[HN Gopher] Northvolt develops state-of-the-art sodium-ion batte...
___________________________________________________________________
Northvolt develops state-of-the-art sodium-ion battery validated at
160 Wh/kg
Author : Phenomenit
Score : 490 points
Date : 2023-11-21 08:50 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (northvolt.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (northvolt.com)
| anovikov wrote:
| I believe it when i see it at volume.
| XorNot wrote:
| Honestly depends on cycle life is the thing. I believe anything
| can be made at volume: whether it is depends on whether it's
| actually genuinely useful enough when you do - hence a lot of
| the quiet "revolutionary" things which go away (because
| actually, all the other trade offs eliminate the revolutionary
| bit).
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| It's coming, by 2025
|
| (French) https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/batteries-sodium-ion-
| une-pre...
| farialima wrote:
| it's actually shipping !
|
| Leroy Merlin (the French "big box" home improvement chain) is
| selling a electric screwdriver that use sodium-ion battery,
| seems to be working well: (French)
| https://www.leroymerlin.fr/produits/outillage/outillage-
| elec...
|
| doesn't seem to be many in stock - it's only available at
| some stores - but seems to be victim of its success
| anovikov wrote:
| I don't mean sodium batteries. I mean anything at all from
| Northvolt. So far it seems to be more of "give us a lot of
| taxpayer money and we will say a lot of bs that will give you
| a lot of votes" kind of business.
| pelorat wrote:
| Northvolt builds and ships lots of batteries.
| goodSteveramos wrote:
| And no sodium batteries
| yrro wrote:
| According to https://www.epectec.com/batteries/cell-
| comparison.html, 160 Wh/kg is about the same density as Li-po and
| Li-ion. This battery chemistry is attractive in that it's made
| from common materials & is more stable/safer than Lithium. The
| press release doesn't say, so I assume it's not competitive in
| energy density per litre so I assume not.
|
| Wikipedia has a comparison table at
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery#Comparison but
| no idea how accurate/up to date it is.
| boxed wrote:
| Sodium is extremely plentiful, while lithium is not.
| zizee wrote:
| I had thought that this was not a huge win, as lithium is
| fairly cheap, and not a large portion of the overall cost of
| a battery. However, my research taught me I was incorrect.
|
| Lithium is worth about $40k per tonne, or $40 per kg. A Tesla
| power wall 2 is about 150kg, if half of that is lithium, then
| the lithium alone is worth $2.3k. Powerball costs about
| $9.5k, so the lithium is a fair portion of the cost.
|
| https://www.thisoldhouse.com/solar-alternative-
| energy/review...
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/606350/battery-grade-
| lit...
|
| Note, I know raw lithium carbonate is not stuck directly into
| a battery, just spitballing with the little bit of learning I
| just did.
| passwordoops wrote:
| Also right now about 70% of all lithium comes from only two
| places (Chile, Australia). Iron and sodium are pretty much
| everywhere so this potentially eliminates at least one
| supply bottleneck
| raducu wrote:
| > eliminates at least one supply bottleneck
|
| The CIA wants to know your location /s . I know this kind
| of joke is not appreciated on HN (for good reason), but
| one has to ponder of the implication of cheap/dense
| energy/storage and what big actors like governments, big
| corporations would think about not being able to
| effectively control energy
| production/storage/distribution.
| globalise83 wrote:
| At least in Europe, governments are going to great
| efforts and expense to decentralise and decarbonise the
| production, storage and distribution of energy. The
| implication is that as well as producing energy through
| renewables close to where it is used, it can be cheaply
| and sustainably stored there as well.
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| If you are the Chilean or Australien government you would
| maybe be unhappy about moving away from Lithium. Most
| other governments would love it e.g. Europe doesn't have
| much Lithium (or at least not a lot that is easy enough
| to extract to make it profitable). The EU and european
| governments already try to rely less on foreign supply
| chains, especially since they relied so heavily on Russia
| for gas and now have to scramble to find other sources.
| culi wrote:
| Maybe the corporations of those countries. But Australian
| and Chilean citizens both loathe the environmental and
| health impacts of these industries. Especially those that
| live in or around the "sacrifice zones" of these
| industries
| raducu wrote:
| > Europe doesn't have much Lithium
|
| The USA doesn't care if there's Xium inside the USA.
|
| Xium just has to be in a few places and it has to be
| moved across the globe, transacted in USD and guarded by
| the US Navy.
|
| Big corporations will not invest if they can't create a
| moat.
| trhway wrote:
| >A Tesla power wall 2 is about 150kg, if half of that is
| lithium
|
| an order of magnitude less. 30KWh is just about 3kg of
| lithium in theory. On practice it would be about 7-10% of
| the weight of the battery.
| zizee wrote:
| Do you have a source for that? I don't doubt what you
| write, but I would love to learn more.
| xxs wrote:
| realistically the cobalt based Li-Ion can reach ~250Wh/kg
| (and they are better than the LiFePO4). So 3kg of cobalt
| based li-ion would be below 1kW/h
| grenoire wrote:
| Lithium is cheap because the externalities of the
| environmental damage it causes is not accounted for in the
| pricing. It's a highly exploitative resource which has
| destructive impacts on local bacterial ecosystems, human
| communities, and water availability.
|
| Some articles, if you are interested:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0962
| 6... https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-
| environment/news/fac...
|
| It's not even comparable to sodium, which is abundant
| _practically everywhere_.
| ajuc wrote:
| > Lithium is cheap because the externalities of the
| environmental damage it causes is not accounted for in
| the pricing.
|
| Like every other raw resource we use.
| culi wrote:
| Let's not flatten it. Different materials have different
| externalities. And are available in different places with
| different levels of human rights and environmental
| protections
| hedora wrote:
| Lithium and sodium are both easily mined from sea water.
| culi wrote:
| Seawater contains less than 1ppm of lithium (compared to
| 300-7k ppm in brine). There are zero commercial
| facilities to produce lithium from sea salt. It's not
| even a notable byproduct from other seawater-based
| processing facilities
| ajuc wrote:
| Sodium is better than lithium in that respect. But both
| are MUCH better than hydrocarbons.
|
| The amount you need for driving a car for 3 years is
| several kg vs tonnes. And you can recycle the battery but
| you can't recycle the oil you burned.
|
| That's why I'm not particularly harsh on lithium
| externalities. Let's get the low-hanging fruits first
| before we focus on nuances.
| specialist wrote:
| Now compare to fossil fuels.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| > A Tesla power wall 2 is about 150kg, if half of that is
| lithium,
|
| This estimate is very far off.
|
| 1% is closer.
| cornholio wrote:
| That's a electric car battery, optimized for mobility: fast
| charge & low self-discharge, maximum density allowed by the
| projected lifetime, custom form factor, heat and cold
| resistant, vibration resistant and mechanically sturdy etc.
|
| When you think of an application like grid connected energy
| storage, most of those performance metrics are irrelevant,
| and the only thing that really matters is cell cost per
| total energy stored and delivered during its lifetime. We
| will likely see something over-engineered and simplified to
| maximize cycle count and minimize cost, leading to a much
| larger raw material consumption, at the expense of density
| - the cell is not going anywhere.
|
| So the ability to use dirty cheap ingredients is a game
| changer for the grid storage market.
| fransje26 wrote:
| > lithium is fairly cheap
|
| For now. But more importantly, there are sovereignty
| problems to considered in case things get worse in the
| future. And the quality and usability of the lithium
| substrate varies quite a bit between suppliers, with the
| better ones, for now, coming from the less "attractive"
| suppliers.
| xxs wrote:
| lithium is not the issue at all for Li-Ion.
| oddmiral wrote:
| Price of lithium jumped 6x in 2020-2022:
| https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2023/trends-
| in...
| tooltalk wrote:
| but is now down by 75+% since last November peak (and
| still declining). I suspect that we won't see another
| price spike like last year's for quite some time.
| russdill wrote:
| It's made of sodium and iron, which together make up about 8%
| of the earth's crust, so yes, they chemistry is made of really
| common materials. By contrast lithium makes up about 0.002%.
| yrro wrote:
| I was editing after doing some basic research so sorry for
| making it look like you're repeating my comment :)
| kzrdude wrote:
| Lithium is element #3 on the periodic table so it's very
| simple and should be universally abundant. Literally in the
| universe, unfortunately not on earth.
| nickcw wrote:
| There is a lot less Lithium in the universe than you might
| expect being element #3
|
| There is also a lot less Lithium in the universe than our
| models predict:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem
| willis936 wrote:
| This stinks of bad science. All of the observations come
| from stars. "Older stars seem to have less lithium than
| they should, and some younger stars have much more."
|
| "BBC Science Focus wrote in 2023 that "recent research
| seems to completely discount" such theories; the magazine
| held that mainstream lithium nucleosynthesis calculations
| are probably correct."
|
| I am unconvinced.
| arbitrandomuser wrote:
| Helium is no 2 , and that too is pretty scarce on earth ,
| but again helium is a very light gas and simply shoots out
| of the atmosphere eventually, Why is lithium rare
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| Lithium is not very universally abundant.
|
| You cannot estimate abundance by atomic number like that.
