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The rise of batteries in six charts

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Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#41

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #8

If battery growth is exponential, but mining of ore isn't, that's a pretty big red flag imo. Once raw material production hits a wall, prices go back up, profits droop, advancement declines. After a while there'll probably be a new OPEC for batteries. Batteries are here to stay, but the growth rate isn't.

I hope we find that "battery" is a sufficiently broad category such that individual bottlenecks (lithium extraction, for instance) end up being worked around by using different materials.

I also think that biotech has picked up some new tricks lately (alphafold, etc) that might let it branch out from academia, medicine, and agriculture and affect things like mining re: bioleeching fungi to move minerals through mycelial networks to the surface.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#42

Post by scythe »

beambot wrote: post #3
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

What I find really interesting is the huge growth in stationary storage - I believe it's the fastest growing segment.

Stationary systems for grid scale storage have amazing options - e.g. Form Energy - that needn't rely on power density benefits of Lithium chemistries. I wouldn't be surprised to see this sector dominate the GWh/yr chart in the next 6 years.

Does a battery with low cycle efficiency actually beat hydrogen for seasonal storage?

The major problem with hydrogen is the fuel cell efficiency. Electrolysis is above 80%, but fuel cells are barely at 60% and it gets lower when you try to make the design more practical (lower temperature, less platinum). So batteries just have to hit 50% to compete. But that 50% includes both inherent cycle efficiency and self-discharge and Form Energy isn't putting their numbers up front, as far as I can see.

More importantly, seasonal storage is heavily concerned with heating, and the conversion of hydrogen to heat is a different matter. The batteries have heat pumps going for them, but you can make a gas-powered heat pump too. So rather than the fuel cell efficiency you look at the CoP difference between electric and gas heat pumps. The latter have received little attention, but could see a surge of interest if green hydrogen becomes more popular (and easier to transport). But here we exhaust my understanding of the situation.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#43

Post by Spivak »

malfist wrote: post #25
sixstringtheory wrote: post #15

This is a great set of charts and analysis, although I have two problems with it. 1. On the chart of energy density, I'd like to see the the energy density of petrol for comparison. It's much higher, and even though extrapolation is dangerous, I'd like to see how long it could take to reach parity given some of the different forecasting models they mention. Specifically regarding their mention of air travel, I'd like…

Comparing energy density between batteries and oil is not "transparency and realistic expectations" Once the oil is used it's gone. Batteries can be recharged

That's not really their point, it's do we have any reasonable hope of applications that require the energy density of fossil fuels (flight) to be powered by electricity.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#44

Post by crote »

treflop wrote: post #26
thelastgallon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd like to see the the energy density of petrol for comparison. Petrol's higher energy density doesn't matter as much as people think. Electric vehicles are around four times as efficient as petrol. In a petrol car, only 20% of the energy is converted to motion. In electric cars, this is around 80% (with some variation dependent on regenerative braking). I wrote about this extensively in a previous article: https:…

Batteries aren’t just used in cars man. Really hard to beat propane or diesel for heat in the wilderness right now.

We don't have billions of people living in the wilderness. And technology has reached a price level where off-grid solar is actually an affordable and superior alternative to propane and diesel for household use in rural Africa.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#45

Post by lukan »

smaudet wrote: post #37
lukan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Batteries are terrible for long term storage, namely they are toxic" Only some are toxic. But can you name the poison or danger with saltwater batteries? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery

Yes, there are excellent non-"battery" technologies. I'm explicitly talking about the high capacity chemical batteries everyone's crazy for these days.

Sodium ion batteries are chemical and can have as much capacity as you like. They just need a bit more space, but not too much more, as they are already used in cheaper electric cars.

"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.[82] The car has a 23.2 kWh battery pack with a CLTC range of 230 kilometres (140 mi)."

And for grid storage, "slightly bigger size" really doesn't matter.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#46

Post by crote »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #8

If battery growth is exponential, but mining of ore isn't, that's a pretty big red flag imo. Once raw material production hits a wall, prices go back up, profits droop, advancement declines. After a while there'll probably be a new OPEC for batteries. Batteries are here to stay, but the growth rate isn't.

Plenty of ore deposits simply haven't been exploited yet because the demand wasn't there, or the market price made it economically nonviable.

Lithium is more abundant than lead, tin, or tungsten. We're not going to run out any time soon.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#47

Post by NotSammyHagar »

Phenomenit wrote: post #39
bryanlarsen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to see any of the alternatives displacing batteries for short-term storage. Batteries aren't a good fit for long-term storage, which is where alternatives should be competitive. But that market is essentially 0 right now.

What is the use case of long term storage in batteries? As some kind of reserve?

Depends on what long term means. But batteries are used for power grid storage. Tesla is selling huge numbers of tesla megapacks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Megapack) often used to replace peaker plants.

Peaker plants are power plants sitting there ready to turn on during peak power usage. I think they used to be often coal, which took a while to start up and produced lots of pollution, but then more recently natural gas plants start up faster and have much lower emissions. So during an evening power usage peak, or during really cold or hot times when power demand is high, the grid can tap that power source. Now you can replace those plants with a bunch of batteries that are ready in milliseconds to provide additional power, and then you can charge them if they get used up at night when electric usage is low.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#48

Post by NotSammyHagar »

smaudet wrote: post #22
bryanlarsen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to see any of the alternatives displacing batteries for short-term storage. Batteries aren't a good fit for long-term storage, which is where alternatives should be competitive. But that market is essentially 0 right now.

Batteries (High capacity chemical) are terrible for long term storage, namely they are toxic: https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/poison/dry-cell-ba... https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002805.htm https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-703-health-concerns... And cannot always be easily recycled: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-09/Lithium-I... In addition to general concerns about chemical a…

There's also various schemes to use gravity. Pump water uphill above a dam when power demand is low like at night, also I have read speculation of trying to do this in some underground mine or something so it doesn't evaporate.

Re: The rise of batteries in six charts

#49

Post by amluto »

crote wrote: post #44
treflop wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries aren’t just used in cars man. Really hard to beat propane or diesel for heat in the wilderness right now.

We don't have billions of people living in the wilderness. And technology has reached a price level where off-grid solar is actually an affordable and superior alternative to propane and diesel for household use in rural Africa.

Heat pump heat, in the wilderness or otherwise, is about 4x as efficient as resistance or fire.

This is somewhat silly, since a gas-fired heat pump can be very efficient, but gas-fired heat pumps are quite rare.

(California has a pricing/policy problem here, IMO. Electricity is absurdly expensive, gas is somewhat reasonable, and the result is that electric heating is not nearly as economical as it should be.)

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