alt Hacker NewsWhy are lithium ion phone and labtop batteries still legal considering their saftey risks? There are safer battery chemestries that aren't quite as energy-dense. But phones and laptops were capable-enough 15 years ago and performance-per watt is constantly improving. Sure, we might not be able to light up all the pixels on our screen and stream gigs of data constantly and won't be able to train AI models when our labtop is not plugged into the wall, but we sufficed just fine on the performance of last-decade's mobile devices.
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> considering their saftey risks
The safety risks are marginal and you interact with plenty of other things/systems daily that are at least as dangerous.
> here are safer battery chemestries that aren't quite as energy-dense ^ that's the answer.
> But phones and laptops were capable-enough 15 years ago They absolutely weren't.
> we sufficed just fine on the performance of last-decade's mobile devices. I don't want to suffice.
All that said, I do think battery research is probably one of the most important things "we" can be doing (and energy storage in general), so I'm all about putting in the money and time to find improvements.
Because the actual risk is so far overblown.
Why do we still let kids go outside when there are so many kidnappings?
The samsung battery debacle around the note 7, which made headlines for weeks, was from 0.003% of phones catching fire.
Phones and laptops were not capable enough 15 years ago for what we expect of them today.
By that logic, we would have to ban cars, gas stoves and even kitchen knives.
Everything has risks — its about managing them. Lithium ion batteries are widely used because their benefits outweight the risks when handled properly.
Its like saying, “Why are candles still legal? They can start fires.” Well, because people know how to use them responsibly.