12 THE NEXT... LITHIUM
AIR

A TEAM of scientists at Scottish university St Andrews have stumbled across a potentially revolutionary way of cutting the weight of a conventional lithium-ion battery by 90%, and its cost by as much as 30%. Instead of having one of the two electrodes in a battery made of expensive lithium cobalt oxide, the scientists, led by Professor Peter Bruce, used lighter and cheaper porous carbon and lithium oxide. They exposed one side of their porous carbon electrode to an electrolyte rich in lithium ions and put a mesh window on the other side of the electrode through which air could be drawn.Oxygen from the air took the place of the cobalt oxide.

Far from carrying less charge than a regular lithium-ion battery, the resulting battery was, if anything, more effective, carrying a slightly higher charge. Apart from making devices, from iPods to laptops, much lighter to carry, the real application for the ‘air battery’ will be the car industry where weight is the single biggest hurdle to operational success, marring the handling of the vehicle and making it clunky to drive round corners.

13 THE NEXT... COMEBACK
TONY BLAIR

ALTHOUGH AT press time he was looking a long shot to become Europe’s first president, Tony Blair’s career should still be marvelled at. Even if Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende, Luxembourg’s leader Jean-Claude Juncker, or some other safe dullard, elbows him out of the way for the post — or should France’s Nicolas Sarkozy stab him in the back — the former UK prime minister will still have plenty to occupy him. When not busy with his Foundations, Blair merrily racks up huge fees for speeches, while cultivating his property portfolio and readying his inevitably lucrative memoirs. And although Blair’s work as a Middle East peace envoy is unpaid, UK supermarket chain Tesco reportedly is offering him €1.1m a year to be its ambassador in the region.