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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

#281

Post by lukan »

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."

It already does.

"Chinese automaker Yiwei debuted the first sodium-ion battery-powered car in 2023. It uses JAC Group’s UE module technology, which is similar to CATL's cell-to-pack design.[84] The car has a 23.2 kWh battery pack with a CLTC range of 230 kilometres (140 mi)"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery

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

#282

Post by dieortin »

elihu wrote: post #265
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.

Fast charge speeds make electrified highways a more viable option. There are some projects in Europe using overhead lines (for trucks) or power rails embedded in slots in the road surface (usable by cars or trucks) so that vehicles can recharge while moving. Building a network of electrified highways is expensive though. One way to reduce initial costs is not to electrify the whole length but to have, say, one mile o…

Charging private vehicles while they move sounds very complicated

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

#283

Post by some_furry »

topspin wrote: post #222
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…

Good analysis, until you got here: > While this is a baseless comment, let's look at it anyway: It's not baseless. This is a golden boy startup, blessed with save the Earth kudos and highly subsidized. The DOE spun this outfit up in 2020 with $19M. Michigan and Whitmer have fast tracked the one, modest, token plant, delivered the tax breaks and signed the contracts for a sodium battery power facility in the state. VC…

> At that point you have a choice: fail, or build out where labor is cheap, workers are disposable and regulators are just low-cost party agents, and use your position as US company to readily import your foreign made products.

Why are any of us okay with humans being "disposable" anywhere on Earth?

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

#284

Post by robocat »

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.

> to 80% again in 2min

Needs say 720kW delivery for those two minutes (need higher if counting inefficiency losses).

Note that Tesla 's V3 Superchargers provide a maximum of 250kW. I've assumed a 30kWh battery charged to 24kWh (80%), because the spec for a new Nissan Leaf is 59kWh battery for 385km driving range.

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

#285

Post by WalterBright »

cogman10 wrote: post #253
WalterBright wrote: post #203

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…

> This is what baffles me about Li batteries for grid use It's not super baffling when you realize the other properties of Li make it way better than pretty much anything currently on the market (the important part). Li has amazing cycle life with a wide operating range. Li like LFP and LTO have insane cycle life. Pair that with the superior capacity and the fact that Li doesn't have problems like the memory effect a…

The cycle life is not an issue with a battery made of seawater and dirt, because dirt is - cheap as dirt! Capacity comes from making an arbitrarily large such battery - it's not like it has to fit into a car.

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

#286

Post by alemanek »

robocat wrote: post #284
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.

> to 80% again in 2min Needs say 720kW delivery for those two minutes (need higher if counting inefficiency losses). Note that Tesla 's V3 Superchargers provide a maximum of 250kW. I've assumed a 30kWh battery charged to 24kWh (80%), because the spec for a new Nissan Leaf is 59kWh battery for 385km driving range.

Yeah we are for sure talking about the future here. There are already vehicles capable of handling 350kW chargers. Probably not too crazy to think that could double in the next decade.

But I am definitely not expert on this.

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

#287

Post by zardo »

eliaspro wrote: post #198
rockskon wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lesser energy density is a pretty big caveat that can readily make or break the commercial viability of this technology. How big of a difference compared to lithium ion is the energy density?

Density doesn't really matter for stationary grid storage, where even slightly lower battery costs can easily outmatch higher space requirements.

It matters, but only as much as shipping costs matter.

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

#288

Post by pfdietz »

mbgerring wrote: post #210
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…

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.

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

#289

Post by pfdietz »

hnav wrote: post #250
stevetodd wrote: post #82

Earlier 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.

A lot of maintenance items simply don't exist in a modern full hybrid. Typically there is no accessory belt, no alternator, no starter. Filters, coils, spark plugs and engine oil will last longer since the engine doesn't run nearly as hot (usually it's "atkinson" cycle) and isn't used constantly.

And brakes last longer, since they aren't used nearly as much.

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

#290

Post by zardo »

DangitBobby wrote: post #280
jml78 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think the roadtrip inconvenience is vastly overblown. Had an EV since 2018. It is our roadtrip car. It turns 12 hour roadtrips to 14 hour trips but if you plan around eating, it doesn’t extend any trip by much. I still have a gas vehicle but I never want to use it for long trips.

In my only attempted road trip with my EV, the only charger available within any reasonable distance of our destination failed to charge the car due to a "firmware issue" that they had been aware of for quite some time but did not bother to fix. We were unable to charge there. Luckily, we had enough juice to make it back to the charging station at our halfway point by turning off the climate control. So on a road tri…

Yeah my concern with charging is more time and effort to get it to an open working charger than it is charge time.
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