| The big bang produced mostly hydrogen and helium, with
| traces of lithium and beryllium. The elements heavier than
| that are mostly produced by stars, and the physics of
| fusion have a massive impact on what elements,
| specifically, get made. Free protons join together to
| become helium-4 much more readily than any other fusion
| process, meaning that by the time heavier things start
| forming, the raw material is entirely 4He.
|
| This means that things that are easily made of 4He are
| dramatically more common than anything else, making the
| most common isotopes after 4He oxygen-16 (4 alphas),
| carbon-12 (3 alphas, less common than oxygen because it's
| less stable and easily picks up another alpha), neon-20 (5
| alphas), and iron-56 (14 alphas to nickel-56 which
| immediately decays twice through b+ to produce 56Fe). Iron
| is so high up above all the other intermediate steps,
| because it's the last stop: In heavy enough stars, the
| entire core converts to iron, and reactions past that are
| energy-consuming, not energy-producing, so after that the
| star collapses.
|
| Lithium is not on any of the major stellar nucleosynthesis
| pathways, which means it's only produced by exceptional
| processes, making it roughly as universally abundant as the
| other stuff that is made by exceptional processes, like
| scandium or gallium or zirconium. But none of that matters,
| because:
|
| Lithium is abundant and easy to extract in the earth's
| crust.
|
| While there's not that much of it up there, there's plenty
| easy to extract down here, because it's so light and likes
| forming light compounds, meaning that a huge proportion of
| all the lithium of all the rocks that came together to form
| the earth is reachable to us. Lithium is not rare. Any
| statement about lithium batteries that bemoans the scarcity
| of lithium is doubly confused: Firstly, because lithium is
| simply not scarce. Secondly, because lithium is such a tiny
| portion of the battery, that despite being in the name,
| only a small fraction of the materials cost is lithium.
|
| Lithium price has had a few big spikes because mining is a
| very high-capital industry where spinning up projects is
| measured in years, if not decades, and we suddenly started
| using a lot more lithium in ~2010. Accordingly, the price
| has spiked from the ~$5k per ton (which is roughly in the
| same ballpark typical cost of extraction, where any
| abundant mineral prices end up at), to the heights of $37k
| per ton last year. Even at this high price, lithium was not
| even the most expensive material component in most lithium
| batteries, because typically only 1-3% of the battery's
| weight is lithium.
|
| But these prices won't last, because having the price of a
| commodity so high above the cost of extraction means that
| new mining projects are spinning up.
| defrost wrote:
| Re: Lithium as a resource:
|
| USGS (2021): Five mineral operations in
| Australia, two brine operations each in Argentina and
| Chile, and two brine and one mineral operation in China
| accounted for the majority of world lithium production.
| Owing to overproduction and decreased prices, several
| established lithium operations postponed capacity
| expansion plans. Junior mining operations in Australia
| and Canada ceased production altogether.
|
| USGS (2023): Six mineral operations in
| Australia, one mineral tailings operation in Brazil, two
| brine operations each in Argentina and Chile, and three
| mineral and two brine operations in China accounted for
| the majority of world lithium production.
| Additionally, smaller operations in Brazil, Canada,
| China, Portugal, the United States, and Zimbabwe also
| contributed to world lithium production.
| Owing to the rapid increase in demand and prices of
| lithium in 2022, established lithium operations worldwide
| increased or were in the process of increasing production
| capacity.
|
| Sources:
|
| * https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021-lithi
| um.pd...
|
| * https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023.pdf
|
| Bonus British Geo. Soc. Global Li Map: https://www2.bgs.a
| c.uk/mineralsuk/download/global_critical_m...
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| Also from the 2023 USGS periodical:
| Lithium supply security has become a top priority for
| technology companies in Asia, Europe, and North America.
| Strategic alliances and joint ventures among technology
| companies and exploration companies continued to be
| established to ensure a reliable, diversified supply of
| lithium for battery suppliers and vehicle manufacturers.
| Brine-based lithium sources were in various stages of
| development or exploration in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile,
| China, and the United States; mineral-based lithium
| sources were in various stages of development or
| exploration in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China,
| Congo (Kinshasa), Czechia, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany,
| Ghana, Kazakhstan, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Peru,
| Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, the United
| States, and Zimbabwe; lithium-clay sources were in
| various stages of development or exploration in Mexico
| and the United States.
| defrost wrote:
| Sure, there's two or three pages there IIRC.
|
| If you want to go in depth, though, you can always hit:
|
| https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campaigns/
| met...
| bloopernova wrote:
| Thank you for a fascinating comment. I learned new stuff
| from it; I appreciate you and your expertise!
| gosub100 wrote:
| Thank you for this explanation.
|
| > because lithium is such a tiny portion of the battery
|
| Is this why recycling it is so difficult?
| chongli wrote:
| That's not how it works! Lithium is a fuel that gets used
| up by stars immediately whenever it might be produced in
| trace amounts. Unlike hydrogen, lithium wasn't produced in
| the Big Bang. So most of the lithium that remains in the
| universe is produced outside of the cores of stars through
| the interaction of cosmic rays with other matter. Needless
| to say, that's not a very common interaction (relatively
| speaking).
|
| Now if you look at how larger stars operate (the CNO cycle
| [1]) you'll see that it matches up with the higher relative
| abundance of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen in the universe.
| Lithium, beryllium, and boron get "skipped over" in a
| sense.
|
| Furthermore, if you look at a graph of the relative
| abundance of all elements, you'll note that odd-numbered
| elements are less abundant than even (with the exceptions
| of hydrogen and beryllium). This is called the Oddo-Harkins
| rule [2] and it may also be playing a role.
|
| _Edit: I should also add that the third major process in
| stars, triple-a [3], involves the fusion of three helium-4
| nuclei into one carbon-12 nucleus. This occurs in older
| stars that have exhausted most of their hydrogen fuel and
| so have built up a large core of "inert" helium. When their
| outward pressure from hydrogen fusion is no longer high
| enough to withstand gravity, they reach the much higher
| pressures and temperatures needed for triple-a fusion.
| Unfortunately for the lithium industry, there's no chance
| of producing lithium this way since it is skipped over on
| the way to carbon._
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oddo%E2%80%93Harkins_rule
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-alpha_process
| simplicio wrote:
| Nitpick: Lithium was produced in the Big Bang, though in
| a ratio of something like one per billion compared to H
| production.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_proble
| m
| hedora wrote:
| Lithium is extremely abundant on earth. Unless we start
| launching it into space, or start building up after
| covering the surface with buildings and roads, we're not
| going to run out.
|
| Lithium _production capacity_ is scarce however, since it's
| a mostly useless element unless you're building batteries
| out of it.
|
| Anyway, once cities realize that they need to stop taking
| water from rivers, we should be able to skim quite a bit of
| lithium from desalination plant waste water.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I mean in that case Hydrogen fuel cells are clearly the
| future, just as soon as we manage to make our gravity well
| irrelevant.
| jvm___ wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/s/Co4zeAhcmT
|
| Iron is on top. Lithium is one up from the bottom left.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| strange how calcium and sodium are omitted
| raverbashing wrote:
| Sodium is not "mined" per se, as, you know, just get some
| sea water
|
| Calcium is, but maybe because it's not processed as most
| metals it is not included in the graph
| vlabakje90 wrote:
| At least half of all NaCl that's used world wide is mined
| from salt mines. For many places in the world it's not
| feasible to rely on solar evaporation of sea water. Using
| other energy sources to evaporate sea salt is not cost
| effective and many places have large salt deposits.
|
| https://salt-partners.com/pdf/Santorini2006Paper.pdf
| Integrape wrote:
| Would it be feasible to use the sodium from desalination
| wastewater?
| culi wrote:
| desalination wastewater contains a number of other
| chemicals used in the desalination process (e.g. pH
| adjusters, coagulants and flocculants, antiscalants,
| dispersants, biocides, and reducing chemicals)
| amelius wrote:
| So the next question: would those contaminants
| significantly degrade the performance of the battery?
| culi wrote:
| I mean... pH adjusters would definitely significantly
| alter things. The other major problem (I'd guess) is just
| the health implications of working with toxic wastewater.
| Is it safe?
|
| For context, as of 2019, we produced enough of this
| "brine" to cover Florida with 30 centimeters of brine
| every year. That means, as a whole, desalination plants
| actually produce even more toxic wastewater than they do
| clean drinking water.
|
| As a result figuring out ways we could utilize this
| _product_ ("byproduct" feels like the wrong term here
| considering it's the primary thing produced) is a major
| area of interest
| Integrape wrote:
| Didn't gasoline start out as a byproduct of kerosene
| production?
| culi wrote:
| Sure but it's alternative uses were already known. It
| just so happened that a world-altering invention (the
| consumer automobile) came along to dramatically raise
| already existing demand for it. There is currently no
| demand/use for desalination brine. For every "this
| byproduct is actually useful" story there's likely 10
| byproducts that simply stay byproducts. Still, it's
| urgent we figure out something to do with it since it's
| damaging our ocean ecosystems
| ars wrote:
| I looked up your claim that desalination plants produce
| "toxic wastewater" and I found nothing to support it. The
| output appears to be simple concentrated ocean water, and
| that's it.
|
| Can you cite your claim?
