I’m not 100% sure we need to complain about the weather for the first three minutes of the show every single episode. That is all. Love the show. Keep it up.
Quick correction. Sodium Ion batteries are not 3 times the weight of Lithium Ion batteries. Weight of the battery is dependent on a lot of components, and it gets even more complicated when you are talking about battery packs (which have BMS that add significant weight and size). At the cell level the best sodium ion batteries being produced today are 160Wh/kg (with 190-200 close on the horizon according to CATL, who are usually pretty accurate). The best lithium ion batteries are 288Wh/kg. That puts the best NA-Ion at 55% of the best LI-Ion cells. But that isn't the whole story. The best LFP cells are at 200Wh/kg, and those are the predominantly used cells in standard range EVs and grid storage, including home grid storage, now. Oddly enough when LFP cells started to take over those markets they were at 160Wh/kg. Na-Ion are 80% of the energy density of LFP cells. But that isn't the whole story either. NA-Ion cells operate efficiently at a broader range of temperatures (much colder, and much hotter) than LFP or NMC cells. So that means they can be packed in tighter into battery packs with smaller (and thus less weight) BMS systems. In China that has already allowed them to make small NA-Ion EVs that have 200-300 km of range. That is with gen 1, it will get better. It will likely be a while before NA-Ion cells are going to take over the long range EV market, but it is a tech to watch for the low range commuter EVs and grid storage. The key benefit is that they will be (once they are produced at scale) much cheaper than even LFP cells are today (again, according to CATL). In fact CATL says they will be half the cost of LFP once they hit scale.
You are 100% correct. Speaking on the fly like that I misspoke badly. I should have caught that in the edit and corrected it before publishing (correcting it now).
As a purely basic concept, we've been using gravity energy storage systems to store potential energy to perform tasks for at least two thousand years. Think of the counterweight for a catapult for instance. Wouldn't that make it the oldest "battery"?
A major criticisms of renewables energy is intermittency. That is for a given area and time insufficient electricity is produced. On a wider scale in some places it is a fact that available wind and sun are producing surplus energy. So for a wider area, intermittency declines. Then it becomes a trade-off between long-term storage and long-distance load shifting. The problem is the lack of a national Super Grid.
Only if a super grid is not profit motivated, where the entire nation goes down in a crisis. The cold in Texas that shut everything down was a wakeup call
@@suzannebinsley5940 I would add modularity such as islands, virtual power plants, Independent subsections, distributed generation, battery nodes and microgrids. The key is to accomplish system inertia using batteries and smart inverters. Subsections would be independent.
Thanks for covering one of my favorite subjects. My favorite 2 batteries chemistries I’ve been keeping track of is the iron flow battery by ESS inc. in Oregon and the graphene-aluminum-ion battery by GMG in Australia. The Liquid Metal battery by Ambri and Amprius’s work with silicon nanowires are my runner ups
Very civilized answer on the Li vs. Na atomic weight point. I think the energy density of Na batteries will be generally better than 50% of Li, and that will be good enough for an economy car. I also think stationary batteries will be a much bigger deal than many people realize.
NiFe batteries were made in mass over 100 years ago. They were used in electric cars and storage in the early 1900's. They are easy to make, even at home, and even some old Edison batteries from then are still in use. Even if they went dry, put water in and they start to work again. I would love to hear this put in the mix again (personally, the price of nickel foil is now to high for the storage, but that is my take). At one time I was thinking of making 5gal bucket NiFe batteries and do enough of them to power my house. Great rechargeable. But the price of nickel sheet was to high, so that nixed my efforts. Oh, the electrolyte is ammonium hydroxide dissolved in distilled water (only to keep impurities out). They can go dry, and be refilled with water and still start working again!
I think a lot of manufacturing needs "looking at". We are still using manufacturing ideas from 100 years ago, and possibly longer than that. We need more new manufacturing technologies like giga casting.
Great episode. What I would add to this short list is also graphene battery that has excelent energy performances (3 or even 5C) and high cycle life (15.000+) and is commercially available by Microvast (some 5GWh AFAIK). Additionally, longer term I believe Calcium batteries could have real potential as well. They look like they have great potential to replace lithium in phones and such devices.
