Well, for the very few who _are_ still interested in new battery chemistry:
I am very interested in new battery chemistry: the selling kind. Not the kind of talk that promises this-and-that and never eventuates in a commercial product. There's so much of that. Too much of it. I can read 'papers' on battery tech that cure insomnia (and sometimes I have). Frankly, the real work is done when it's commercialised and a price attached to it. I don't care about some lab work that has yet to prove itself in the real world, let alone be cost-competitive. I don't care for investing in the tech, and I'm not in a position to even understand half of it. I have also stopped caring about reading about it. Each day the world turns. Can I buy it or not? Can I use it or not? Is it cost-competitive with existing tech or not?
Insomnia-inducing talk
I think most of Australia can be self-sufficient for lighting, basic electronics (TVs, laptops, charging anything, refigeration basics) minimum. I think insulation can be improved a lot in most homes. I think we are wasteful bastards, in general. If the Powers That Be (also known as criminal thieves) wanted self-sufficiency, this country and countless others could be truly transformed by existing battery tech, let alone future battery tech. Demands of our excessively wasteful lifestyles could be curtailed without too much pain or sorrow. Of course
they don't want self-sufficiency. They want us to be Solar Slaves, generating cheap power for the Grid Thieves and keeping everyone else paying through the nose for power, keeping the fossilised Fat Cats relevant while extracting maximum taxes, unseen (subsidies) and seen (bills). Same story worldwide. In fact, self-sufficiency basically outlawed in the sunniest places on earth, if we read about these things long enough.
The point being: there are probably few people more interested in battery tech than those who rely on them 100% for their electricity. I do.
LiFePO4 will be bought this year. Key word: bought. This 'goodenough' battery tech may or may not be 'good enough' in the next 10 years, let alone be competitive with what's out there, price-wise. For now, they get marketing points for attaching some old man's name to the tech and trumpeting that out in the media. Great. How many investors will be fleeced? I don't know. Will they be fleeced? I don't know that either. Will it be commercialised? Don't know that either.
If you have a general tech interest in following yet another 'miracle' battery tech that may or may not see the light of day, I'll be the last to say not to. For me, reading papers on battery tech is a cure for insomnia. Unless the thing is commercialised & I can buy it, forget it.
Each day the world turns.
https://news.utexas.edu/2017/02/28/goodenough-introduces-new-battery-technology
I already read that piece (see, I care). The best bit about that piece is:
For information on licensing this technology, or additional technology information, contact: Betsy Merrick, Office of Technology Commercialization, (512) 232-7699. Waiting. And waiting some more. I'm certainly in no position to invest. Nor in a position to manufacture / commercialise / license the stuff. Nor into reading papers on yet another miracle battery tech. I'd like to think if it were ready (or easy) then they'd be setting up the factories now themselves. Meanwhile, we buy what we can actually buy.