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| They can be removed in purification steps.
|
| Go from the super high salinity brine through to crude
| salt, then chloralkali process to get sodium (which can
| be cleaned up) and chlorine gas (industrially useful).
| raverbashing wrote:
| I am aware of this, but mining (or salt water processing)
| for the specific extraction of sodium metal from NaCl or
| others is really small
|
| Mined salt is probably more valuable as table salt (and
| cattle feed) than as source of metallic Na
| oblio wrote:
| Sodium is also mined for sure. There's a reason there are
| many expressions about salt mines :-)
| raducu wrote:
| > the chemistry is made of really common materials
|
| I don't want to sound like a conspiray theorist, but
| something tells me the really big actors (like states) only
| want materials that they can control the suply of.
| earthnail wrote:
| I don't think control goes that far. China definitely
| thinks that way, but I doubt the western governments do.
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| As always, whoever has the biggest guns will control this
| resource as well.
|
| If someome resists, they will end up just like anyone who
| opposed the US's quest to take other nations oil.
|
| As Donald used to say:
|
| "Take the oil, then get out". They took the oil and stayed.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| Which countries did the US take oil from? Any data around
| number of barrels ect?
| oblio wrote:
| They're probably referencing Iraq and I'm not sure it was
| raw resource extraction as it was so much removal of a
| competitor (whatever the name of the Iraqi state oil
| company was) and more than that, enabling sales of
| equipment, consulting, etc. It wasn't as simple as some
| 1800s colonialism, it was advanced wealth extraction
| worthy of the 21st century.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| Ok. So the US spent $3 trillion[0] on a war in Iraq to
| get some consulting contracts from a country with a GDP
| of $36 billion[1]? And didn't invade Saudi Arabia, which
| actually has oil? How much wealth do you estimate the US
| extacted from the war?
|
| [0]https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/true-cost-
| iraq-war-...
|
| [1]https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?en
| d=2001...
| hedora wrote:
| The Europeans were starting to loosen Iraqi oil sanctions
| and develop the fields before the second war.
|
| The US often does stuff that costs taxpayers trillions so
| that the people bribing congress can make billions.
|
| PFAS, Canadian lumber sanctions and oxycontin are three
| recent examples.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| >The Europeans were starting to loosen Iraqi oil
| sanctions
|
| Any links I can read about this? I'm open to the idea
| that suppressing Iraq's oil industry was the main
| objective of the war. I _don 't_ like claims about "the
| US's quest to take other nations oil" being that it never
| happened either in Iraq or even Iran. At least when I ask
| for a source I can never get one. To me the wars in Iraq
| and Afghanistan were mainly about projecting power, not
| oil. Certainly not Afghanistan because there is little to
| no oil there in the first place. Even regarding Iraq it
| is OPEC that sets the price and I doubt they would let
| Iraq greatly reduce the market price. It would have to be
| as you say: people with connections using the US's power
| to suppress competition. Many people online, however,
| seem to have the idea that US foriegn policy dictates
| collecting oil and that the US is stealing trillions of
| dollars of oil from various third world countries. I
| think the US gains a lot more from war to project power.
| Iraq for the most part today is a US ally. And if we are
| looking for people who would gain from the war it would
| more likely be Lockheed than Exxon. Lastly, there is no
| reason to say that _US_ oil companies staged the war
| exclusively. It is possible that eg. SA were also
| involved or the main initiators.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| I'm sorry, but Saudis were the biggest losers in removing
| Saddam.
|
| Removal of Saddam removed one of the biggest adversaries
| of Iran. Now Iranian Revolutionary Guard can freely move
| from Tehran to Beirut and support the rebels in Yemen.
| hirsin wrote:
| While I don't lend credence to it being that simple, it's
| worth noting that the people making that profit aren't
| the ones paying for it, and the ones paying for it aren't
| using their own money.
| oblio wrote:
| The US spent a ton of money from the US public so that a
| few US individuals can stuff their pockets. Corruption.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| You literally contradicted your own original statement.
| oblio wrote:
| Those individuals used the US gov to do it, see Cheney.
| Read up about Leopold and Congo.
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| Iraq, Syria comes to mind. Yes, the US is still in Syria.
| They would have tried that shit with Venezuela, but
| Ruskies got there first.
| irjustin wrote:
| > sound like a conspiray theorist
|
| Well you do?
|
| It won't work as long as there's a roughly equal
| alternative that's cheaper/easier to produce. Free market
| will win here.
|
| There's no way one state can force another state (aside
| from war) to manufacture something a particular way. It's
| like if I controlled the world's timber supply and said
| Canada must produce houses out of timber and not, say,
| concrete. Canada's gonna go produce using concrete unless I
| somehow make my timber price competitive.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > It's like if I controlled the world's timber supply and
| said Canada must produce houses out of timber
|
| This is quite naive - in fact we do this all the time
|
| * IMF provides loans to developing countries on the
| condition that they dont have 'socialist' policies
|
| * EU bailouts for Greece/aspain/etc. was given on the
| condition of sale of state assets and doing other things
|
| * The worlds ship insurance industry is run in London.
| Nuclear powered contsiner ships are faster, cheaper, and
| better in every way. Good luck insuring them. Running
| them without insurance is. illegal
|
| *'non-tariff barriers' - i.e. free trade negotiations -
| are all about aligning countries on how they
| manufacture/insure/regulate things like cars. Guess which
| econony gets the bigger say.
|
| Russia was forced to adopt Eu standards for petrol
| quality and engine emissions standards in 2,000's and
| they still follow
| irjustin wrote:
| You're right I was too flippant with my language. I was
| only thinking about the US and its strategic desires.
| zajio1am wrote:
| > IMF provides loans to developing countries on the
| condition that they dont have 'socialist' policies
|
| Because these 'socialist' policies are usually the reason
| why these countries need IMF loans.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| IMF provides loans and expects them to be repaid, having
| rules on government spending attached to the loans is...
| reasonable. Not to mention, that IMF loans are typically
| bailouts of governments that overspent.
|
| Same goes with the EU bailouts, but PIGS countries were
| already in a compact with the rest of the Eurozone. Not
| to mention, that governments should not own things that
| can go bust and drag a budget under water.
|
| As shown lately with Russian oil sales - it's absolutely
| possible to insure ships somewhere else, other than
| Lloyd's of London.
| raducu wrote:
| > Free market will win here
|
| Think batteries and nuclear fusion.
|
| Extremely hard stuff, not easy to pick apples.
|
| State actors can absolutely influence the fields for
| decades by choosing to fund certain approaches that lend
| themseves to centralisation.
| Tade0 wrote:
| That's actually the official policy in many cases. For
| instance, the EU is funding research in li-ion recycling so
| that it could create a "circular economy" with imports only
| there to make up for material lost during processing, as
| e.g. the car market is largely saturated, so the
| expectation is that demand won't grow.
| oblio wrote:
| Yeah, but that's not a conspiracy or even something
| negative. It's just common sense for a country/group of
| countries.
|
| OP made it sound like the Evil Corporate Overlords are
| conspiring to hold us back from achieving battery
| freedumb.
| bertil wrote:
| If they can; abundant is the next best thing.
|
| Any country without an expeditionary military force (about
| 187 of them) likes the resources they have. Ab abundant is
| great unless you have a known military adversary with
| extra-territorial ambition (that's three countries).
| ajuc wrote:
| Transistors are the most valuable thing we can produce per
| kilogram and sell easily. We had many processes over the
| years, but we settled on making them from sillicon. I.e.
| sand.
|
| Think about it :)
| thinkcontext wrote:
| China already has GWH scale sodium battery plants. So if
| THEY have been trying to suppress it THEY aren't doing very
| well.
|
| This announcement is about an improvement in energy density
| made possible by $Bs being invested to allow sodium
| batteries to become more competitive with lithium.
|
| There are also other battery chemistries being rolled out.
| Iron based ones seem particularly promising for stationary
| storage.
| bertil wrote:
| Northvolt's original factory in Skelleftea is near (well,
| 'Arctic near': 460 km along an existing rail line) Kiruna,
| one of the largest Iron mines in the world, so that's one of
| the two material supply safe.
|
| Industrial Sodium is made with electrolysis of sea salt; the
| factory is next to the Gulf of Bothany and has abundant (wind
| and hydro) power, so the other material supply is safe.
|
| It wasn't hard anywhere, but it's straightforward in that
| particular case.
| antonhag wrote:
| This got me thinking - the salinity of the water in the
| bothnian bay is very low (seems to be about 1/10th of ocean
| water). Wouldn't that effect electrolysis?
| bertil wrote:
| Possibly--but if that's a concern, you can also get some
| from the North Atlantic.
| hwillis wrote:
| Misleading way of looking at it. Lithium and sodium are not
| the major cost (or weight, or volume) inputs to making
| batteries, and crustal occurrence is very distantly related
| to cost. We mine things from places with 100x-1mx higher
| concentrations than natural. Water concentrates lithium into
| brines and clays for us. Sodium's low density causes it to
| create massive domes underground that are extremely
| recoverable. In contrast many metals aren't naturally
| concentrated.
|
| Lithium batteries aren't made of lithium. They're made of
| nickel- or iron, or manganese, or cobalt. In iron and
| manganese batteries the #1 price factor is the manufacturing-
| the energy, solvents, and machinery used to deposit materials
| onto film.
