Melting Metal for Energy Storage? Liquid Metal Battery Explained
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- Опубликовано: 21 авг 2024
- Melting Metal for Energy Storage? Liquid Metal Battery Explained. Solar and wind power have proven themselves to be cost competitive, but energy storage is key. What if I told you that molten metal might make a better battery? Lower cost, simpler assembly, zero maintenance, and a longer lifetime than lithium-ion. Let's take a closer look at liquid metal battery technology.
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Does storing energy in molten metal sound like a good idea? Do you think it has a chance to catch on in the next few years? If you liked this, be sure to check out The Mechanical Battery Explained - A Flywheel Comeback? ruclips.net/video/8X2U7bDNcPM/видео.html
The main problem is that they're hot as hell, you'd have to let them cool down to do any maintenance, Tesla's grid storage you can just open up an box and replace some bits, they probably did a bunch of times already, how much would this have cost with liquid metal batteries?
How much dust goes thru the filter & back into the air with the Roborock vacuum?
You might es well look into this startup: www.hilabs.de/en/
They produce Zinc-Air batteries. Interesting new approach.
I bought us a roborock s4, I think? It's honestly our favorite thing. Our kids make messes all the time and we wake up every morning to a clean floor. We nicknamed it "Dusty".
I prefer the carbon fiber wrapped flywheel battery over the liquid metal battery for grid storage.
I would suggest anyone interested in this battery tech go and watch Dr Sadoway talking about it. My favourite takeaway is his statement, "if you want it dirt cheap, make it from dirt".
ruclips.net/video/qXKxiSsIo_c/видео.html Advancing the Energy Revolution by Donald Sadoway
"Preferably, local dirt."
I have done so in the recent past after seeing another video on it but nothing was replied to me
Here's another one by Dr. Sadoway...he did at Stanford in 2016:
ruclips.net/video/pDxegcZqx_8/видео.html
He has been pitching his ideas (8+ years) for a long time and nothing has come of it. You can look at his old YT videos and see my comments from years ago asking when we will see this in production. It is always "a year or two away". Professors do "research" as a way to make extra money and we are talking big bucks. They have their undergrads and post grad researchers doing the work and they take piece of the grant money for the "advising" they do research.
I think people have to get away from the "one size fits all" approach. Stationary large battery banks for grid buffering, house batteries and vehicle batteries have different requirements. Drivetrain requirements are different for different vehicle classes etc. We should be open minded and develop the solutions that are most efficient for their use case.
@David Reads Well it depends on what "Monopoly" or "Oligopoly" you talk. Why are all trucks diesel? Why is the default for individual mobility an automobile? Why is electric energy storage LiPo? one size fits all is not a sustainable answer.
@@TheCloudhopper But people like simple Questions and Answers. What is best is the most asked question and the Answer is treated like a religion. There is no place for "...for that specific purpose" in this question, as there is no place for a second good in Judaism and it's two big offsprings.
Of course there are different needs at different scales. Dr. Sadoway tossed out the idea of scaling up lithium ion batteries from iPhones right from the beginning. He started from a crisp sheet of blank paper with what he knew: electro-metallurgy. Ambri has the potential to hit one out of the ballpark with massive grid-scale power storage in a few years and leave li-ion stuck on first base with smartphones, vacuum cleaners, EVs and Powerwalls.
@@ub59 I am very encouraged, I saw a video where he was interviewed and was asking myself: when do they announce the next stage ? Looks like they still have funding, they have the test projects for 2022, and the tech is not _that_ complicated so that could work. 30 % or 50 % drop in costs for robust batteries - that would be a game changer. Not only do they cost less, they would also work much longer (not sure if that was factored into the calculation at 10:50). Never mind even if they broke it down to storage costs per kWh over 10 years .... 30 or 50 % less is huge.
That will speed up LARGE solar installation by people who have the space or want to invest in a community project. And the projects will be more viable while also reducing grid peak demand. (the large providers do not like that, they make more money with peak demand, some providers in Texas make ONLY profits because of A/C peaks in summer. The rest of the year they hang on.
Which explains why no one "voluntarily invests in winterization of the Texan electricity production.
Yep we need to , but cost scaling via capitlism and globalism dictate that a homogenous product is cheaper overall so we get square peg round whole solutions for the most part
Love this! "If you want batteries dirt cheap, you'd beter make them out of dirt!" - Donald Sadoway.