You can avoid heat exhaustion by making sure you are drinking plenty of water. if you add electrolyte drinks you need to drink 1 for every three equivalent amounts of water. Remember that heat exhaustion is dangerous because it can turn into heat stroke which is a true medical emergency.
When my brother and I were like 12, he wanted to show me that he could huck a can of Coke into the open freezer from 10 feet away (freezer is above the fridge). The coke can hit the top edge of the freezer door and exploded onto the ceiling. Coke all over the ceiling and dripping down onto the floor.
Even if Sodium is 3 times heavier than Lithium (and I'm not sure that's true, but let's go with this number), a Sodium Ion batttery is not 3 times heavier than the Lithium Ion, because the battery is not made entirely of Lithium, there are other materials present in there that don't need to be changed. In fact, searching for an exact figure I found this : "about 167 g of lithium (in the battery) per kWh" when it comes to Nissan Leaf. I'm sure different batteries will have different numbers, but it's not a huge variation. An EV battery is generally said to have aproximatively 7% lithium.
*Na* (sodium) has an atomic weight of 23 g/mol. *Li* (lithium) has an atomic weight of 7 g/mol (just under 1/3 that of sodium). Sodium metal has a density of 0.969 g/cm³ (about the same as water). Lithium metal has a density of 0.531 g/cm³ (just over half sodium's density). So, whether *Na* is 2× or 3× "heavier" than *Li* depends on what you're doing with it. Atom-for-atom it is, indeed, 3× heavier, but in metallic form it is not 3× denser.
there are so many out there.. the tech that i always thing of for power is the thermal nuclear decay power system. it is used on voyager 1 and 2 as well as many old space probes. it literally uses a lump of nuclear fuel that generates heat allowing thermocouples to provide power. no it wont work for many situations because of the small amount of power generated to produce a small amount of power but it lasts for 87+ years (and no it is not bomb grade material). I always wonder why companies that use a lot of heat like smelting or such do not use thermocouples to turn the waste heat into something even if it is to run a fans or such
Let us say that a car battery masses a tonne. The lithium of that battery is about 1% of the mass. So if that Lithium was replaced with Sodium, the battery would be around an extra 20 kg? Why are even talking about this? Rick
Yeah, unless you make big batteries like the old 12 volt lead/acid batteries, the weight isn't a huge issue. On the other hand if you ARE making big batteries, then that small extra weight adds up. Battery technology is all about the application, and some of these chemistries are better in one application than other ones.
Manufacturing isn't easy. Ask Elon on how many failures he dealt with because he didn't understand how it worked and just wanted to have robots do everything.
Part of the problem is that much of the technology in manufacturing itself, is 100 years old, possibly older. If we could rework how we manufacture things in various ways we could make the process easier. That's easy to say, but it took quite a while to invent and refine giga casting, and 3D printing. Hopefully there are other new manufacturing techniques being investigated.
@@jimthain8777 The invention of flight was not much more than 100 years ago. Manufacturing has come light years. He was just trying to take the human element out of the equation.
I’m not 100% sure we need to complain about the weather for the first three minutes of the show every single episode. That is all. Love the show. Keep it up.
Yes, seasonal storage is our secret to net-zero in the subarctic.
One of the main arguments for Sodium is that *It leaves Lithium available for high energy use cases*
Wow this is awesome, I know the previous 7,500 videos on paradigm busting batteries were bogus, but this time will be different.
Quick correction. Sodium Ion batteries are not 3 times the weight of Lithium Ion batteries. Weight of the battery is dependent on a lot of components, and it gets even more complicated when you are talking about battery packs (which have BMS that add significant weight and size).
At the cell level the best sodium ion batteries being produced today are 160Wh/kg (with 190-200 close on the horizon according to CATL, who are usually pretty accurate). The best lithium ion batteries are 288Wh/kg. That puts the best NA-Ion at 55% of the best LI-Ion cells. But that isn't the whole story. The best LFP cells are at 200Wh/kg, and those are the predominantly used cells in standard range EVs and grid storage, including home grid storage, now. Oddly enough when LFP cells started to take over those markets they were at 160Wh/kg. Na-Ion are 80% of the energy density of LFP cells.