|
| Likewise sodium batteries are not made of sodium. There's 13x
| more iron in them than sodium. There may also be large
| amounts of manganese or vanadium. The cost of manufacturing
| is also higher per kWh.
| asow92 wrote:
| This sort of misses the point of sodium ion batteries
| though, no? One of the main objections to lithium ion
| batteries is the need for cobalt because of how it's
| sourced through "artisanal mining" in Africa.
| coryrc wrote:
| LFP has no cobalt.
| scottLobster wrote:
| Lithium batteries are made of lithium to a point that there
| is a lithium supply bottleneck if we want to use lithium-
| ion batteries as the base chemistry for the green
| transition.
|
| It will take time to mass produce things regardless, but I
| imagine Sodium has far fewer bottlenecks.
| epistasis wrote:
| There is no lithium bottleneck, we merely haven't even
| bothered to catalog all the lithium that is easily
| accessible.
| specialist wrote:
| Yes and: No long term shortage with occasional short term
| crunches. Mostly due to lag time bringing new supplies
| online.
|
| Like with every commodity market.
| jandrese wrote:
| The lithium bottleneck idea comes from people who go
| "looking at the current lithium supply we would run short
| if we instantly started producing 10x as many batteries
| as we do today", completely ignoring how markets work.
|
| It's great if we can get a chemistry that avoids the need
| for lithium, but it won't be a showstopper if we don't.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| If it's cheaper than lithium but not significntly smaller, at
| least it'll be more scalable and affordable for e.g. energy
| grid or home battery applications.
| emayljames wrote:
| It also has a vastly superior safety profile, also meaning is
| easier and safer to construct. It does not have the
| overheating problems of lithium batteries.
| elric wrote:
| I've long dreamt of being able to to have a battery buried
| under the cellar floor. Size and weight wouldn't matter.
| Lifetime and safety would be quite important.
| culi wrote:
| Is the lifespan of sodium-ion better than Li-ion?
| aredox wrote:
| Depends on the anode
| fransje26 wrote:
| They claim 2'000 cycles for their current 18650s, which,
| I believe, is about twice that of li-ions?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| "Lithium Ion" encompasses a lot of chemistries. LFP,
| which is what is most competitive with sodium ion, has a
| cycle range of 3000-10000.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| With the moves in places like California to curtail the value
| prospect of net metering for solar (particularly during peak
| hours), home storage is becoming more and more important. But
| I don't especially like the idea of big lithium batteries
| around the house ... particularly because I live in a flood
| zone.
| apexalpha wrote:
| While I am very pleased to see these developments away from
| Lithium I do think your estimates for Li-po and Li-ion are off
| by a few generations of batteries.
|
| Lipo can be 200+ /kg density and Li Ion can be 250+ in current,
| commercially produced, generations of battery cells.
|
| I'm not a pro so anyone feel free to correct me.
| F30 wrote:
| Not sure about the exact numbers, but your sentiment is
| basically accurate.
|
| This is an article about the Northvolt news by a German
| journalist specialized on battery technology (in German):
| https://www.golem.de/news/akkutechnik-northvolt-und-
| altris-e...
|
| He says that 160 Wh/kg is in the ballpark of LFP batteries
| from five years ago. It is, however, about the same as the
| sodium batteries announced by CATL in 2021.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| This would be a way better article about the topic, than
| the press release by Northvolt, if it wouldn't be in
| german.
|
| Frank Wunderlich-Pfeiffer should consider writing in
| english, I love his expertise and clarity of writing.
| lobocinza wrote:
| Volume also matters.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Keep in mind sodium ion and LFP are much safer and don't
| require nearly as much cooling and management systems as
| nickel-cobalt chemistries
|
| So at the PACK level of energy density, which is really all
| that matters, sodium ion and LFP close much of the gap with
| nickel-cobalt.
|
| So spitballing here, an NMC chemistry at 240 wk/kg at the CELL
| level will lose about 20+% ore of density per weight for
| cooling and safety, so that they will be effectively 160 wh/kg
| at the PACK level.
|
| Most CATL literature has LFP and sodium ion at 90-95% at the
| pack level with "cell-to-pack" which bypasses modules and other
| intermediate packaging.
|
| So if 240 wh/kg NMC chemistry is actually 160 wh/kg at PACK
| level, and this sodium ion is 160 wh/kg but about 150 wh/kg at
| PACK level, well then you see the real power of these
| chemistries.
|
| If the pack level 160-180 wh/kg equates to a 400 mile car, then
| 140-160 wh/kg sodium ion at pack level equates to a 300+ mile
| car.
|
| 300 miles means a really good city car. It means you can
| probably do a 50-100 mile PHEV car pretty cheap. It means
| cheap, limit-is-number-of-factories scaling of EV battery
| supply.
|
| Sodium ion is supposed to be 40$ or less bill of materials per
| kw-hr compared to 80-100 for NMC and about 50-70 for LFP. And
| it should probably drop from there in the long run.
|
| It also means that EVs beat ICEs on drivetrain cost, possibly
| by a significant margin, which might translate to a 4000$ +
| price difference from an ICE. Combined with theoretically
| cheaper maintenance and "fuel" costs, this should translate to
| an EV cost advantage that people simply won't be able to
| overlook.
|
| Personally I think there should be an overall "carbon
| externality charge" of $5000 on a new ICE as well, or something
| that scales with the carbon inefficiency of the vehicle (so a
| bigass suburban assault vehicle is like $10000).
|
| Also, note that the roadmap for batteries of CATL, a lot like
| the roadmap for future nodes in semiconductors so take it with
| a grain of salt as to when they realize the goals, is for 200
| wh/kg sodium ion and 240-260 wh/kg LFP. With superior cell-to-
| pack density, that should mean a 400 mile car for sodium ion,
| and a 500 mile car for LFP.
|
| Now, hopefully in 5-10 years we get lithium-sulfur and sodium-
| sulfur that are AT LEAST 50% more dense with similar materials
| costs. Then you get to shrink the battery to make the EV even
| cheaper.
|
| So the revolution is coming, in my opinion. And this isn't just
| a gee-whiz a faster pc for my Overwatch. This is "future
| survival of humanity in the balance". We NEED to decarbonize
| transportation, and we NEED cheap batteries for alternative
| energy grid storage. The development of these technologies is
| preservation-of-humanity level of importance, and high density
| sodium ion chemistries are a major major step towards that
| because of all the economic and practical
| levels/needs/requirements they meet/exceed.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| > "carbon externality charge" of $5000 on a new ICE as well,
| or something that scales with the carbon inefficiency of the
| vehicle
|
| Your whole writeup was inspiring and gives me more hope for
| the future. This part, though, I'm angry about. I'm angry
| that we don't already have this legislation in some form. I'm
| sure it will be fought tooth & nail by the big auto
| manufacturers, but we should do it anyway. Maybe we could
| tack on higher penalties for anyone caught 'rolling coal',
| too.
| hedora wrote:
| It should be a bit more than $5000. However, prepare to be
| even angrier:
|
| Burning a gallon of gas generates 20lbs of CO2 (most of the
| weight is the O2), so 100 gallons produces a ton. Direct
| air carbon capture should cost roughly $100 per ton at
| scale, so the fee should be $1/gallon of gasoline (either
| at vehicle purchase or at the pump).
|
| That's completely affordable and lower than current
| gasoline taxes in many places.
|
| If we made that one change (and funneled the revenue into
| carbon capture) existing ICE cars could be carbon negative
| in 5-10 years, and, as we phased them out (because EVs are
| just better) we'd have a clear path to pre-industrial
| atmospheric CO2.
| adrianN wrote:
| With what process can you capture and permanently store
| carbon from the atmosphere for that price?
| em500 wrote:
| The EU mandates a minimum EUR0.36/L excise tax on
| gasoline, which is about $1.49/gallon. In practice many
| large countries like Germany, France, Italy already levy
| more than $3/gallon. But they certainly don't funnel the
| revenue into carbon capture.
| jabl wrote:
| The sort of obvious way is to slap on a decent carbon tax
| on fuels. But of course that is fought tooth and nail by a
| lot on entrenched interests.
|
| Even here in ostensibly progressive Europe, populist
| parties are riding on "Cheap gas!!!".
| NickNameNick wrote:
| New Zealand has a scheme (soon to expire with the change in
| government) for this.
|
| Low efficiency vehicles are taxed on import, and the money
| raised is returned as rebates on high efficiency vehicles.
|
| A Ford Ranger might attract the full fee, a new t Nissan
| leaf would get the full credit. A small ICE car attracts a
| smaller fee. Hybrids are given a smaller credit.
|
| The exact amount of credit varied over time as the fees
| gathered changed.
| specialist wrote:
| Agree with all. Especially this:
|
| > _So the revolution is coming, in my opinion._
|
| Yes and: The nascent thermal batteries (box of hot rocks) and
| advanced geothermal power generation are _just now_ crossing
| the chasm.
|
| Both tech stacks have been proven, have financing, and
| initial customers.
|
| And now they're jumping on to the cost learning curve.
|
| Roughly, thermal tech today is where solar and batteries were
| in the 2000s.
|
| The will be huge because 1/2 of energy consumption ends up as
| heat. So skip all the middle steps.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| And how strange to rate a storage battery 'per kilogram'. It's
| just sitting there, on the grid, storing. The weight is
| entirely irrelevant.
|
| The interesting number for stationary storage is, Wh per $. I
| wonder where how they compare on that (relevant) measure?
