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Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

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Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#101
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I missed the 10x charge speed- that is a killer feature that more than makes up for the reduced range.

I wonder what that will mean for charging infrastructure that suddenly has to deliver 10x power to enable that. Not sure that sort of charging could be as ubiquitously placed as gas stations

Just have the same batteries in the charging station to smooth out power usage? Seems a lot cheaper and operationally less complex than a gas station.

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This falls in line with a plug in hybrid being an excellent alternative to evs for most people. 30-50 miles of driving around town for work an errands, with an ICE for the occasional longer trip. Almost all driving will be electric without the charge anxiety.

My hesitation with hybrids is that I keep all the associated maintenance costs of an ICE engine. Now I have two power trains and energy systems to maintain instead of just one.

But how often do you have issues with the engine. My last 3 cars never had a single engine issues for at least 175.000 miles. Its very rare today to have big engine issues.

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This falls in line with a plug in hybrid being an excellent alternative to evs for most people. 30-50 miles of driving around town for work an errands, with an ICE for the occasional longer trip. Almost all driving will be electric without the charge anxiety.

My hesitation with hybrids is that I keep all the associated maintenance costs of an ICE engine. Now I have two power trains and energy systems to maintain instead of just one.

That is just a meme without substance. The ongoing maintenance cost of a mature Japanese ICE drivetrain is negligible compared to the overall operating costs of the whole car. There is a reason why Toyota hybrids are by far the most popular cars for Uber drivers.

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#105

We’re undergoing a Cambrian explosion of battery chemistries at the moment. Other startups, such as From Energy is scaling up production of Iron Air batteries in West Virginia, which will be an order of magnitude cheaper than lithium ion and will provide grid scale power [1]. North Harbour Clean Energy Promised to build a manufacturing facility in Australia to build Vanadium Flow batteries, which have very high charg…

This is truly one of those "it begins" moments.

The article touches on it - but the news goes well beyond the battery. Li ion batteries come with significant geopolitical baggage beyond simple cost.

The situation is well summarised by the graph on this page. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/chart-countries-produ...

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#106
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I missed the 10x charge speed- that is a killer feature that more than makes up for the reduced range.

I wonder what that will mean for charging infrastructure that suddenly has to deliver 10x power to enable that. Not sure that sort of charging could be as ubiquitously placed as gas stations

Indeed the charging cables are already massive. Just need some superconducting cables.

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#107

> We haven't seen a weight-based energy density figure from Natron itself, but a 2022 article from Chemical & Engineering News put its sodium-ion batteries at 70 Wh/kg, around the very bottom of the sodium-ion energy density scale. That aligns well with the company's stationary-only business plan, as sodium-ion batteries being pursued for potential mobility use have more than double that density. CATL showed a 160 Wh…

Energy density isn't a particularly interesting target for stationary energy storage applications. I'd assume that they just aren't optimizing much for it (yet).

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This falls in line with a plug in hybrid being an excellent alternative to evs for most people. 30-50 miles of driving around town for work an errands, with an ICE for the occasional longer trip. Almost all driving will be electric without the charge anxiety.

My hesitation with hybrids is that I keep all the associated maintenance costs of an ICE engine. Now I have two power trains and energy systems to maintain instead of just one.

Well, hybrids sometimes get to replace the transmission with EV bits, like Toyota's system. Imagine an engine and exhaust system; now multiply the complexity by 100 and you have a modern transmission. Toyota hybrids (and GM/Chrystler/Honda) replace all that with a single planetary gearset, or with Honda, one clutch.

Other systems, think Volvo, pop the EV bits in the back of the car and replace where the drive shaft used to be with batteries. That seems like a decent trade to me as well. Still have a transmission, but at least it's not purely additive.

AND one man's added complexity is another's redundancy. If the charging module goes bad in a hybrid, you can still drive. Or if you run out of gas.

All that said... I still prefer EVs to hybrids. Do one thing, do it well, I say!

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#109
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I missed the 10x charge speed- that is a killer feature that more than makes up for the reduced range.

I wonder what that will mean for charging infrastructure that suddenly has to deliver 10x power to enable that. Not sure that sort of charging could be as ubiquitously placed as gas stations

It just means the infrastructure gets the same cheap batteries as buffer.

Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

#110
Really excited to see that the battery is entering production. Feels like every year we hear about new batteries in the lab that are "2x-5x as efficient as Lithium ion" but they never seem to actually hit production.

[1] https://www.yahoo.com/tech/engineers-created-revolutionary-b...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/05/13/ev-ran...

[3] https://news.mit.edu/2022/aluminum-sulfur-battery-0824

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