#specific energy

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A comparative engineering plate showing a supercapacitor cell, a lithium-ion cell and a flywheel rotor sectioned to one common scale on one cream drafting sheet, the supercapacitor's electrolyte interface layer alone picked out in blue.

The Ragone Plot and a Hundred Years of Trying to Store Energy Better

Since 1968, one log-log chart has forced every capacitor, battery and flywheel onto the same two axes. Most claimed breakthroughs move along that trade-off; very few push its empty upper-right frontier outward.

By Brecht Corbeel · August 26, 2026 · 8 min read

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