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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

#201

Post by quitit »

Ygg2 wrote: post #181
quitit wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's unpack it then. You've stated: >"Mostly from Australia and Chile" seems like the opposite of baggage, that sounds like about the best you could hope for in a global commodity, so many of which come from unstable regions, conflict regions, or outright adversaries. So let's break it down with some facts (all easily searchable.) (1) The graph states that Australia is the largest producer of Lithium, and states tha…

China doesn't have largest Li deposits. It's a hub area. Perhaps THE hub area for industrial goods. You didn't really refute GP's point.

Unfortunately I don’t accept “because I said so” as a counterpoint.

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

#202

Post by IshKebab »

alemanek wrote: post #74
_yb2s wrote: post #67

I had an early EV with only 80 miles of range, and found it extremely useful for most in town travel and commuting. Now that EVs are pushing ~400 miles range at about 300Wh/kg, assuming sodium is about half that (from what I've seen), you'd still get a respectable 100-200 miles in a car. For me, and I imagine a lot of people, that would be totally acceptable if it means lower cost, and batteries that effectively last…

From the article it claims charge speed 10x that of lithium and 50,000 cycle lifetime. I don’t know about you but a EV that can go 150 miles and charge to 80% again in 2min would be super compelling to me. Solid commuter car but not too annoying on the rare roadtrip. But, I am guessing grid frequency regulation use cases are going to make these too expensive for a car for a long time.

2 mins to charge a 40 kWh battery is 1.2 MW. I can't see that happening any time soon.

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

#203

Post by WalterBright »

I remember a 60 Minutes segment some time back on batteries made out of saltwater and dirt. They would be ideal for grid scale batteries, because although the energy density of those batteries is low, that's irrelevant because very large batteries could be cheap and easy to make. The batteries don't have to be portable.

This is what baffles me about Li batteries for grid use. Using high energy / weight is very costly and completely irrelevant for grid batteries.

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

#204

Post by Salgat »

_yb2s wrote: post #67

I had an early EV with only 80 miles of range, and found it extremely useful for most in town travel and commuting. Now that EVs are pushing ~400 miles range at about 300Wh/kg, assuming sodium is about half that (from what I've seen), you'd still get a respectable 100-200 miles in a car. For me, and I imagine a lot of people, that would be totally acceptable if it means lower cost, and batteries that effectively last…

In my experience the miles they advertise are no where near the reality. My Model Y has never given me 320 miles on a charge and it's not like gas stations where you can hit one up at the last moment, on a trip you gotta start finding a charger once you hit around 20-25% charge left.

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

#205

Post by jvdvegt »

genewitch wrote: post #195
jvdvegt wrote: post #104

So, with about 10.000 kg of these in my basement (2MWh capacity), I should be mostly self-sufficient? Nice! (4MWh electricity usage per year, with solar panels producing slightly more)

i use between 1 and 2 MWh a month... Do you live underground and not have anything electronic? 1000KWh is 1MWh. I guess if one has all natural gas appliances and no need for air conditioning it's possible to get down to 333KWh a month. i have owned and ran computers that used more than that a month, for goodness' sake.

This is a family of 5 in the mid-Europe. We don't use electricity for heating or cooling, and we're still burning gasoline to drive around. These are pretty normal numbers around here.

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

#206

Post by Dylan16807 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #188
xaellison wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not that much, grids can and do deal with highly variable loads all the time, as all the heavy machinery involved in traditional power generation (=generators, gearboxes, axles, turbines) has a lot of inertia that buffers sudden changes. However, as more and more generation capacity shifts to renewable sources that by design have very small (wind) to zero (solar) inertia, there will be a requirement to build out freq…

Advanced solar and wind inverters can also push back on grid changes to mimic inertia.

Also I'd say the inertia in a normal wind turbine doesn't count because it's not tied into the grid frequency.

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

#207

Post by jtriangle »

silisili wrote: post #133
alemanek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article it claims charge speed 10x that of lithium and 50,000 cycle lifetime. I don’t know about you but a EV that can go 150 miles and charge to 80% again in 2min would be super compelling to me. Solid commuter car but not too annoying on the rare roadtrip. But, I am guessing grid frequency regulation use cases are going to make these too expensive for a car for a long time.

Compelling to me also, as a person who has shied away from EVs because of charging time annoyances. I'd gladly trade the mileage for charging speed every time. Getting excited for what's to come.

It's very likely that we'll end up with tiered batteries in EV's before long. Some amount of the capacity will be fast charge/discharge, some amount of it will be capacity with slower charge/discharge with a higher density available.

Think of it like modern SLC backed QLC flash storage. As long as the usage profile fits inside of the cache, it runs as though the entire system is cache.

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

#208

Post by pornel »

EasyMark wrote: post #158
gpm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i doubt if the batteries can handle the type of surge output as the superchargers require.

They easily do. Discharge rates are typically higher than charge rates. For stationary batteries it's all easier due to being able to have larger, more parallel batteries, and better cooling when weight is not a concern.

Battery-backed charging stations are already common, because it allows use of cheaper grid interconnection, and use of cheaper off-peak or renewable energy.

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

#209

Post by WalterBright »

_yb2s wrote: post #67

I had an early EV with only 80 miles of range, and found it extremely useful for most in town travel and commuting. Now that EVs are pushing ~400 miles range at about 300Wh/kg, assuming sodium is about half that (from what I've seen), you'd still get a respectable 100-200 miles in a car. For me, and I imagine a lot of people, that would be totally acceptable if it means lower cost, and batteries that effectively last…

Why do people need 200 mile range for an EV?

For example, my daily mileage averages about 5 miles. As an errand-runner, a 30 mile EV would be very practical. The huge benefit of this is a smaller and cheaper battery, and the biggie - much less weight. Much less weight leads to much less tire/brake wear and tire/brake dust pollution.

I'd still have a second gas car for the trips.

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

#210

Post by mbgerring »

quitit wrote: post #146
jdewerd wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Mostly from Australia and Chile" seems like the opposite of baggage, that sounds like about the best you could hope for in a global commodity, so many of which come from unstable regions, conflict regions, or outright adversaries. Yes, I know that China does most of the refining/assembly, but that has little to do with the chemistry. "Building new Na-ion capacity outside China" is probably even harder than "building…

Let's unpack it then. You've stated: >"Mostly from Australia and Chile" seems like the opposite of baggage, that sounds like about the best you could hope for in a global commodity, so many of which come from unstable regions, conflict regions, or outright adversaries. So let's break it down with some facts (all easily searchable.) (1) The graph states that Australia is the largest producer of Lithium, and states tha…

Lithium Ion rely on cobalt nickel, but LFP do not, and also do not have the thermal runaway problems that lithium ion batteries do. This is close to being a solved problem.
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