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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

#311

Post by cmrdporcupine »

karmajunkie wrote: post #248
brnt wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hybrids get a bad rep. It makes for such a difference: knowing that you don't need to worry about that 1%.

The argument against hybrids that's always resonated with me is that you get the maintenance costs of a gasoline engine with the upfront costs of a battery. I've owned a Leaf and found it relatively trouble-free but never a hybrid. Am I just buying into FUD there?

I've had a Volt since 2018 and there's basically been almost no "maintenance" on the ICE. Just an oil change every two years. Maybe I'm due for a coolant flush or something, I dunno. It has 120,000km on it.

The most maintenance on this car ever has just been the breaks, because like most EVs, they're prone to corroding because they don't get used as much due to regeneration.

The "ICE is a maintenance problem" thing is honestly kind of a bogus argument borne out by people's hunches, rather than reality. Most reliable vehicle I've ever owned, and, yeah, I am about 95% electric only on it.

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

#312

Post by thelastgallon »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #33

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…

> The advantage with Sodium Ion is that, although energy densities are lower than Lithium Ion, it could still be used to power mobile devices and electric vehicles.

There is an insightful comment by AtlasBarfed: Keep in mind sodium ion and LFP are much safer and don't require nearly as much cooling and management systems as nickel-cobalt chemistries: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38363603

Read the whole comment, it is pretty detailed and explains why the lower density of Sodium Ion doesn't matter as much as people think.

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

#315

Post by twobitshifter »

pfdietz wrote: post #288
mbgerring wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

LFP batteries are also lithium ion batteries, just a different kind.

Lithium isn’t problematic on its own. They can take enough of it from the Salton Sea without any mining.

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

#316

Post by twobitshifter »

karmajunkie wrote: post #248
brnt wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hybrids get a bad rep. It makes for such a difference: knowing that you don't need to worry about that 1%.

The argument against hybrids that's always resonated with me is that you get the maintenance costs of a gasoline engine with the upfront costs of a battery. I've owned a Leaf and found it relatively trouble-free but never a hybrid. Am I just buying into FUD there?

Haven’t own an EV but I have done lots of research.

For the BMW i3 which is another series hybrid with more range, it seems 60% of owners think the engine isn’t worth it, but the rest love having the engine. There is no in between.

The original i3 had 80 mile range, the second generation 120, and the last 150. From what I saw in researching by the time the range was up to 150 the BEV only folks were loudest.

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

#317

Post by twobitshifter »

WalterBright wrote: post #209
_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.

Citroen Ami would be great for you. There are now cars built for this type of thing.

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

#318

Post by XorNot »

So I re-ran my battery spreadsheet on this, and the short version is: if the claimed reduction in cost of 1/3rd current LiFePO4 can be achieved - at retail (so I just knocked my LiFePO4 figure down to 33%) can be achieved...oh my does that change the economics. In a "the repayment period of installing peak-shifting capacity at my house would be under 2 years, and the lifetime yield would be 50% on the installation cost".

So if they can hit that sort of cost reduction...that's revolutionary for grid batteries.

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

#319

Post by r00fus »

pornel wrote: post #212
silisili wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Last time we had to fast charge on the way to Yosemite, we had lunch at a strategically parked taco truck in the same lot (they even had a picnic table).

We would have walked to a nearby restaurant if needed.

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

#320

Post by twobitshifter »

nightowl_games wrote: post #7
downrightmike wrote: post #2

Lower capacity in the same form factor, but inputs are common and cheap as dirt and will be able to do the hard work of supporting grid scale battery storage. We've learned that there are many applications that do not need to capacity of lithium.

Hopefully we can continue to lower the power requirements of our every day items and the lower capacity of these batteries will become less of an issue.

Jevon’s paradox says that will just lead to more energy usage.

We will end up with an LLM live training on your watch.

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