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Form Energy reveals the chemistry of its long-duration battery

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Re: Form Energy reveals the chemistry of its long-duration battery

#111

Post by tim333 »

Hypx_ wrote: post #81

Hydrogen-air batteries already exist and work extremely well. I think we are approaching the end of people seriously trying to make a new novel type of metal-air battery. Stuff like these are probably the last of its kind. BTW, hydrogen-air battery = hydrogen fuel cell, if you didn't realize that.

I've got a friend who was CEO of a hydrogen fuel cell company. They went bust because the systems are too expensive - like a iphone recharging pack was £150 to buy £5 to recharge vs about £10 and £0 for li ion. Cost is important here.

Re: Form Energy reveals the chemistry of its long-duration battery

#112

Post by guerby »

newyankee wrote: post #74
andrew_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LiFePo are starting to make a splash (pun intended) in the marine sector now that costs have started to fall, but lead acid still rules the roost. I have 4 AGMs and one Lithium in my vessel.

I have heard that large contracts on LFP batteries have touched under 100$/kwh in China, but on the retail side i have never seen anything cheaper than 300$/kwh ever sold. I guess even touching something like 200$/kwh retail is a big deal and might happen sooner than later with the flood of battery makers coming in.

On aliexpress you find LFP at about 130-140 USD/kWh

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002625171294.html

(random link, never tested this vendor).

Prices have gone up a bit in the last few monthes.

Good source of information on Chinese LFP vendors here: https://diysolarforum.com

Re: Form Energy reveals the chemistry of its long-duration battery

#113

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

teruakohatu wrote: post #41
Meandering wrote: post #11

This is interesting... I hope they can make it feasible in the long run. There is another interesting application for this oxidation phenomenon.[1] They burn iron dust to create a C02-free furnace. Imagine replacing coal with iron in concrete plants... [1] https://newatlas.com/energy/bavarian-brewery-carbon-free-ren...

Iron ore reserves: 168.6 billion tonnes Coal reserves: 1055 billion tonnes. Coal energy density: 6.7 kWh/kg [2] Iron Ore energy density: 1.4 kWh/kg [1] Total iron ore energy reserves: ~236.04 billion kWh [3] Total coal energy reserves: ~ 7,068 billion kWh [4] So as far as energy goes we have 30x as much coal energy. Now the rust can be renewed with energy ... but you need the energy to renew it in the first place. [1…

Iron ore is mostly oxides so it was never going to be an energy source like coal, but an energy storage medium.

Re: Form Energy reveals the chemistry of its long-duration battery

#114

Post by amelius »

coder543 wrote: post #50
Animats wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you buy a sample battery? The announcement is suspicious. "100 hours" is not a meaningful number for a battery. The numbers you want to hear are KWH/Kg, KWH/m^3, max charge and discharge rates, number of charge/discharge cycles before storage drops off, efficiency, and cost/KWH. "That project, announced in May last year, was originally due to be a 1MW/150MWh demonstration plant capable of outputting 1MW for 150 h…

> "100 hours" is not a meaningful number for a battery. It is a meaningful number... in the grid scale energy storage market. It's a term that summarizes many of the complex properties you mentioned. For a given energy storage technology, there is a certain duration that it tends to be most effective at. For traditional lithium ion batteries, that duration is about 4 hours. If you want to use lithium ion storage for…

> It's a term that summarizes many of the complex properties you mentioned.

Ok, then would you be so kind to show how to compute these properties from this single term?

Re: Form Energy reveals the chemistry of its long-duration battery

#115

Post by amelius »

azernik wrote: post #79
lazide wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry, that really doesn’t make any sense. There is several missing factors here, and it’s a useless metric. Lithium ion can do ‘100 hours’ as well - based on discharge rate. It can also do 10 minutes - based on discharge rate. 100 hours is literally useless on it’s own because it doesn’t tell you anything concrete. 100 hours….. of what? It looks like a classic science writing article where they left all the impo…

100 hours = (kWh/kg) / (kW/kg) - ie capacity divided by the most cost-effective discharge rate.

