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Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

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

#121

Post by Spooky23 »

nickik wrote: post #72
pjc50 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thorium is radioactive, just not very much. It's toxic in the way a lot of heavy metals are. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp147.pdf

Yeah is radioactive but you can build a bed out of it and sleep on it so its not radioactive in any practical sense. And of course Toxic is not a problem because most of the metals a rare earth mine would deal with would be toxic. You can actually find heavily concentrated earth in the US that would basically count as nuclear waste because nuclear policy is so insane.

The problem is that the output of mining isn't a big, hard Thorium bed. It's going to be a big mountain of loose ore contaminating the water table.

It's like lead in car batteries. Lead is incredibly toxic, but is mostly safe in that application, as there is a very tight chain of custody for batteries and good recycling programs.

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

#122

Post by magduf »

ajross wrote: post #100
gok wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what's low is the level of rare earth exploration and exploitation not absolute supply This article is about cobalt and nickel, neither of which are rare-earths.

It's also fundamentally wrong in its headline and lede conclusion. And it even admits as much: > Recycling cannot replenish supplies. Lithium-ion batteries last for 15–20 years, 3 times longer than the 5–7 years for lead-acid batteries. Refiners might exploit poorer quality ores, especially as prices climb. But greater processing costs would push the prices higher. So... no. We aren't going to run out. We'll see a co…

Batteries might get more expensive, but if that happens then we'll see old batteries having scrap value, just like with aluminum today. People will hold onto their old batteries instead of trashing them or recycling them for free, and will re-sell them to recyclers, and recycling rates will go way up.

Just look at the recycling rates today for car batteries (lead acid): it's nearly at 100%, though of course part of that is because almost no one changes their own battery, and when they do, they do it at AutoZone in the parking lot and leave the old one there. But it's perfectly possible, especially with them retaining value, to have extremely high recycling rates for Li-ion batteries, so that the lithium, cobalt, and nickel inside never goes to waste and is continually recycled.

What we really need is better standardization for batteries for small devices, particularly phones, and elimination of the ability of devices to have non-replaceable batteries. I would actually favor a legislative approach to this: ban the selling of devices with sealed-in batteries altogether in major markets, forcing manufacturers like Apple to come up with standards and making batteries at least somewhat easily removed to facilitate recycling.

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

#123

Post by baybal2 »

baybal2 wrote: post #21

3-4 new polymetalic mines can easily double the global cobalt supply. The story with cobalt is the same as with REEs and Lithium - they are everywhere, but few big companies dare to mine them expecting the business to go bust the moment China or Congo resort to further dumping For Nickel, global supply is being dominated by a price cartel, doing the same thing.

Ironically, in Nickel, the only company that somehow manages to lives outside the cartel scheme is Chinese.

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

#125

Post by mchannon »

In ten years, I predict we'll have started transitioning to aluminum-ion batteries.

Lithium has one valence electron. Aluminum has three.

Aluminum-ion cells are not new, and they do have issues, but the same can be said of Lithium-ion 20 years ago.

Energy densities are remarkably different, with aluminum the clear winner.

Ironically, nickel and probably cobalt will be needed for mass-produced aluminum-ion batteries too.

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

#126

Post by magduf »

aurizon wrote: post #110

We need to work on super-springs, so you can wind up your car... LOL Right now there is a lot of lithium in the earth, much is not economic, but as lithium prices rise, more mines will become economic. Cobalt, as well as lithium will become far more highly recycled. Battery innards will be improved to reduce Cobalt use. Lithium use can not be reduced very much per KW hour, as the chemical changes oxidation state in a…

>Lithium is both light in weight and has nearly the highest possible voltage swing of ~~3.7 volts (versus 2 volts for lead and 1.2 volts for Nicads and NiMh which are many time heavier per KWHr in addition)

IANAchemist, but this makes me wonder if there's some other chemistry out there, either undiscovered or deemed uneconomic, that offers even better performance than lithium.

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

#127

Post by dbingham »

nickik wrote: post #42

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…

As someone currently dealing the consequences of being far too cavalier with long term environmental pollutants like PCBs and lead, I would argue that behavior you're describing as being that of a "3 year old" is actually a good example of government sanity, not stupidity. It's reasonable long term caution to avoid creating a bigger problem in the future.

The true 3 year old behavior on display here is the market behavior you're advocating: ignoring a potential long term problem in favor of a short term gain.

Environmental toxins are not something to be cavalier about. Once soil gets contaminated, it's damned hard and expensive to clean up. Land is one of the single most limited resources we have. We can ultimately live with out lithium ion batteries. We can change our behavior, use other electrical sources, or as the article argues for, find other sources of electrode material.

We cannot live with out clean soil in which to grow healthy food. Or on which to live.

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

#128

Post by exabrial »

I don't think batteries are a long term solution without a materials science breakthrough. The charging rate and the charge density needs to be increased exponentially.

I think we have a much better shot with hydrogen fuel cells, or other phase change system that can be refueled rapidly.

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

#129

Post by magduf »

majewsky wrote: post #22
joking wrote: post #5

This is supposing that we want big cars with big batteries, In the cities the mobility is moving toward small personal vehicles, and if you have bigger commuter needs, I hope that in the future the highways can be electrified and the cars would only need the battery to get from the highway to your home. There are not enough minerals to make batteries to replace all the current cars with their current autonomy, but a…

> I hope that in the future the highways can be electrified Obligatory remark: Let's also put the cars on metal rails instead of on asphalt to reduce rolling friction. And maybe instead of small cars, we could use large wagons or chains of those that could transport a lot of people at the same time.

No, those are called trains, and while they're great for shuttling a large number of people between two distant points, or along a line of points, they really suck for moving a large number of people between countless arbitrary points that are arranged in 2-dimensional space like a grid (or a metro area that's spread out in all directions).

What you really want, to replace private cars, is SkyTran: tiny cars for 1-2 people, suspended from metal rails (which have a maglev effect to eliminate friction altogether), that are completely autonomous and take riders directly to their destination within a metro area. Each one operates independently, so you don't have to worry about what other users are doing or waste time going to stations that aren't your destination.

IMO, it's shameful that we haven't done more to explore PRT (personal rapid transit). It could really revolutionize city and suburban life and eliminate the need for so many people to own cars, while also saving people so much time with commuting (since such a system, fully built-out, would have far higher capacity than our current road system).

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

#130

Post by Spooky23 »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #93
mcfist wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thorium is not much radioactive indeed, but radon it emits is. That's why f.ex. building houses on a granit (that is generally thorium rich) without proper ventilation underneath can result in serious health issues.

There's loads of cities built on and with granite, and long before any awareness of Radon came about, without undue health effects. Scotland particularly - Aberdeen is even nicknamed the Granite City. Modern levels of draught exclusion can make for a little more of a problem of course.

You can map a specific radon level to probability of getting lung cancer. At high levels, it's equivalent to smoking cigarettes, and for smokers, it increases your cancer risk 7-8x.

At the levels where it is recommended that you remediate your home, your likelihood of dying from lung cancer is equivalent to dying in a car accident. That's potentially 50 people a year when you look at a population of 200,000 people.

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