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| CATL's Sodium Ion is claimed to be 1/3 the price of Li-ion.
| It is a lot cheaper per KWH but also a little bigger than
| LiPho which itself is quite a bit bigger than Li-ion.
|
| I haven't seen it that cheap yet, its got new tech prices at
| the moment for cells on aliexpress.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > LiPho
|
| LiPho? Are you thinking of LiFePO4, aka LFP?
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| Yes. Sorry Long Covid brain fog I keep thinking there is
| a H in that I know there isn't because I have 3 of them
| in my house!
| fransje26 wrote:
| > so I assume it's not competitive in energy density per litre
| so I assume not.
|
| Their competitive argument is a fast charging time with a low
| impact on the life the battery pack, with a full charge under
| 10 minutes and about 2'000 cycles. They also have a good
| available power and capacity at 20C discharge rates.
| specialist wrote:
| Yes and: Their anode uses "hard carbon", not graphite.
| Apparently without sacrificing energy density.
|
| This is huge. HUGE.
|
| China dominates the graphite market and now has export
| controls.
|
| IIRC, most current Li and Sodium batteries use graphite anodes
| of some kind. Northvote's use of hard carbon may prove to be an
| amazing cost and derisking advantage.
|
| I know nothing about their novel Prussian White cathode.
|
| I eagerly await the expert analysis of Northvote's anode and
| cathode.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Fun fact, that is why PR uses 160 Wh/Kg as its current "best in
| class". The Northvolt release is a bit cagey on what they
| _actually_ have today for sale but it seems like they are going
| into production so that is a good thing. "Whole house" energy
| store (think PowerWall types of products) are getting good
| traction and grid scale batteries have changed some folks minds
| about what is "good enough" (you don't care if it is maximally
| dense if you can spread it out over an acre or three). So I
| would expect them to push for this sort of application first.
|
| The current market need for large local battery store for EV
| chargers is apparently one of the limiting factors in deploying
| new chargers, delivering spot excess demand can be provided by
| either onsite diesel generators (like some rest areas in
| California are doing now) or a battery bank. The latter is
| preferable for energy efficiency and maintenance reasons.
| wg0 wrote:
| Full of adjectives. More cost efficient, more this and more that
| but no mention how much more and more to what exactly.
|
| Now the articles "This could be in your next EV sooner than you
| think." would be already being composed and YouTube videos being
| edited.
| perlgeek wrote:
| I share your frustration. Nothing about charge cycles, and
| "safety at high temperatures" is less interesting than an
| actual operating range specification.
| gniv wrote:
| Here's an article from June with more details about the current
| status of sodium-ion batteries (in China):
| https://carnewschina.com/2023/06/07/lei-xing-is-catls-sodium...
|
| Note that CATL also claimed 160Wh/kg two years ago, but what
| they will actually be making will probably be closer to 120.
| LeanderK wrote:
| finally some battery innovation from europe. Makes one hopeful
| that we will continue to play a role in the battery
| energy/automotive space in the future.
| xxs wrote:
| The Li-Ion and 2019 Chemistry Nobel prize went jointly to a
| British, American and Japan citizens. _The Nobel Prize in
| Chemistry 2019 was awarded jointly to John B. Goodenough, M.
| Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino "for the development of
| lithium-ion batteries" _[0]
|
| [0]: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2019/summary/
| LeanderK wrote:
| but nobel prizes are usually for basic research a long time
| ago and the battery-electric automotive revolution is
| relatively recent development, where applied research and
| bringing new batteries to market is more important
| lnsru wrote:
| No. Because there is no difference who makes an interior or
| motors or battery anymore. There is no real difference in BYD
| dolphin, Kia eNiro and VW ID.3. Except price maybe. Internal
| combustion engine was once the differentiator. And it's gone.
| nine_k wrote:
| There may be little difference in the finished device. But
| there is a big difference in the logistics, securing a steady
| supply, political complications that may interfere with that,
| etc. On the supply side, there is a difference in expertise
| and jobs.
| LeanderK wrote:
| i think battery tech can be a real differentiator
| hedora wrote:
| The engine hasn't been a differentiator for a long time.
|
| The rest of the power train, suspension, frame, etc matter
| more these days.
| konstantinua00 wrote:
| Shin, this is 7th week in the row you've shown new battery
| invention to the class
|
| ---
|
| but honestly, what's the deal with same-y headlines about
| batteries? can we have articles that actually keep observing
| these technologies as they progress after being invented?
| romanovcode wrote:
| Exactly. Where can I actually BUY these batteries that would
| fit to AA, AAA etc..
| xxs wrote:
| Retrofitting is =dumb=, like very dumb. The nominal voltages
| are different to begin with. However not that only -
| retrofitting in general is not a bright idea: case in point
| LEDs into E27/E17 incandescent fixtures.
| benj111 wrote:
| Why not?
|
| In the case of bulbs you could get a better form factor,
| but no one's doing that, they're just using non replaceable
| bulbs.
|
| Batteries. Are you going to get rid of your TV just so you
| can use a different battery chemistry? There have been
| various chemistries available in AA. Would you rather we
| have even more battery sizes to keep track of?
| xxs wrote:
| > Why not?
|
| B/c the LEDs require a driver which runs on DC [the
| better case is constant driven], the space constraints
| are too high and there is not enough room for heat
| dissipation which in the US kills the driver (as running
| on 110/120AC is less efficient), and in Europe it tends
| to kill the LEDs because they get to be overdriven, but
| the driver dissipates less heat. The power factor on all
| them tends to be atrocious, usually 0.5phi. They tend to
| quite noisy, esp. when it comes to EMF. In short there is
| not enough space to have a decent LED driver along with
| enough space for heat dissipation for the LEDs (usually
| only 15%, being generous, of the energy will be emitted
| as light. The rest is heat, so if you see 8W of LED, more
| than 6.5W is just heat)
|
| Pretty much almost all LEDs you can buy in a retrofit
| case are almost guaranteed to be overdirven to show
| better numbers and be 'brighter'. Near ceiling larger
| fixtures can be designed for LEDs. They tend to have an
| actual 15-30k hours lifespan.
|
| Dimming the LEDs is the next atrocity, esp. when it comes
| to chopping the sine wave. The LED dirvers have to work
| with the chopped sine wave and detect how much it has
| been chopped to reduce the current or the PWM.
|
| About the AA(A) and the TV. I can control the TV w/
| bluetooth and an app but I find that incovenient. However
| NiMH nominal voltage is 1.2V which fits the 1.5 of the
| alkaline batteries. It's good enough already. So yes, it
| takes different chemistry unless the remote controls
| provide built-in step-up/step-down converters,
| effectively variable operational voltage.
| benj111 wrote:
| I think it's more a case of enshitification.
|
| The first LEDs I got were metal bodied.
|
| One of them has gone in the past 10 years. So they must
| be around that lower bound by now.
|
| Tbf I don't think subsequent ones have been too bad.
|
| Re your TV. Ok your TV might be, my TV isn't, and I have
| plenty of other remotes, and then there's clocks and
| weighing scales and kids toys and all the other things
| that use aa batteries.
| xxs wrote:
| > I think it's more a case of enshitification.The first
| LEDs I got were metal bodied.
|
| The heavier the better when it comes to such LEDs. Yes,
| it's possible to make them work okayish, and control the
| temps (LEDs should not go over 60C) but that would show
| poor lumens (and watts) on the box, and be expensive.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Most of this problem becomes a non-issue with the advent
| of LED filament bulbs. That's pretty close to the holy
| grail IMO.
|
| And besides, making everyone change every fixture in
| their house in order to take advantage of LED would just
| have meant it never happened. E26/E27 bulbs are going to
| be around for a while.
| xxs wrote:
| >LED filament bulbs.
|
| Just lots of LEDs in series with higher target forward
| voltage. Still, LEDs are current driven devices and quite
| temperature sensitive, and still need a driver. The
| issues are not that different.
|
| >That's pretty close to the holy grail IMO.
|
| I guess we have a very different idea about the grail,
| then.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| We probably do. I like that filament bulbs have much
| smaller driver requirements and much better heat
| dissipation, and I can stuff 100W bulbs into enclosures
| without worry. The only thing I don't love is that they
| are somewhat more prone to flicker. Not enough that my
| eyes notice, but some might.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Dumb is a feature. If less things are there to defeat, we
| can change or fix the thing so it works and lasts much
| longer. Smart is an anti-feature.
| masklinn wrote:
| Modern chemistries don't really do 1.5V (nominals are usually
| above 3V), so you need to package a buck and a boost
| converter alongside your cell(s). There are li-ion and LFP
| batteries in alkaline formats but they're hardly going to be
| ideal, you're probably better off going with 18650.
| aaronmdjones wrote:
| On the other hand, it's quite rare that a tool takes a
| single 1.5V cell. Many of them will take 2 or 4, and then
| you can make a double form factor 3V cell that will fit in
| most double AA holders.
