> 600 megawatts annually
No.
Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production
211–220 of 396 posts
Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is charge time important because you can't install a L2 charger at home / apartment to keep it "always charged" or because your usage pattern is too heavy duty for a 30 minute break every 200-300mi? If it's just the former, the slow steady march of EV mindshare might solve your needs before the "L4" super-fast-charging battery. I am starting to see L2 chargers pop up in apartment parking lots, for example. IMO, "alwa…
The latter, actually. I'd much prefer to stop for five minutes every 2 hours than 30 minutes every 4 hours.
The current state of the art is somewhere in between with 18 minutes per ~3 hours. It even helps to split charging into shorter sessions (2x 9 minutes), because batteries charge fastest when they're about 25% full.
Keep in mind that EVs charge unattended, so you only spend a minute plugging in, and can leave to get a coffee, etc.
Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production
#213Earlier 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…
Also, there are very large and as-yet-untapped lithium deposits in the US, not to mention a burgeoning recycled lithium supply chain.
Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production
#214Earlier 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…
Aren't batteries quite limited in their ability to provide synthetic inertia? Sure, they can respond on a second or tenth-of-second scale, but they don't provide the kind of instantaneous inertia you get from spinning rust. Inverters aren't exactly designed to just eat power surges, they'll instantly disconnect instead.
That's why the UK grid has been building some "high-inertia synchronous compensators", and a 2019 outage showed that it's urgently needed.
Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is charge time important because you can't install a L2 charger at home / apartment to keep it "always charged" or because your usage pattern is too heavy duty for a 30 minute break every 200-300mi? If it's just the former, the slow steady march of EV mindshare might solve your needs before the "L4" super-fast-charging battery. I am starting to see L2 chargers pop up in apartment parking lots, for example. IMO, "alwa…
The latter, actually. I'd much prefer to stop for five minutes every 2 hours than 30 minutes every 4 hours.
I'd prefer shorter times on road trip charging, too. But I still ended up buying an EV because I only need road trip fast charging a few times a year, and now I don't have to carve out 20 minutes every couple weeks to go find a gas station and fill up. The overall time savings for me is significant.
Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Total cost of ownership of a Toyota hybrid is less than many other entirely ICE cars lol
Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production
#217So, 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)
Why would you need storage for half of your annual electricity usage to be self-sufficient? It seems like you could achieve that with far, far less battery, perhaps combined with slightly more solar.
Our panels produced a mere 60kWh in december. We've got 6 months where we use more than we produce.
Storing 50% was a quick estimate as for what we'd need. Anybody got better numbers for that?
Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cobalt, however, which is used in common lithium battery chemistries, is mostly sourced from the DRC (Congo), much of it under terrible conditions: forced labour, child labour, and rampant environmental degradation. The book Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives [1] is a real eye-opener if you haven’t read it. Fascinating and deeply disturbing. 1: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60784614-cobalt-…
Since 2022, the majority of EVs manufactured have no cobalt in their batteries. Most manufacturers use lithium iron phosphate chemistry (LFP), which is cheaper and safer than NMC or NCA. The cobalt-based chemistries are only used in higher performance vehicles, where LFP's lower energy density becomes a problem.
Not yet. At least in the US the only LFP EVs available right now (Spring 2024) are certain models of the Ford Mustang Mach-E and the standard range Tesla Model 3. This may change over the coming months.
Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production
#219Hopefully long term, this can help us dismantle unnecessary high voltage transmission lines, and let people trickle store power at 48volts and discharge it at 110 through inverters.
Hi Voltage transmission lines are completely necessary. Running on 48V would require ridiculously large cables over any significant distance. Is there a reason you want to "Dismantle" high voltage transmission lines? They are the greatest invention since sliced bread. edit: Sliced bread was invented in 1928, and the first high voltage transmission line was apparently tested in 1889. Therefore my statement needs revis…
If anything, we should be running 1MV+ transmission lines to conserve copper and/or aluminum.
Re: Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production
#220I 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.
Some people (including myself) only need cars for long-distance trips where air or train travel is not feasible, and for most people, even if their car is mainly a grocery-getter, psychologically, they want to know they can drive across the country with it.