No cellphones, laptops, or flashlights. No electric cars or robot vacuums. No quartz watches, pocket calculators, or transistor radios. And, for those of us who need a helping hand with our daily lives, no heart pacemakers, hearing aids, or electric wheelchairs.

Life without batteries would be a trip back in time, a century or two, when pretty much the only way of making portable energy was either steam power or clockwork. Batteries—handy, convenient power supplies as small as a fingernail or as big as a trunk—give us a sure and steady supply of electrical energy whenever and wherever we need it. Although we get through billions of them every year and they have a big environmental impact, we couldn’t live our modern lives without them. mobilabonnemang från hallon

You might think a battery looks just about as dull as anything you’ve ever seen. But the minute you hook it up to something, it starts buzzing with electricity. That dull little cylinder turns into your very own micro power plant! Let’s see what’s going on in there…