r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jan 03 '20

Chemistry Scientists developed a new lithium-sulphur battery with a capacity five times higher than that of lithium-ion batteries, which maintains an efficiency of 99% for more than 200 cycles, and may keep a smartphone charged for five days. It could lead to cheaper electric cars and grid energy storage.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2228681-a-new-battery-could-keep-your-phone-charged-for-five-days/
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u/LTEDan Jan 04 '20

We'd need some hard numbers, but yes, smaller transistor die sizes have led to more energy efficient components for the same amount of computing power, among other things. But computing power keeps going up, which drives higher energy use.

Let's say a new chip uses 25% less power to produce "X" amount of computing power compared to an old chip, but computing power on new chips are twice that of the older, less efficient ones. The new chips would use still use 1.5x the amount of power compared to the old ones, for double the computing power.

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u/SFDessert Jan 04 '20

Cool thanks. I figured it was something like that.