric car can only travel a couple of hundred kilometers before requiring an eight hour stop to recharge. This makes them perfectly functional for a day to day use for someone who only drives to work and back with maybe a couple of stops. Said person still needs a gas powered vehicle for any unplanned or long range trips. Leading everyone to wonder why have an electric car when a small regular car can perform that same function plus be actually useful. The cause of this most prominent problem is batteries. Hydrocarbons are an amazing energy storage medium just fantastic. Batteries on the other hand. Hold only limited supplies, charge slowly and wear out quite quickly. Add to that the idea that battery weight does not diminish with power drain and the idea of using electricity to power any portable system seems odd. The answer has always been capacitors. The problem there is that capacitance is proportional to surface area. Meaning that any viable capacitor with enough power to be useful in a car would be larger than said car and far to heavy to move. Hence carbon nanotubes with the power of smallness and the ability to have a massive surface are to size ratio. The ability to actually build a useful capacitor means a nigh instantaneous charging which is all the car really needs. Imagine pulling into the station plugging the car in and having it charge faster than it would normally fill with gas. Even only having an effective range of three hundred km wouldn't be to bad. Anyway these capacitors are the goal at present for one Joel Schindall, Ph.D. at MIT. The outline for his project is here (pdf).