Headline on an AP story in the Washington Post.
Why focus on batteries on this site? Because the shift away from primitive, hyper-polluting two-stroke gas engines relies on affordable, efficient battery-powered alternatives. Also because advances in battery technology are happening almost every day.
A sample of recent press coverage:
From the New York Times: “Your Batteries Are Due for Disruption.”
From The Washington Post: “Fact From Fiction About Green Cars.”
Also an AP story in the Post: “Electric Boats Making Waves Without the Noise.”
One more from the Post: “Lithium Fuels Hopes for Revival on California’s Largest Lake.”
From the Wall Street Journal: “Battery Makers Tied to Power Grid Attract Big Investors.”
On a separate but related theme, please see “Hearing Too Much in a Noisy World,” by Nina Kraus in the Wall Street Journal. It’s on the subtle but undeniable toll that increasing noise imposes on individuals and society. Sample:
“A constant low-level barrage of meaningless sound is demonstrably bad for any brain, but it is especially devastating for a developing brain….
“Having our hearing always “on” is fatiguing for the brain, especially when the background noise is unimportant but unrelenting. A 1975 study furnished the stark example of an elementary school in New York City that on one end abutted a busy elevated subway track. Reading scores of children in classrooms on the noisy side of the school lagged behind those of their peers on the quiet side by up to 11 months. Mitigation efforts, including rubber rail padding and noise abatement materials in the affected classrooms, erased the learning gap.”
There’s another “mitigation effort” that can make an enormous difference—and that the battery revolution is bringing within reach. That step is eliminating some of the loudest, dirtiest pieces of machinery that now distort life in many neighborhoods.