|
| I've also seen manufacturers who make 3V or 3.2V cells in
| AA format, and then supply a dummy AA-shaped link with it,
| which is just a straight-through connection like a wire.
| Put one cell and one link in your tool, or two cells and
| two links.
| jve wrote:
| > dummy AA-shaped link with it
|
| Can't find on Amazon. Care to share or make a photo
| please?
| aaronmdjones wrote:
| https://kk.org/cooltools/dummy-batteries/
| ForkMeOnTinder wrote:
| If you're using these, be 100% sure your device connects
| the batteries in series, not in parallel, or you'll have
| a mess on your hands.
| aaronmdjones wrote:
| Yes, the page does mention this.
| vikramkr wrote:
| I don't think anyone is intending to or wants to develop new
| batteries for consumer applications like that. The point here
| is large scale energy storage and maybe EVs which could be
| the closest thing to consumer tech. Lithium vaee batteries
| started development in the 1970s so that gives you an idea of
| the order of magnitude of the timeline. Hopefully that cycle
| is shorter now due to greater upfront interest and better
| tech
| est wrote:
| China sells them on Alibaba, not packed in AA/AAA but 18650.
|
| Review here https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1c34y1N7NU/
| pulse7 wrote:
| Can we have a webpage with (1) all basic battery tech
| information and (2) updated progress for each new battery type?
| m463 wrote:
| can that webpage have an RSS feed, and a subscribable .ics
| file?
| culi wrote:
| what metrics could you use for "progress"? Maybe a crowd-
| sourced thing where users can update the highest achieved
| density for each? Still there's other measures that are
| probably even more important and harder to measure. Like
| adoption
|
| EDIT: actually I just realized I'm describing Wikipedia
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery#Comparison
| s0rce wrote:
| like NREL did(does?) for solar https://www.nrel.gov/pv/cell-
| efficiency.html
| gniv wrote:
| Sodium-ion is real. Here's more news from China:
| https://carnewschina.com/2023/11/20/sodium-ion-batteries-are...
|
| It's not widely touted since the density is not as good, the
| Northvolt announcement notwithstanding. But the costs
| apparently are much lower.
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| > the density is not as good
|
| This can of course mean that this is a game changer for
| stationary storage, because density is not as much a concern.
| mlinhares wrote:
| Yup, looking forward to using this as backup storage at
| home.
| apitman wrote:
| Could it be good for deep cycle batteries for cars as
| well?
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Dear battery technology claimant,
|
| Thank you for your submission of proposed new revolutionary
| battery technology. Your new technology claims to be superior
| to existing lithium-ion technology and is just around the
| corner from taking over the world. Unfortunately your
| technology will likely fail, because:
|
| [ ] it is impractical to manufacture at scale.
|
| [ ] it will be too expensive for users.
|
| [ ] it suffers from too few recharge cycles.
|
| [ ] it is incapable of delivering current at sufficient levels.
|
| [ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures.
|
| [ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently
| portable.
|
| [ ] it has too short of a lifetime.
|
| [ ] its charge rate is too slow.
|
| [ ] its materials are too toxic.
|
| [ ] it is too likely to catch fire or explode.
|
| [ ] it is too minimal of a step forward for anybody to care.
|
| [ ] this was already done 20 years ago and didn't work then.
|
| [ ] by the time it ships li-ion advances will match it.
| bagels wrote:
| I'm interested in $/kWh, that is the most limiting factor for
| cars.
| dathinab wrote:
| volume/kWh also matters for car use-cases (but especially for
| less high end cars not as much as kg/kWh)
|
| $/kWh is mainly affected by: material cost, manufacturing cost,
| cost of safely using it (e.g. shielding but also e.g. fire
| insurances), replacement cost (lifetime, frequency of repairs,
| needs full replacement for repairs?, refurbish-ability etc.)
|
| As far as I can tell the material and safety cost should be
| much and somewhat cheaper, the manufacturing cost is hard to
| say but initially is likely more expensive as it's a new
| process and the durability and refurbish-ability are probably
| major points which will decide weather it's competitive in the
| vehicle market or not.
| maven29 wrote:
| Will Volume/kWh really matter if they use the battery also as
| a major structural component? Doesn't skateboard chassis
| require structural reinforcement even at the cell level?
| dathinab wrote:
| It can because even "skateboard chassis" have limited
| volume.
|
| For high end e-cars the maximal reach tends to matter a
| lot, even if for some buyers it only matters in
| advertisements.
|
| For less high end cars they often anyway compromise on
| range so it might not matter as much but then in many
| places (which are not in the US) having small cars matters
| a lot to a point that sometimes e.g. typical SUVs might not
| be usable _at all_, and I mean EU style SUVs not US style
| SUVs (through most times its just very inconvenient). And
| small cars mean little space for batteries (potential only
| 50% of the space).
|
| Lastly there are some aspects of different styles of
| "skateboard chassis" having different usable volumes for
| battery cells. And some especially save and refurbishable
| chassis designs come with the penalty of having a bit less
| volume to use.
|
| So the answer is very dependent on the context.
| h7KP4 wrote:
| Headline number (160Wh/kg) is the same as CATL achieved in
| mid-2021 with Na-Ion chemistry [1]
|
| [1] https://www.catl.com/en/news/665.html
| torginus wrote:
| What are the advantages of sodium batteries?
|
| Since batteries involve the migration of ions between electrodes,
| the much larger size of sodium ions means that the resulting
| batteries will be both less dense and have less charge cycles
| than their lithium counterparts, due to the higher volumetric
| electrode deformation during charging.
|
| This makes them suboptimal for both grid and mobile applications,
| and the only use case I can see for them is making very cheap
| disposable stuff, which does not bode well for the environment.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Sodium is easier to find
| torginus wrote:
| Yeah, but lithium isn't exactly rare either.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Actually not at the rates we're predicted to use it, no
|
| And yes Sodium is fine for most applications where it can
| be a little heavier (grid uses, maybe cars) which is where
| most of it is projected to be needed.
| jvm___ wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/s/Co4zeAhcmT
|
| Here's how much of everything we mined in 2022. Lithium is
| bottom left corner just above Gold.
| varjag wrote:
| Since Li kg price is not anywhere near to that of gold,
| the production is likely demand-constrained.
| oddmiral wrote:
| Lithium price jumped 6x in 2020-2022.
|
| https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-
| outlook-2023/trends-in...
| ranting-moth wrote:
| Which production (save for byproducts) today isn't demand
| constrained?
| xxs wrote:
| But cobalt is (which is the basis of the 'classic' Li-Ion).
| Of course, LiFePO4 doesn't require it.
| drtgh wrote:
| Lithium is abundant, as are other "rare earths" (they are
| not rare), but the problem is that they are quite scattered
| and to extract them nowadays requires to process very large
| areas of land through chemical reactions (additives and
| evaporation).
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Compared to what? Sodium?
| culi wrote:
| I hope this doesn't come off as combatative, but I don't
| know why people keep repeating this fun fact from their
| highschool chemistry class as if it's relevant to the
| discussion.
|
| Per a 2023 Nature article:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-022-00387-5
|
| > The locations of suitable continental brines are also
| geographically restricted, with an estimated 50-85% of
| lithium-rich continental brine deposits located in the
| Lithium Triangle and with China as the next richest source.
| Hard-rock ores are also geographically concentrated in
| Australia and China
|
| Lithium in a form that is economical to mine/process is
| indeed quite rare. Which is why 3 countries produce 90% of
| it.
|
| And it is extremely environmentally costly which is treated
| as an economic externality. It takes 1.9m litres to mine
| one ton of lithium and solvent chemicals like hydrochloric
| acid contaminates groundwater, making the entire site toxic
| and unlivable.
|
| Entire governments have been overthrown for access to this
| resource.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Lithium mines are hard to build (capital intensive,
| permitting, water availability), and there aren't enough to
| satisfy demand.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| sodium batteries are safer as well when it comes to fire and
| explosion etc
| lazide wrote:
| Metallic sodium is quite reactive?
| Aardwolf wrote:
| From reading the comments, seems like it would be useful for
| battery power storage in the home (since it's cheaper and
| safer, and weight doesn't matter), but not great for a car yet
| (since it weighs more)
| torginus wrote:
| Not that good for storage either, because of lower cycles
| than Lithium (which is already low anyway)
| lazide wrote:
| Huh? 5k cycles is huge?
| ranting-moth wrote:
| It's a daily recharge for over 13 years. I don't remember
| having a battery lasting that long.
| lazide wrote:
| Yup. LiFePo batteries are now starting to have lifetimes
| that long (or longer), but they haven't been in the field
| for long enough that people can notice yet.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Upsides: Cheap, safe, no hard to source materials. Relatively
| high amount of cycles (> 5000).
|
| Downsides: somewhat low energy density, somewhat less
| efficient.
|
| CATL has been producing sodium ion batteries for some time. I
| think most of those so far end up in cheap Chinese EVs.
| Relatively few of those have found their way to the European or
| North American markets yet. Part of the reason is probably the
| lack of sodium ion battery factories outside of China (so far).
| It looks like Northvolt is looking to change that.
|
| It's competing with LFP and other battery chemistries. You'd
| use these mainly for cheap cars and possibly for grid storage.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Price, number of cycles, weight, and temperature are the
| advantages as far as I remember.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| maybe not weight.
