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Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

nature.com

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Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#41

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

ptero wrote: post #16

TL;DR: Battery demand grows. Best current tech uses nickel and cobalt. Their prices grow and at the current growth trends demand outstrips supply within 20 years. We should fund research (in the author's area) to find better alternatives (e.g., using iron and silicon). This is valid but not surprising and hardly catastrophic. This is not "10 years left to find an alternative". But what turned me off is scaremongering…

I thought nickel-colbalt has a significantly lower specific energy / energy density than other lithium-polymer batteries. They might be cheaper to make (or maybe not so much anymore), but they have a large space form factor.

I don't know of any laptop today that's using a nickel cobalt battery. Those ones usually allowed you to remove the battery pack from the laptop. Now there all based on lithium-polymer now. Same with smartphones.

I did some research in lithium polymer batteries a few years back. I distinctly remember there being almost 10 or so variations of lithium polymer mixes being used in battery production.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#42

Post by nickik »

The problem with Rare Earth is that the West collectively acts like 3 year old who are to dumb to solve incredibly simple problems.

Rare earth contained lots of Thorium and that has to be handled as nuclear waste and that means you have 1000s of tons of nuclear waste on your hands. This is of course completely idiotic because Thorium not really a big problem as it is not radioactive.

The few Rare Earth mines that do exist only extract the lower group so you can avoid the Thorium.

Because the US drives policy for the whole West, there is basically no Rare Earth mining in the West.

China on the other hand understands that the more expensive rare earths are outside of China the more likely people will manufacture in China.

While I am 100% with Simons (one of the best economists ever) the unlimited stupidly of government is stopping a real market solution.

There was quite a bit of effort to change this and it got traction in congress because many people are really concerned that all US military equipment depends on rare earths from China.

See:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7QNZ56j-HM

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxwF93wnRQo

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#43

Post by tompccs »

ggm wrote: post #8

Oh god, another Erlich/Simons bet is needed: what's low is the level of rare earth exploration and exploitation not absolute supply. Is there a supply chain problem? Yes. Are we approaching a mad-max hell war for the last vestiges of humanities wonder mineral? Alas.. no. The ten years meme is based in a false premise. The article even says Australian known sources are only utilised at 14% and yet predicts a long term…

Another point the article missed: although batteries have a lifetime of 15-20 years (which they claim makes recycling infeasible), most people currently replace their cars far more frequently than that. Which means that either the cars will be scrapped and the battery materials recycled (if they really are all that valuable), or the global production of cars per capita will slow as people keep their cars for the lifetime of the batteries.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#45

Post by Reason077 »

xigma wrote: post #6

The headline is made to sound like: "Oh no, we are running out of cobalt!" Yeah, not really. Just like with "oil reserves", there's a common misconception that we'll "run out" when they are depleted. However, "reserves" are just those resources that can be extracted economically at today's prices . When demand increases, prices rise and reserves "magically" increase. That's exactly what will happen here. "Rare-earth…

> "there's the questionable idea that electric motors will replace combustion engines because we're "running out of oil""

Right. Electric motors will replace combustion engines because they're cheaper to operate, offer better performance, require less maintenance, don't emit toxic pollutants, contribute less CO2 emissions, they're much quieter, and they offer a better driving experience.

Sooner or later they'll be cheaper to manufacture, too, due to reduced labour required, component commonality, fewer moving parts, etc.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#46

Post by striking »

heymijo wrote: post #23
endymi0n wrote: post #9

As one of my favorite comedians once put it: „Analysts are people who tell you what the world will look like in 15 years if nothing changes. Now do you REALLY want to know how long your toenails get if you don‘t cut them?!“ Movement here will come from a number of factors: - Demand increases, which will: - open up more mines (nicely summarized in the long commentary in this thread) - incentivize better extraction tec…

"Analysts are people who tell you what the world will look like in 15 years if nothing changes." I noticed at the bottom of the page this disclosure: "Competing Financial Interests G.Y. is a co-founder, chief technology officer, a board member and a shareholder of Sila Nanotechnologies, the company commercializing silicon-based anode materials mentioned in this Comment article." Referring to co-author Gleb Yushin, "a…

Yeah, I'm disappointed that this submarine article has been on HN's front page for this long.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#47

Post by nickik »

jchrisa wrote: post #39
3pt14159 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember trying to explain basic Econ 101 to a classmate while in third year engineering. Peak Oil was a religion back then. The same isn't true for the environment. Unlike Peak Oil where economic incentives simultaneously would encourage smaller cars with more efficient engines while also directing research into more advanced oil retrieval (or at the very worst biofuels) the environment is not something the market…

The problem basically being what happens when you marry the logic of commodification (money, oil, grain, etc equally interchangeable) with the growth requirements of a debt-interest based economy. Either we have to make off-world into the new growth industry or financial capitalism will be the end of us.

This has nothing to do with capitalism. Any economic system would face the exact same problem. Growth is not inherently capitalistic, its just the system that can sustain growth while others can't so its running into these problems while others collapsed before getting there.

Its a simply property rights (or externalizes problem) that is universal and incredibly difficult to solve.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#48

Post by detaro »

vinceguidry wrote: post #13
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA has plenty of rare elements to mind as long as the military doesn’t mind paying more. The USA is already a resource powerhouse, but China has undercut it severely in refining because they hadn’t been caring much about their environment. The USA military also really really excels at strategic logistics, I’m pretty sure they have more than just a few months stockpiled.

The military has to compete for these resources with the private sector, you might be surprised at just how much the current logistics toolchain simply buys from private companies off the shelf.

Assuming a world war scenario, there likely is no competition with the private sector, which will have a choice between producing what the government wants it to produce or being put under government control and then producing what the government wants.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#49

Post by nickik »

xigma wrote: post #38
3pt14159 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember trying to explain basic Econ 101 to a classmate while in third year engineering. Peak Oil was a religion back then. The same isn't true for the environment. Unlike Peak Oil where economic incentives simultaneously would encourage smaller cars with more efficient engines while also directing research into more advanced oil retrieval (or at the very worst biofuels) the environment is not something the market…

Polluting the environment is damaging someone's property (private or state), for which they will eventually demand restitution. It's part of market forces. Conversely, a certain amount of pollution/environmental destruction is a price people are willing to pay.

That is all nice and true in theory. But property rights don't exist from nowhere, they need to be created by private actors or governments.

Global property rights issue will not be solved by simply law-suit the way you might fix a noise problem. Governments are not only not establishing property rights they would actively prevent anybody that did.

If your read the literature on the economics of property rights and Ronald Coase own writings you will see that he did not believe simplified version of the 'Coase theorem' that was formalized by Stigler.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#50

Post by l_camacho84 »

ggm wrote: post #8

Oh god, another Erlich/Simons bet is needed: what's low is the level of rare earth exploration and exploitation not absolute supply. Is there a supply chain problem? Yes. Are we approaching a mad-max hell war for the last vestiges of humanities wonder mineral? Alas.. no. The ten years meme is based in a false premise. The article even says Australian known sources are only utilised at 14% and yet predicts a long term…

Australia is not utilising only 14% of their resources, they have only 14% of the known world resources. More than 50% is based on Congo were the work is performed in miserable conditions. We are all happy that we still don’t reach peak oil, but if we don’t change the way we think about progress and economic growth, in a world with finite resources will have severe consequences.
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