What if the discharge rate versus cost plot is mostly flat?

Re: Form Energy reveals the chemistry of its long-duration battery

#116

Post by ksec »

Let's just assume this works as advertise, at less than 1/10th the cost of lithium-ion. And we can scale it to practically infinity. And available by 2023.

What is left missing in the big picture for 100% clean, and renewable energy? As far as I can tell, Solar and Wind has already achieved cost/Wh lowered than all other form of energy and has a decent roadmap to further drive down the cost by another 50 - 60%.

Or are there some other puzzles we dont know? Or if Iron Battery works, and this will be "it" ?

Re: Form Energy reveals the chemistry of its long-duration battery

#117

Post by azernik »

amelius wrote: post #115
azernik wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100 hours = (kWh/kg) / (kW/kg) - ie capacity divided by the most cost-effective discharge rate.

What if the discharge rate versus cost plot is mostly flat?

Then typically you'll run it at a higher discharge rate, and has something cheaper with a higher capacity/discharge ratio.

Re: Form Energy reveals the chemistry of its long-duration battery

#118

Post by coder543 »

amelius wrote: post #114
coder543 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "100 hours" is not a meaningful number for a battery. It is a meaningful number... in the grid scale energy storage market. It's a term that summarizes many of the complex properties you mentioned. For a given energy storage technology, there is a certain duration that it tends to be most effective at. For traditional lithium ion batteries, that duration is about 4 hours. If you want to use lithium ion storage for…

> It's a term that summarizes many of the complex properties you mentioned. Ok, then would you be so kind to show how to compute these properties from this single term?

Would you be so kind as to show how to reverse a hash? A summary is like a hash; it throws away information deemed irrelevant to the task at hand, but it is still related to the input information. So, no, I won't show how to do that, because it's impossible, and I never claimed otherwise.

I just love these "gotcha!" comments that pop up on HN so frequently. I'm having to explain what it means to summarize information.

Hashes aren't useless or meaningless, they just aren't a substitute for the full information if you need the full information. I'm sure that if you're a serious potential customer, you can contact Form Energy and get whatever detailed information from them that you need. Otherwise, you obviously only get the information they choose to disclose publicly.

Your desire for more information doesn't somehow make "100 hour battery" a meaningless statement. When you see the mpg rating of a car, that is a summary that has thrown away detailed test results that could tell you more about the fuel economy of the vehicle under various conditions. EPA testing involves multiple test "cycles" that represent different conditions, but you don't typically get to see the results of each cycle. People still like to see mpg ratings and compare them.

Re: Form Energy reveals the chemistry of its long-duration battery

#119

Post by Jweb_Guru »

hinkley wrote: post #100
2sk21 wrote: post #9

“We’ve completed the science, what’s left to do is scale up from lab-scale prototypes to grid-scale power plants." I can't even count the number of lab-stage announcements that I have seen in HN. This will be of interest only when they can get it to scale

I started following battery tech at the turn of the century and this was old behavior even then. Battery prototypes are the moral equivalent of announcing you've found a new chemical that kills tumors - in vitro. Back then the advice from others watching battery technology? If their tech is 10 years ahead of the current state of the art, then either it will take them 10 years to produce it or they will produce it soo…

Why would anyone care at all about portability for grid storage? This makes no sense.

Re: Form Energy reveals the chemistry of its long-duration battery

#120

Post by Jweb_Guru »

ksec wrote: post #116

Let's just assume this works as advertise, at less than 1/10th the cost of lithium-ion. And we can scale it to practically infinity. And available by 2023. What is left missing in the big picture for 100% clean, and renewable energy? As far as I can tell, Solar and Wind has already achieved cost/Wh lowered than all other form of energy and has a decent roadmap to further drive down the cost by another 50 - 60%. Or ar…

Storage is the last big scientific puzzle for doing it completely economically, yes. Thereafter it's "just" a matter of political will.
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