| fulafel wrote:
| In the majority of applications outside consumer electronics,
| the bottleneck problem with Li-Ion batteries is their cost and
| manufacturing resource intensity. We're lacking cheaper and
| easier to mfg options compromising on some qualities.
| sylario wrote:
| This summer a French company started to sell sodium ion battery
| power tool in a major hardware store.
|
| National French research agency announcement:
| https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/batteries-sodium-ion-une-pre...
|
| The power tool :
| https://www.leroymerlin.fr/produits/outillage/outillage-elec...
|
| Unfortunately, all I could found about the Wh/kg efficiency was
| an article about the same company saying they were currently able
| to build cells at 90Wh/Kg in 2017.
|
| Nevertheless, it's not a promise, it's a product currently on
| sale.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| The entire product weighs 0.5 kg, and it is 0.7A at 3.6V. I
| assume the amp rating is really amp-hours, which would give it
| 2.52Wh. Figure the battery is half the weight of the tool,
| which would give it roughly 10Wh/kg.
| sylario wrote:
| The spec sheet on the store is confusing. It says :
|
| Intensity(Ah) Less than 1.5
|
| Tension (V) 3.6
|
| Amperage (Ah) 0.7
|
| Edit : the box indicate 0.33 Kg, the 0.5 weight probably
| include the charger and other parts.
| masklinn wrote:
| According to https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/ab
| s/pii/S03787... the batteries Tiamat produces are 18650
| format, 3.7V, 0.61Ah. The latter more or less matches the
| specs of the product. This would mean the product might have
| a single 34g battery with a specific energy of 68Wh/kg, and
| 135Wh/L. So low end of nimh. Which sounds somewhat
| reasonable, 10 (and around 20Wh/L) I don't think you'd bother
| even going forwards with.
|
| Sadly I can't find any teardown of the product, it's all just
| press reprints.
|
| There's a split view PDF (in the documents section), it
| doesn't seem to show the battery but does not show a huge
| amount of space for it.
| aredox wrote:
| I got the same 68 Wh/kg from this report: https://www.green
| carcongress.com/2023/10/20231030-tiamat.htm...
| foobarian wrote:
| Low end of Nimh doesn't sound very great, but - what if you
| could get 18650 cells for (making up a small number) $0.50
| each? I think I would end up with a box full and just swap
| them as I use them. Even better if they retain charge well.
| aredox wrote:
| It has other great advantages over NiMH: fast charging,
| no memory effect, no self-discharge
| foobarian wrote:
| Absolutely! However my baseline are my Li-ion 18650 cells
| which have those advantages as well, in addition to
| larger capacity. But I think I would be willing to give
| up the capacity if the price was much lower.
| orangepurple wrote:
| NiMH doesn't have noticable memory effect. NiCd does.
| tzs wrote:
| NiMH self-discharge is low enough to not matter for most
| applications. 5th generation Panasonic Eneloop is 90%
| after 1 year of storage, 80% after 3 years, 75% after 5
| years, and 70% after 10 years.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| How much of that weight is the essential weight of the
| battery, and how much is consumer-friendly outer shell,
| electronics, other one-offs etc.? I.e. if you wanted to take
| the same tech, put it in a non-consumer-facing context (say a
| grid-scale battery) and wanted to make it 100x the capacity,
| would it be 100x the weight?
|
| I can imagine a lot of the weight of the battery unit itself
| isn't necessarily the battery, if that makes sense.
| hbossy wrote:
| It's the first time a captcha tool flagged me as robot and
| banned from their site.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| Same here
| j-a-a-p wrote:
| 00100011 01101101 01100101 01110100 01101111 01101111
| dylan604 wrote:
| They're French. They don't care about your suffering <puffs
| on cigarette>
| TomK32 wrote:
| I didn't even get to a captcha
| computerfriend wrote:
| > There is a robot on the same network [...] as you.
| frafra wrote:
| They are banning entire countries (violating the EU geo-
| blocking directive as well, probably).
| ChumpGPT wrote:
| Banned for using a VPN.
| metadat wrote:
| I got banned and am not even using a VPN! Overly aggressive
| bot protection.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20231121142135/https://www.cnrs....
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20231121142300/https://www.leroy...
| fransje26 wrote:
| > company saying they were currently able to build cells at
| 90Wh/Kg in 2017.
|
| I found an article from 2021 where they were claiming 90Wh/kg
| to 120Wh/kg, and that they would not go beyond that. They argue
| that their strength is fast charging, not high energy density,
| with charges to full capacity in less than 10 minutes.
|
| https://www.ecinews.fr/fr/tiamat-energy-lance-la-production-...
| speed_spread wrote:
| In a vehicle, "fast charging" is not just convenience, it
| means you can use a smaller, _lighter_ battery having less
| autonomy but knowing that you can refill it in a few minutes
| stop. It doesn't make range anxiety go away completely but it
| makes long trips practical.
| system2 wrote:
| Not necessarily. You must have those fast chargers
| conveniently placed on your route. I can't even imagine
| going to Vegas from LA with an electric car currently.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| LA to Vegas is about 270 miles, which is under the 333
| mile estimated range of a Tesla Model 3.
|
| I'm sure under normal conditions, 270 miles would be
| cutting it pretty close, if it even makes it there at
| all. Luckily there are 10 supercharges along the way.
|
| Not sure how it is for non-teslas, but I'm guessing at
| least a few of those places with superchargers also have
| chargers that will work with other kinds of cars.
| sroussey wrote:
| There are not so many and the chances of them working are
| a coin flip.
|
| Driving through the desert on an open road is not
| conducive to efficiency. It's hot, need AC blasting. It's
| an open road--drive fast! (Or it's bumper to bumper for
| 10 hours).
| mlhpdx wrote:
| Think about what that means as to a practical limit,
| today. How many cars per day can make that trip assuming
| they have to recharge once along the way? It's far from a
| solved problem even on that route.
|
| I love electric cars. I've been drawing pictures of them
| thinking about them and waiting for them for a long time.
| And, I am very grateful for those that made them a
| reality. That said, I'm also pragmatic. Where we are
| today versus where we need to be to make them practical
| for a large portion of the population is sublime.
| lazide wrote:
| If it's impossible to charge the battery in less than 30
| minutes, that changes the dynamics of charging a _lot_.
| speed_spread wrote:
| Exactly. But if two ten minute stops in Barstow and Baker
| was all it took to make it possible with a cheaper
| electric car, a lot more people would consider it. Anyway
| you'll need to stop for a piss.
| kposehn wrote:
| As another commenter pointed out, LA to LV is actually
| doable with a number of current on sale EVs, with a
| decent size range buffer left behind after the trip.
| Furthermore, there are several fast chargers on the route
| in Hesperia, Barstow and Baker.
| IntelMiner wrote:
| You must have gas stations conveniently placed on your
| route. I can't even imagine going to Vegas from LA
| without a horse and buggy currently
|
| The last part felt a little mean-spirited in retrospect.
| But my intention was to point out that you're just
| describing a lack of infrastructure yet
|
| Once we build this stuff it's * _there for use*_ and just
| has the usual burdens of maintenance. Arguably less since
| we don 't need to transport big trucks full of oil to it
| regularly
| lazide wrote:
| Sure, but complaining that someone is noticing the real
| infrastructure issues doesn't mean they don't exist right
| now?
|
| Not everyone wants to bleed so they can be on the
| bleeding edge.
| jandrese wrote:
| There is no lack of charging infrastructure between LA
| and LV.
|
| https://supercharge.info/map
|
| If you were talking about LA to La Paz then there is a
| real concern about making it, but LA to LV is no problem
| at all.
| Animats wrote:
| The big advantage of fast charging is that charging
| stations are smaller. With hours-long charging, everyone
| needs a parking place with a charger. With 20-30 minute
| charging, you need a big lot with parking stalls and
| something for people to do for 20-30 minutes. With 10
| minute charging, you're almost at gas station throughput.
| With 5 minute charging, you're at gas station throughput
| levels.
|
| As I wrote a few days ago, once charging is below 10
| minutes, charging stations work just like gas stations in
| terms of throughput. We will see gas stations converting
| directly from gas pumps to chargers. (Unclear if gas pumps
| can coexist near high-powered chargers; gasoline vapor and
| high voltage electricity should not be in the same space.)
| unwind wrote:
| I was banned from the second site (like many other commenters),
| and got a chuckle from how switching the first from FR to EN
| did not, in fact, translate the actual content.
|
| Silly me for expecting that, I guess.
| alentred wrote:
| Interesting. The second web site cites a number of advantages
| of the sodium-ion battery:
|
| > Sodium is 10 times faster to charge than lithium, and safer
| because of its low operating temperature. The number of
| recharging cycles is up to 5 times greater than lithium.
| Another advantage is that sodium is more widely available and
| accessible on the planet, and its processing has less impact on
| the environment.
| boringg wrote:
| Whats the ramp up ramp down time? How much energy throughput
| before degradation? Can we improve that density furthermore?
| Cost?
|
| If those are all good answers ostensibly some viable alternative.