That looks like a viable technology for large installation grid storage. Would be especially useful with solar arrays in desert environments. Nicely done video
Yeah, the abundance of solar radiation makes keeping things hot a lot easier.
You know what would also work for half the environmental impact?
A natural gas generator operating intermittently.
Utility scale storage has the potential to make everything much cleaner.
👍
It will more realistic combined to solar concentrators
@@southeasegirl2329 Yes, these plants are amazing, their hot molten salts can be used at night then reheated during the day, rinse and repeat.
Have a good day everyone
You too!
Thanks for that, stranger. You too! :)
I see great things ahead for liquid metal battery’s, and not just the main one you discussed today, but many different potential chemistries along the temperature gradient scale. This is very interesting technology and I pray that several of these can make it past the scaling issues and become useful as quickly as possible.
Ideal for small neighbourhood storage system. Particularly in semi rural areas.
And large scale too
That’s a good point. You could have this in a little shed at the foot of a small road with, say, 10-20 houses. Maybe it’s saving up that same street’s solar and/or wind and supplying it back as well.
You didn't mention the biggest short-term challenge for Lithium-Ion: there's not enough production capacity for the necessary raw materials, and the producers might not be able to scale quickly enough.
Complementary technologies that use different raw materials are extremely important. Liquid metal batteries are particularly interesting because they tolerate (and even benefit from) high environmental temperatures. Most types of Lithium-Ion degrade quickly when used at high temperatures.
Unfortunately, the Ambri battery is in the very early stages of mass production. The first (and so far, only) planned project, the 250MWh battery in Reno, is planned to be delivered to the customer from 2021 through 2023. At that low, pilot scale production rate the technology is useless. If they can't scale production very rapidly it may never be economically competitive.
I always saw Reno as a way to show that it works. Seems to be metal cases stored in a small shipping container that hold the battery. The battery also go from a solid(discharged) to liquid (charged) so transportation is easier
You know lithium ion batteries come in many different forms. Lithium iron phosphate batteries kill everything. For home or grid scale storage Sodium may replace lithium one day. Then that's all that's needed until fusion can be achieved
@@tigertoo01 Yes, I know. But LFP, like all types of LIB still need battery-grade Lithium and Copper. Both of these could be scarce for a couple of years.
Sodium Ion might be a great alternative/complement if it materializes quickly enough.
@@w0ttheh3ll Agree that its not just a given there will be enough of anything but just looking at the current production and known reserves there is enough lithium for 100's of millions of EV's with a 60kwh battery. With Telephony and the internet merging and optical fibre and wireless communication becoming more main stream, Copper uses have reduced so the EV demand on copper is not as great as some believe. Still we will need a billion + EV's on the road. Unless autonomous driving becomes real and lives up to promises then the number of vehicles on the road may drop significantly. I think we should plough on with building EV's with current battery tech and hopefully it will lead to significant breakthroughs not only in battery storage but recycling too.
@@tigertoo01 I'm not saying there isn't enough stuff to dig up, just that there will be short-term shortages because not enough digging is happening right now.
Of course we should, and will, continue to build as many EVs as we can with the best tech we have available.
This may sound like hyperbole, but your videos give me hope for the future in an entertaining video. Thank you.
What future we all die we don't have a future, we have a limited life span,.
Live your life for goodness sake.
Future the oldest of us live for a hundred years but mostly we between 65 and 75 years and besides that at any given something can end our lives, which means we have to options be scared or live.
You do have future neither do I or anyone else, the future the past only exists in your mind otherwise not.
Glad to hear that!
Couldn’t agree more
@@ThomasDoubting5 are you ok sir? are you having a stroke or something?
@@beelot1511 lmao that guy is so mad his grammar started degrading
he says no one has a future and I'm not going to argue that, but for sure he doesn't have a future as an english teacher, that much I can tell
I have worked with this team during my CO-OP really hard working team and great concept. Eagerly waiting to get into large scale production
I didn't really want to drink the oil, water, and syrup beverage either. Thanks for another great vid! Dave J
Good call 😜. Glad you enjoyed the video.
Don't want to drink it? Great, now there's gonna be liquid metal battery challenges going around.
It'll be all the rage on social media.
@@UndecidedMF Gonna be a real 'hot' topic.
