Charge of battery brigade soon part of our daily lives

TECHNOLOGY moves at an astonishing rate. My grandparents wouldn’t believe many of the things we take for granted today. I suppose we won’t believe many of the things our children will see as normal. I have always been a do-it-yourselfer and learnt from my father how to use a cross-cut saw and a tenon saw, and how to sharpen planes and chisels and make mortice joints – all with tools that relied on the strength of my hands and arms.

Then came power tools – drills and sanders and jigsaws and lathes – and everything changed. The only time I used my old hand tools at that stage was when the job I was doing was beyond the reach of my longest extension cord. My workshop writhed in cords and double adapters.

The latest step in my DIY journey has been the development of cordless tools. Batteries have become more sophisticated and I can now trim my hedges (and my beard), sand my window frames, clean my teeth, drill a hole and cut a cat-flap in the back door without having to use an extension cord.

I believe our future lifestyles will be dominated by advances in battery technology. Batteries are rapidly becoming lighter and more powerful.

South African-born Elon Musk is one of the world leaders in battery technology and vehicles like his Tesla electric car will, one day, be accepted as the standard means of transport.

We’re still in the kindergarten stage of battery development, but the way things are progressing we will probably live to see electric vehicles that can travel from Cape Town to Joburg on a single charge. Boats will glide silently over the water using battery-powered motors.

We may even dispense with power lines to our houses as we switch to solar-charged batteries strong enough to power our stoves, fridges and washing machines.

One company in America, Lockheed Martin, is developing a way of charging batteries cordlessly by aiming a laser signal at an on-board charger. They’re testing it on unmanned drones powered by batteries that can be charged from the earth without having to land.

Just think of the implications of this. One day you will be able to top up your electric car’s batteries by driving past a laser-charging station.

While all this battery technology is advancing, electrical devices are becoming more efficient. I can light up my home using the same amount of electricity I once used to light a room.

Each of my LED lamps uses less than 5 watts of power, so 20 of them now consume the electricity I once happily pumped into a single 100 watt globe.

When we convert our street lamps and traffic lights to LED bulbs, Eskom will wonder what to do with all its surplus electricity.

Last Laugh

We’ve all heard plenty of those light-bulb jokes. Here’s the latest one, overheard in our local pub. How many finance ministers does it take to change a light bulb? Nobody knows. Finance ministers don’t last as long as light bulbs.