| kaliszad wrote:
| This is a good development, but it falls really short of the
| almost 3.5 kWh that would be possible to achieve with sodium
| metal fuel cell. Such device is described in the expired patent
| US3730776A (copy available here:
| https://orgpad.com/file/DrCoHGH6xJJqraDeusqrtS?token=D6S5Bow...)
| A similar device producing electrical current can be constructed
| in a garage.
| nine_k wrote:
| The point is not energy density, or momentary power. The point
| is _low price_ and immediate availability.
|
| There is a lot of solar and wind electricity wasted in the
| world because there's no economical way to store it. LiFePO4
| batteries are > $100 / kWh, last time I checked; a practical
| powerwall costs like a small car, and is also a major fire
| hazard.
|
| We badly need _cheap_ , non-toxic, non-flammable batteries we
| could deploy massively outside of cars, drones, and phones. The
| announced battery looks like something that may fit the bill.
| DanielHB wrote:
| Northvolt also acquired Cuberg who are researching lithium-
| metal chemistries
|
| https://cuberg.net/
|
| sodium-ion is about low cost for stationary applications (grid
| scale ESS) where weight and size don't matter as much
| Uptrenda wrote:
| After all the OpenAI stuff I've just started reading drama into
| all these head lines. Like I read this as: 'North Korea develops
| state-of-the-art sodium-ion...' I am expecting something to
| happen now... OpenAI literally broke my brain...
| xbmcuser wrote:
| China is going to bring into production from this year a lot of
| sodium ion batteries. For me the weight and density of the
| batteries is not as important as recharge cycles and cost as that
| would price out more carbon producing electricity generation
|
| https://carnewschina.com/2023/11/20/sodium-ion-batteries-are...
| jansan wrote:
| There are sodium ion batteries available at aliexpress. The
| claimed advantges (written in an unintentially comical way)
| are:
|
| - better safety
|
| - same number of cycles as LiFePo
|
| - much better capacity at low temperatures
|
| - protects environment (?)
|
| I would take that with a truckload of salt. Also, price is
| roughly 50% higher than LiFePo.
|
| On many product images there is an outdoor winter scenery. So
| performance at very low temperatures seems to be the main
| selling point.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| LFPs do more cycles and are still cheaper. Sodium ion isn't
| going to make much of a dent in that market until the price can
| get below LFP.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| Yeah but prices wont have the same kind of fluctuations as
| lithium does because of demand and supply. And as
| manufacturing picks up economies of scale should start
| bringing the price down
| prawn wrote:
| Are any of these developing battery chemistries likely to become
| very affordable to the point that future houses are built with
| cellar-sized batteries stored underneath them?
| chrsw wrote:
| There's another thread going on HN right now about limiting the
| charge of Li-ion batteries to 20%-80% of thier capacity. Do
| batteries based on Na-ion chemistry have this
| limitation/recommendation?
| mmmwww wrote:
| Thats fairly good and typical i think. Lead acid and AGM
| batteries are not recommended to be below 50% of their
| capacity.
| Roark66 wrote:
| So where is the catch? Because there is always a catch. It's
| either that it needs a tiny amount of extremely expensive
| ingredients (palladium?), or it requires extremely advanced
| manufacturing techniques? Or its both cheap and easy to make but
| the mass production makes way too many failures...
|
| There is always something... Therefore I'll believe it when I'm
| able to but such battery and fly my drone with it.
| EspressoGPT wrote:
| This. You need to take any battery-related news with a rather
| heavy grain of salt, especially when it comes to "solid state"
| or "sodium" headlines.
| lsaferite wrote:
| > heavy grain of salt > "solid state" or "sodium"
|
| This made me chuckle a little. Thanks!
| ngrilly wrote:
| The catch is lower gravimetric energy density (Wh/kg). But
| sodium-ion is great for stationary energy storage, where
| gravimetric energy density doesn't matter that much (unlike
| automotive, aviation, or handheld tools).
|
| Disclaimer: I'm a former Northvolter, but not involved in that
| program.
| masklinn wrote:
| 160Wh/kg is not super impressive in the first place, that's the
| low end of li-ion although it is the high end of nimh. The
| energy density (energy per volume) is also unlisted so might
| not be great.
|
| For reference northvolt also lists lithium-metal batteries at
| 395Wh/kg, and they _do_ list the density on that one, 797Wh /L.
| When they acquired the designer (cubert) back in 2021 they
| listed the possibility of exceeding 1000Wh/L by 2025 though I
| don't know if that's still in the plans (at the times the cells
| were only listed at 369Wh/kg as well).
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| This is just another announcement. The catch remains unchanged.
| Engineering all the details of anode, cathode, electrolyte
| packaging, and manufacturing scale still needs to meet and also
| prove itself in the real world.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Have anyone noticed that most technological breakthroughs in
| fields that require hard physical sciences seem to come from
| foreign countries?
| ben_w wrote:
| I don't know which country you _don 't_ consider "foreign", but
| even if you're in the largest one by population, 82% of the
| world is foreign.
| elzbardico wrote:
| in the context of most of HN, unless noted otherwise, I think
| it is safe to parse foreign country as 'national entities
| other than the US'.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Is John Goodenough not good enough for you?
|
| Too bad he has recently passed, though.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This is about 0.5 MJ/kg compared to fuel which is closer to 50
| MJ/kg ( or closer to 10 when normalizing to efficiency). ie this
| is why ev batteries need 20x the weight of gasoline at least to
| store similar amounts of on board energy.
| est wrote:
| except fuels burns only once and can't be recharged
| ifdefdebug wrote:
| Yet modern EV cars and ICE cars have similar range autonomy
| without carrying batteries worth 20x the weight of gasoline,
| due to the abyssal efficiency of combustion engines which
| produce mostly heat.
| hedora wrote:
| It is pretty close to a 20x difference, but they make up most
| of that on the lack of gas tank and engine, and lower range.
| (EV's tended to weigh 600lbs more the last time I checked).
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Someone should build an EV that shreds the empty batteries
| and ejects them into the face of passing schoolchildren to
| lighten the load and better recreate the health and
| environmental impacts of ICE vehicles.
| alkonaut wrote:
| EVs don't need to store the same amount of energy as an ICE car
| though. Just enough to get _as far_ would be more than enough
| energy. Twice the motor efficiency and the fact that ICE 's
| don't regenerate fuel when breaking helps even it a bit.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| For stationary batteries, density (Wh/kg) and volume (Wh/liter)
| are not a concern, only Wh/$. These sodium-ion batteries can be
| deployed for grid connected storage (or home batteries like
| powerwall), freeing up Lithium for EVs.
| megaman821 wrote:
| It is probably good to have a sodium battery industry to hedge
| against high lithium prices. For our current and projected needs
| there is probably enough lithium on earth. Here is a chart of
| what we mine https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-the-metals-we-
| mined-in-...
| trebligdivad wrote:
| Why is 'Prussian white' a nice blue? (as shown in Northvolt's pic
| at the bottom)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Because that's not Prussian white, it's Prussian blue. The
| white version is derived from the blue.
| havkom wrote:
| Northvolts PR department seems to historically be very sharp. In
| addition they seem to want to announce many things, like a co-
| operation to create batteries from wood (the wooden industry is
| large in Sweden so probably many very important people working at
| the top of those companies):
| https://northvolt.com/articles/stora-enso-and-northvolt/
|
| In that light, I wonder how this press release should be
| interpreted.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Original research article this development appears to be based on
| was published in 2015 is available on sci-hub, just paste the
| title in:
|
| Rhombohedral Prussian White as Cathode for Rechargeable Sodium-
| Ion Batteries
|
| It's notable that it was an ARPA-E funded project and some of the
| research was done at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. It's more
| applied research than basic research as they were specifically
| looking for a setup that would work with existing battery
| manufacturing technology.
|
| > "Compared with previous work, the high Na concentration in the
| new material overcomes the sodium-deficiency problem. We show
| that it could be directly assembled into a full cell with a hard
| carbon anode. This is critical for the scalable sodium-ion
| battery manufacture that is compatible with the current lithium-
| ion battery infrastructures."
|
| Interesting timeline: from publication of research result to
| commercial development to deliverable product, ~8 years. Now,
| would a VC fund think that was a decent turnaround time - I
| really don't know, any opinions?
| acyou wrote:
| Beware of battery technology announcements that only give a
| single parameter! They have usually made drastic tradeoffs in
| other areas in order to get the headline number.
|
| And we are left to only speculate. But, if the other numbers were
| great, they would have also stated them.
| kurthr wrote:
| It's still less than half Lion and not quite as good as current
| LiFePo or NMC.
|
| Hope springs eternal.
| kristjank wrote:
| Even if it performs worse, the abundance of minerals required to
| construct this type of cell is a good news for sustainability,
| given we figure out how to recycle them. I imagine it should be
| easier, or at least less dirty than lithium.
| danans wrote:
| Another technology to watch is silicon anode Lithium-ion
| batteries (Amprius, Sila, Group 14) which have been demonstrated
| at 400-500Wh/kg.
|
| Matt Ferrell's Undecided Youtube channel just posted a video
| today going over that technology:
| https://youtu.be/YJ4pg_exdvs?si=kKNE-yY-Va9xMuBf
| s0rce wrote:
| And Enovix
| staticelf wrote:
| Pretty cool, go sweden!
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