Yeah, some guy actually tried to eat a Tide pod and though he didn't really get it down, still he almost died.
Great technology for grid energy and would free up lithium ion cell production capacity for other critical sectors like transportation. These two sectors are the largest in terms of emissions.
I have been following Don Sadoway and this technology for about 5 years. Very impressive. I also love his Canadian sense of humour.
Love it. Ambri has been at it for 12 years now, spent $100+ million. Battery chemistry is hard! And you have to prove lifecycle operation before anyone buys it. Cant wait to see these in operation.
Great video, as always! Addendum to deep-cycling Li-Ion batteries: If it's an Apple Ipad, deep cycling just a few times will kill it completely in a matter of weeks, forget about two years. Worst battery EVER. I had to get that off my chest. Thank you.
"That vaccuum is cool. How much is that?"
'$50 off with coupon' 😐
$500 price tag 😑
It's pricey, but it's pretty awesome. My wife has said that numerous times since we got it.
At first I was disappointed by only 37 reviews but other products from the same company have thousands of reviews so it appears worthy of consideration.
At that price I’d highly consider the Dyson product this is cloning tbh. I don’t have anything against product cloning but if you’re almost the same.. but anyway I’ve got an older one of this style, the Dyson one, it’s actually good enough to replace a plug-in upright vac if your place isn’t huge. So that’s nice for storage reasons in an apartment. This is a god use for the power delivery of lithium batteries, to get the suction, so I can see this becoming an increasingly common form factor.
@@UndecidedMF why would u but a manual vacuum when you can get a robot for same price??
@J Hemphill yes I know the attributes and flaws of a robot vacuum, and you need to supplement manually its losses. But when 90% of vacuuming can be automatically done, and once you own one you realise how much time you save. All I'm saying is I had to laugh at someone trying to selling me a manual vacuum. btw, my robot spot cleans, doesn't bumble, and also mops my floor, all while I'm at work, does an excellent job and saves me 35 mins of mindless manual labour per week. Look I get it, hes just advertising his free vacuum and who wouldn't. But if you've going to spend that much, get a robot, because you wont regret it.
The down sides in using liquid metal batteries are efficiency (80%) and charge leakage. On the positive side are potentially low cost, stability, and longevity. Ambri is a clear competitor to Tesla in the market of grid level storage. I wish them well in their ramp to production.
I've been waiting for more recent news about Ambri's work. I was concerned about their status, because their Wikipedia page talks about layoffs and reductions, but this is great news. For truly northern latitudes with truly brutal winters, these 'hot' batteries seem like a much better solution than lithium battery technology. That it has been done by this high-quality UwMF channel is just a bonus! Thank you!
The heat might be an advantage in hot environments.
Agreed - augment this with heat pumps (say for keeping a datacenter cool) and it seems like a huge advantage
It could also be a good source for home heating systems, if charge and discharge cycles generate excess heat.
Makes no diffetence.
But in hot environment, it's unusable energy because it's in equilibrium with environment
@@destiny_02 Not at all true. One, if it is in equilibrium with its environment, that means it environment is literally so hot that it is melting, so unless you are in a volcano you are not going to be in equilibrium. Two, even if it was in equilibrium, that's not where the energy storage comes from. The energy is stored by the transfer of positive ions from one end to the other, not thermal energy.
Ambri!! Yeah, I always thought this was an excellent option for hot climates for grid storage.
For any climate!
@@gregbailey45 I only said that because I was thinking about the burning Tesla batteries in the desert.
I'm so excited for this technology in my home state of Arizona! It just seems like such an elegant solution for our solar advantages! I hope this technology continues to develop.
Your channel is by far my favourite! Thanks for all your hard work putting the shows together, I always look forward to seeing what subject is next!
Was excited about this tech ten years ago.
We should immediately ban all fossil fuels because this is the technology that is going to save the planet.
@@commentsboardreferee7434 You gonna pay for everyone, everywhere, to transition to "green" energy overnight? If so, great. If not, a slower transition is a vastly more practicable solution.
@@leandersearle5094 I believe your sarcasm detector is broken.
@@DominikPinkas - Yet, some people say this very seriously thinking they are helping. Like a girl from Sweden....
@@brianfhunter well, I must admin I had to where with at least some study that that girl had to say, but also disable disagree with all-around approach and general fundamentalism. We should definitely limit fossil fuels as much as possible but in no way IMMEDIATELY and as said here, there is no one single technology to save the day (no non-nicméně technology anyway).
