“Beltway” batteries will help save us time, money, and maybe even go some way to saving the world.

Technology that was designed to make our lives faster and easier, has often inadvertently slowed us down. Laptops take hours to power up. Forgetting to leave your mobile to charge overnight can leave you shut off from the world the next day. These super-charging batteries can give several hours worth of power after being charged for just a few seconds. Some of modern life’s inconveniences may soon be a thing of the past.

But the new batteries could have the knock-on effect of reducing your electric bill too. An unsuspecting energy-gobbler in your house is a charger, which can draw electricity even when not turned on. This is part of the “phantom power” of a home - the electricity that keeps appliances plugged in and on stand-by.

A study conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, showed the average home could save anything between a six and 26 per cent from a household electricity bill if they took steps to reduce the “phantom” electricity leaks in the home. Quick, efficient chargers that people didn’t feel the need to keep plugged in all the time would be a huge help.

More importantly, it is hoped the new batteries may put the spark back into the electric car. Ten years ago, electric cars started popping up on sunny Californian roads, but they never really took off elsewhere. They take hours to charge up, proving to be too inconvenient for many.

Some scientists even argue that they are no better at cutting down on carbon emissions that those running on petrol. That’s because electricity isn’t actually an energy source itself, it comes to your home through coal and gas fired power plants.

Charging batteries is inefficient. As a battery charges up, electricity creates chemical potential in a battery, but most of that electricity is converted into heat. All this indirect energy consumption means that an electric car could actually create more carbon emissions than a “hybrid” car which uses both electricity and petrol. If you drastically reduced the time an electric car needs to charge, this problem would be solved.

The rise of the electric car could be vital in tackling global warming. By 2050, the world’s car fleet is set to triple to 2 billion vehicles. At the same time, carbon dioxide emitted by these vehicles is projected to double, and cars account for nearly half of all carbon emissions from transport. The new Beltway batteries means that all those new cars could be quietly humming electrics rather than roaring gaz-guzzlers.

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