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Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

construction-physics.com

231–240 of 331 posts

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “5-10 minutes every two hours” … lol, that’s good when you’re going from LA to San Diego. If I had to stop every two hours on a road trip I’d get a train ticket, it would feel a lot faster. Sorry, now you're spewing nonsense. LA to SD does not require charging at all. I did more than 120000 miles of road trips in my EVs across the US and Canada, even before they were fully covered with charging networks. So I know…

You can’t just assume every time you go somewhere your battery is fully charged. I mean, you can, because you are clearly emotionally tied into your purchase. But I can’t as an engineer.

I made plenty of spontaneous trips. But even then I just need to pop into my garage, plug in the car, and it'll likely be close to 100% charged within 1-2 hours. Just enough time for me to get breakfast and read the morning YC news.

And even if you totally forget about charging and you really need to go, that's just an additional ~20 minutes or so. You don't even need to plan the route anymore, with so many charging stations available: https://supercharge.info/

> as an engineer.

I have doubts about that.

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#233
post #8

fun fact: there is already a Sodium-battery with a solid electrolyte - but the operating temperature is above 300^C [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium%E2%80%93sulfur_battery

...yeah but everything else is liquid...

no dendrites ;)

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#234
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think 10x density is possible without getting into nuclear, at least not with the chemistries we know of today, everything at a certain point becomes an explosive. Speaking of nuclear, getting tons of the material that powers mars rovers and putting them in every home would generate enough power for decades... At the cost of being able to build a nuclear bomb in a garage.

The problem with the stuff that powers mars rovers (RTG) is that gives off constant power. If your RTG gives off 100W, you will always get 100W, no more, no less, until it progressively decays on the scale of decades. You can't even turn it off. The energy density is great, but the power density is really bad. For most applications, you still want a battery in addition to the RTG. I don't know how easy it is to make…

The hard part of enrichment is getting to around 20%, after that it actually becomes easier. They're slow-decay isotopes yes, but I am fairly sure you can build a multi-stage device to create a superheated plasma to release all that energy in a fraction of a second since they are capable of chain reactions and it is largely dictated by heat.

Last time I looked into this was 5 years ago so my memory is a bit fuzzy, take it with a grain of salt.

And yah, batteries would still be needed to even out the load, but it is extremely predictable and can be offset with preheating water and other things during valleys of usage, also those rovers actually have 500w of power!

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If ICE is the only vehicle for you, because of religious reasons, thats okay. There are large and small countries ( China, Norway) that have majority EV cars and continue to grow. There are 120+ other countries that are buying EVs. Even in US, there are a few people who have bought EVs and realized it works for them. A person who really needs an ICE car would encourage others to buy EVs because it would reduce oil de…

I find this whole discussion weird. The whole world is in a transition phase. For some it will make sense to jump to pure EV use, for others it won't. That whole “The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.” thing... I have one of each. They work well for different reasons. EV is the charge-at-home city car that is preferred for every day use. The ICE is for when two cars are needed and long distan…

Thats right, most families with 2 cars can immediately switch to an EV and use it as a daily driver.

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The latest battery chemistries perform incredibly well in cold and hot climates. Depends on your definition of cold. California cold sure. Wisconsin cold you are looking at losing 40%-60% range.

China cold tests their EVs in Harbin and Mohe, where “cold” means -40 (F or C doesn’t matter, it’s the same). They lose some range, and indoor charging garages are more common (for better charging performance), but the tech has gotten good enough that even harbiners (a small city of 20 million people) are adopting EVs at a rapid clip.

so good that batteries are ejected when they catch fire

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't their tech powered by portable black holes?

The regulatory approval for those is just too expensive in practice. I mean you blow up one star due to cost cutting and nobody trusts the tech ever again...

This is ridiculous, there are plenty of stars and most of them are red dwarfs with tidally locked rocks blasted by flares anyway

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#238
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-solid-state batteries have liquid/gel electrolyte.

Wood is a solid-state battery. The term has obviously been selected because of how revolutionary solid-state electronic devices were/are. And it's not like they selected it after a revolutionary energy storage device was introduced. Solid-state batteries ( cells ) are an incremental improvement, at best. And because this is the web: I am not being negative about the technology. I happen to be of the radical opinion t…

The word "battery" is a stand-in for electrochemical cell, which wood obviously isn't. Quite some advantages are expected from batteries that don't involve liquids or gels, whether incremental or not.

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think 10x density is possible without getting into nuclear, at least not with the chemistries we know of today, everything at a certain point becomes an explosive. Speaking of nuclear, getting tons of the material that powers mars rovers and putting them in every home would generate enough power for decades... At the cost of being able to build a nuclear bomb in a garage.

The next revolution will be small scale generation. Fuel cells, extremely efficient cheap solar, even smaller modular reactors, etc. I live in western Pennsylvania and have both natural gas and electric service, a roof and 1/3 acre of land to utilize. I would love to get rid of at least one of my utility bills and I’m becoming more interested in decoupling from the electric grid than natural gas service. I dream of a…

> love to get rid of at least one of my utility bills

Some places don't allow going off-grid. They force everyone in neighbourhood to pay for gas and/or electricity infrastructure even if you're not using it.

So many people have gone offgrid solar in Pakistan that it is causing severe issues for their electricity market and existing infrastructure.

Re: Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this whole discussion weird. The whole world is in a transition phase. For some it will make sense to jump to pure EV use, for others it won't. That whole “The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.” thing... I have one of each. They work well for different reasons. EV is the charge-at-home city car that is preferred for every day use. The ICE is for when two cars are needed and long distan…

Thats right, most families with 2 cars can immediately switch to an EV and use it as a daily driver.

This is the correct use for EV. A second car, around town. Perfect.

The EV push back is because the MBAs decide to market them as replacement daily drivers. And despite the people that went all in being part of the same reality that has caused the massive pushback against EVs… they will defend their purchases to the death.

I have had two EVs for around town. Love em. But not real for only car outside of California.

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