by David M. Sykes, Vice Chair, The Quiet Coalition
How do we get to a cleaner, quieter America? Picture an America where the most egregious sources of pollution, transportation–whether road, air, or rail–run significantly cleaner and quieter. Today, the energy sources that propel the mobility on which we depend are petro-fueled, noisy, and dirty.
Ending that requires electrical alternatives: EVs like electric cars, electric airplanes and electric trains. As we’ve written previously, these are all in development. And when you dig into the problem, it’s apparent that energy storage—i.e., battery technology—is the gating item. And for a long, long time progress in battery technology was at a standstill.
In the past decade that all changed. So where can you go to catch up and learn about what’s really happening in battery technology development?
Who, you might ask, is actually working on this key problem?
NASA is looking for big “step changes”—major new technologies in energy storage. Alternatively, Elon Musk and Tesla are taking a huge but evolutionary approach that will eventually impact cars, trucks, airplanes, and his version of high-speed rail called the hyper loop.
If you’re following, or engaged in, our sister program at Quiet Communities, Inc., Quiet Outdoors, you already know that getting rid of noisy nuisances like leaf blowers and other noisy outdoor equipment like jackhammers and road construction equipment, all depends on the same improvements in battery technology.
So there’s light at the end of the tunnel: as battery technology improves, there’s a significant opportunity to quiet the whole world. Imagine that!