Edit: Plus I think internal combustion engines for personal transport should serve us for years to come (together with other solutions tailored to their specific purposes) instead of being showcase of how serious we are about climate change while doing nothing about other, more damaging but less visible industries.
"most popular and widespread energy storage is Lithium ion"
That's just not true at all, pumped hydro beats it by a very large margin
Replacing “most popular” with “most popular for new installations” and “widespread” with “not geographically constrained” makes the statement true. He should be more accurate in word choice, and also explain in this video about grid scale energy storage the pluses and minuses of the major players, which MUST include pumped hydro, since it’s the clear leader in installed electrical energy storage in both GW and GWh comparisons.
@@altosack yeah, changing every thing false or inacurate in the statement makes it true...
You have pumped hydro in your house
Three states of matter likewise three states of batteries but like food soft solids rule.
It seems like it is fundamentally a cost / maintenance question. It feels like the core components are good, but all the components that need to interact with them are questionable. Anode, cathode, whatever heater is used to heat it up when necessary, and the casing. Few materials seem like they would do well sitting in a molten metal bath.
And the failure modes if anything was punctured. But if the cost per VA is good and you have a stable installation it could be quite good. Less space than pumped water storage. Probably lower temperature than the molten salt designs for solar.
Ceramic casing and induction heating from the outside since its metal in the inside
One of the stories told by the developer is of a US military group came to see the molten batteries. The first military guy immediately says, “ what happens if this thing gets hit by gunfire ? “ the second says “ the molten metal cools as it exits the hole and plugs it “ . Number one says “ so the battery is self sealing “
I don’t think you would put a resistance heater in a metal bath, the metal bath would cause a short , the resistance elements would be outside the bath with some thermal path to the metal.
I think this is the fiture for storing renewable energy.It will be a life changer for Africa.
Africa 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@dann6067
They have the Sahara desert. High sun and thermal environment.
I have been watching Don Sadoway for years, and am waiting patiently for Ambri to provide a home battery.
Being everything is liquid, no dendrites.
I would think baffles could make the battery earthquake resistant.
Finally, a technology that isn't just a novel way to push a turbine. The thermal to mechanical to electrical conversion losses are monsterous.
I love this channel. Ever consider staffing a comedy writer? Might help with those groan worthy moments and general appeal. They could also give some delivery and timing tips.
Awesome explanation also Sodium Ion battery has been gaining popularity lately please give us a review.
It's on my list!
@@UndecidedMF - check out LiNa Energy (lina.energy/) - solid state sodium battery technology - abundant raw materials, cheap, high performance and safe! We'd love to inform a sodium battery review...
I get that this is intended for Grid level applications but It also seems like a good fit for home solar installations. Once installed, movement is also a non issue like for grid level energy storage and the deep cycling capability and projected reliability seem very compatible with solar installations on homes for off grid independence or emergency power during outages. Perhaps costs can become competitive in the near future for home use.
It needs to be cycled often to stay molten.
@@gregbailey45 so great for running the fridge, the stove, the AC, the heating (heat pump hopefully so roughly same electrical load as AC), the TV all day, etc etc
@@gregbailey45 In a home solar installation there would ideally be on average 12 hours of charge during the day and 12 hours of discharge after the sun goes down.
I think this is a GREAT idea! We need to allow the incremental changes toward solving our problems get us to full, democratized energy freedom. These batteries are scalable enough to allow a small town in the middle of Iowa to go off-grid (air-storage batteries as another example). These solutions allow the town or coop to determine their own needs without big companies forcing their weight on them. Thanks for highlighting these!!
Earthquakes + liquid metal = rock and roll!
They would be filled to the brim, and if you have ever tried to shake a bottle of water that has nearly no air in it, it no longer sloshes around
Thanks you! I really wanted to learn more about this tech
Glad it was helpful!
A liquid metal battery is great for rural off-grid homes at the lowest cost and maintenance in the future.
They sound rather dangerous running at high temperatures. So, maybe good for large grid storage, but not so much for home use where home owners would have to maintain it themselves.
Here in south africa battery theft is a big issue. Mobile networks often have their tower batteries stolen. The network operators build serious steel cages, concrete barriers and many things to make it as hard as possible to steal... but they are still stolen. Some batteries are in the concrete itself to protect it.