But that isn't the whole story either. NA-Ion cells operate efficiently at a broader range of temperatures (much colder, and much hotter) than LFP or NMC cells. So that means they can be packed in tighter into battery packs with smaller (and thus less weight) BMS systems. In China that has already allowed them to make small NA-Ion EVs that have 200-300 km of range. That is with gen 1, it will get better.
It will likely be a while before NA-Ion cells are going to take over the long range EV market, but it is a tech to watch for the low range commuter EVs and grid storage. The key benefit is that they will be (once they are produced at scale) much cheaper than even LFP cells are today (again, according to CATL). In fact CATL says they will be half the cost of LFP once they hit scale.
You are 100% correct. Speaking on the fly like that I misspoke badly. I should have caught that in the edit and corrected it before publishing (correcting it now).
@@StillTBD Was mostly correcting your commenter. You guys are replying off the cuff, easy mistake to make.
As a purely basic concept, we've been using gravity energy storage systems to store potential energy to perform tasks for at least two thousand years. Think of the counterweight for a catapult for instance. Wouldn't that make it the oldest "battery"?
A major criticisms of renewables energy is intermittency. That is for a given area and time insufficient electricity is produced. On a wider scale in some places it is a fact that available wind and sun are producing surplus energy. So for a wider area, intermittency declines. Then it becomes a trade-off between long-term storage and long-distance load shifting. The problem is the lack of a national Super Grid.
Only if a super grid is not profit motivated, where the entire nation goes down in a crisis. The cold in Texas that shut everything down was a wakeup call
@@suzannebinsley5940 I would add modularity such as islands, virtual power plants, Independent subsections, distributed generation, battery nodes and microgrids. The key is to accomplish system inertia using batteries and smart inverters. Subsections would be independent.
The Sun shines somewhere on the world, everyday, all day. A Global Grid would solve all those problems. And create some of its own.
Thanks for covering one of my favorite subjects. My favorite 2 batteries chemistries I’ve been keeping track of is the iron flow battery by ESS inc. in Oregon and the graphene-aluminum-ion battery by GMG in Australia. The Liquid Metal battery by Ambri and Amprius’s work with silicon nanowires are my runner ups
Very civilized answer on the Li vs. Na atomic weight point. I think the energy density of Na batteries will be generally better than 50% of Li, and that will be good enough for an economy car. I also think stationary batteries will be a much bigger deal than many people realize.
Current battery technology is Goodenough.
NiFe batteries were made in mass over 100 years ago. They were used in electric cars and storage in the early 1900's.
They are easy to make, even at home, and even some old Edison batteries from then are still in use. Even if they went dry, put water in and they start to work again. I would love to hear this put in the mix again (personally, the price of nickel foil is now to high for the storage, but that is my take).
At one time I was thinking of making 5gal bucket NiFe batteries and do enough of them to power my house. Great rechargeable. But the price of nickel sheet was to high, so that nixed my efforts. Oh, the electrolyte is ammonium hydroxide dissolved in distilled water (only to keep impurities out). They can go dry, and be refilled with water and still start working again!
ref: 5:19
Denmark store heat from the summer to be used in the winter in large "pools" filled with rocks.
Good talk 👍
If battery creation to the manufacturing process is such a big hurdle, maybe it needs a good look at it.
Cheers
I think a lot of manufacturing needs "looking at".
We are still using manufacturing ideas from 100 years ago, and possibly longer than that.
We need more new manufacturing technologies like giga casting.
NYC's summer heat is not from climate change, it's 90% from "urban heat island" effect (UHI). Look it up.
(Here in NC it's lovely, right now!)
Great episode. What I would add to this short list is also graphene battery that has excelent energy performances (3 or even 5C) and high cycle life (15.000+) and is commercially available by Microvast (some 5GWh AFAIK). Additionally, longer term I believe Calcium batteries could have real potential as well. They look like they have great potential to replace lithium in phones and such devices.
Part of recycling water discharging out of dams is regulations involving how much water is discharged for fish.
