Batteries are a tough study.\u00a0 We see many different roads being traveled in attempts to reach the Nirvana of the lightest, most powerful energy storage cell ever.\u00a0 We see continuing shortfalls because of the much chemistries that seem never to work out as hoped.\u00a0 Several recent articles, though, showed links that forced your editor into a deep study of battery developments first heard about a decade ago.\u00a0 These involved Yi Cui, Stanford professor and battery guru, silicon electrodes, and a new electrolyte that holds thing together.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Presaging recent developments, your editor first heard Yi Cui present at the 2009 CAFE Foundation Electric Aircraft Symposium.\u00a0 Then, he predicted, based on the theoretical limits for silicon-based electrodes in batteries, that we would see 10X (greater energy density than then available) batteries in the not-too-distant future.\u00a0 A decade later, his company Amprius may be edging toward that goal with new funding from Airbus.<\/p>\n