You can avoid heat exhaustion by making sure you are drinking plenty of water. if you add electrolyte drinks you need to drink 1 for every three equivalent amounts of water. Remember that heat exhaustion is dangerous because it can turn into heat stroke which is a true medical emergency.
Should be Nobel prize level soo not that easy!
When my brother and I were like 12, he wanted to show me that he could huck a can of Coke into the open freezer from 10 feet away (freezer is above the fridge). The coke can hit the top edge of the freezer door and exploded onto the ceiling. Coke all over the ceiling and dripping down onto the floor.
Even if Sodium is 3 times heavier than Lithium (and I'm not sure that's true, but let's go with this number), a Sodium Ion batttery is not 3 times heavier than the Lithium Ion, because the battery is not made entirely of Lithium, there are other materials present in there that don't need to be changed. In fact, searching for an exact figure I found this : "about 167 g of lithium (in the battery) per kWh" when it comes to Nissan Leaf. I'm sure different batteries will have different numbers, but it's not a huge variation. An EV battery is generally said to have aproximatively 7% lithium.
*Na* (sodium) has an atomic weight of 23 g/mol.
*Li* (lithium) has an atomic weight of 7 g/mol (just under 1/3 that of sodium).
Sodium metal has a density of 0.969 g/cm³ (about the same as water).
Lithium metal has a density of 0.531 g/cm³ (just over half sodium's density).
So, whether *Na* is 2× or 3× "heavier" than *Li* depends on what you're doing with it. Atom-for-atom it is, indeed, 3× heavier, but in metallic form it is not 3× denser.
But I’ve always been told that size and weight didn’t matter…… No? Too soon?
I'd like to know make and model of the toaster, the suspense is killing me.
Sean, re the heat....
The word is "Debilitating"
If we electrified roads and most highways, couldnt we reduce the need for long range batteries and therefore use sodium batteries in cars?
there are so many out there.. the tech that i always thing of for power is the thermal nuclear decay power system. it is used on voyager 1 and 2 as well as many old space probes. it literally uses a lump of nuclear fuel that generates heat allowing thermocouples to provide power. no it wont work for many situations because of the small amount of power generated to produce a small amount of power but it lasts for 87+ years (and no it is not bomb grade material).
I always wonder why companies that use a lot of heat like smelting or such do not use thermocouples to turn the waste heat into something even if it is to run a fans or such
The new sand/heat batteries idea maybe also?
Let us say that a car battery masses a tonne. The lithium of that battery is about 1% of the mass. So if that Lithium was replaced with Sodium, the battery would be around an extra 20 kg? Why are even talking about this?
Rick
Yeah, unless you make big batteries like the old 12 volt lead/acid batteries, the weight isn't a huge issue.
On the other hand if you ARE making big batteries, then that small extra weight adds up.
Battery technology is all about the application, and some of these chemistries are better in one application than other ones.
@@jimthain8777
My point is that sodium massing 3 times lithium, will NOT triple the mass of the battery pack.
There's not really need for long term storage. Overprovisioning solar, wind and short term storage is much cheaper, and already doable
Timestamps? Or Cliff notes?
weight of sodium vs lithium is of little relevance because only 2% of lithium-ion battery is taken by lithium
The south of Norway has been between 15-20 degree Celsius. The north has been more like 20-25. 🙂
Manufacturing isn't easy. Ask Elon on how many failures he dealt with because he didn't understand how it worked and just wanted to have robots do everything.
When you say "He" didn't understand....
The team of experts believed it could be done.
@@rogerstarkey5390 So Elon and a bunch of brainiacs didn't understand manufacturing. Got it.
Part of the problem is that much of the technology in manufacturing itself, is 100 years old, possibly older.
If we could rework how we manufacture things in various ways we could make the process easier.
That's easy to say, but it took quite a while to invent and refine giga casting, and 3D printing.
Hopefully there are other new manufacturing techniques being investigated.
@@jimthain8777 The invention of flight was not much more than 100 years ago. Manufacturing has come light years. He was just trying to take the human element out of the equation.
Do our comments make us "Pundits"
Isopropanol+ toothbrush
I do think that great design & engineering of products are critical, but manufacturing & supply chain require orders of magnitude more work. Elon Musk