I've invested in this company... lets see how it goes...
How did you invest in them?
i thought they were not public
@@anywhereroam9698 VC funding
@@devanarayans5131 Who's said they were?
@@panaceiasuberes6464 niice👍👌👌
Thanks, interesting stuff. However, I plugging for aluminium ion. Compared to lithium ion have 3 times the capacity Durability not there yet but improving and looks promising
please make a video on the differences among of liquid metal battery vs solid state battery vs lithium ion battery
Probably a good video idea there. 👍
@@UndecidedMF And when you do, please do your research some other place than wikipedia.
@@HamRadio200 You haven't yet figured out the reality of global warming causing disruptive climate change, so you are not in a position to be critical of the research or sources of Matt.
@@xyzsame4081 In the past the earth was much warmer. Just do some research before you ask for a refill of the kool-aid.
The effective efficiency of lithium is closer to 80-85% when taking into account the DC to AC conversion, no?
Which does not impact any other battery technology, right?
If ambri ever goes public,I'd be buying some shares. This has great potential.
The sheer amount of work that we need to do in order to make mass energy storage viable just goes to show that we also need to be reducing our power dependence wherever possible. This means building denser cities so we can walk and bike everywhere and take advantage of shared surfaces in apartments to reduce heat loss/heat influx so less cooling and heating is needed.
We need these in Texas…plus our heat can help with the molten state lol
Exyernal heat is not needed, and no advanyage.
@@gregbailey45it’s a joke
@@gregbailey45 The insulation cannot completely avoid the loss of heat, but the hotter the surroundings the longer it takes. The heat in Tx (or in any environement that is not a volcanoe etc.) is s not nearly enough to keep the metal molten (imagine that !) we are talking 300 F or more as opposed to a hot summer day.
We need to convert gas stations to charging stations and use this type of tech to replace the holding tanks. Then the infrastructure for most cities will be properly engineered to be more renewable energy ready and sustainable. 3MW perstation would be appropriate storage.
Beyound initial heating power requirements, it self maintains it idle and operating temps pretty easily. Motion sensitive at grid scale means tremors, earthquakes, meteor impacts...the worse reaction is a short and cool down. No fire. No explosion. No poison gas. Perfect solution. I hope the Ambri tean continues to improvecand grow. Awsome acheivement.
Since it's based on a liquid, how scalable is it? Could you theoretically have one giant pool of 'liquid battery', or is there a limit to how large/small it can be?
I assume the distance between the anode and the cathode can't be too far, so this pool would have to be very long, but thin
This and "molten salt" batteries are better in multiple smaller cells than one big pool as the larger the cell the more difficult it is to keep a consistent temperature throughout.
It probably comes down to operability, many smaller cells are probably easier to transport/maintain than a huge single cell. More modular as well, so it'd be easier to scale up over time. And, if one fails and is somehow destroyed, the others can be relatively isolated thanks to their enclosure. So there's probably a sweetspot, and going bigger than that doesn't make much sense for safety and maintenance.
It's very scalable, but not by making one giant battery. It'd be racks and rows of the smaller batteries linked together.
@@Michelino_M5 The main advantage of being smaller is maintenance. Even if it was exactly the same efficiency at massive scale, operators would still choose smaller components that are strung together. If one little battery fails, you pull it out of the rack and lose a minuscule amount of power storage. If a massive battery fails, you may have to take a massive chunk, if not all, of the facility down for repair. And replacing an Olympic swimming pool of gallium is a lot harder than tossing a couple replacement units in a standard truck.
@@Beakerbite Yeah, that was the first thought that came to mind. But also consider how hard it would be to deploy such a huge pool of molten metal, from the factory to the site where it would be used.
I can't wait for the batteries installed in NV to prove themselves.
Hold your breath! Just wait for that one hot hot cloudy windless day. You'll be wishing you had a fossil fueled generation station near you.
Beautiful, excellent. I like compressed air energy storage. Air is plenty and steel vessel plentyfull. I envision a big ship with a sail, underwater watermill (much smaller than a wind mill) A compressor drives air into floating steel pressure vessels. The pressure vessels can go autonomously to some facility to discharge the compressed air.
A lot of moving parts for likely little energy
Wake up to a new video. Also need to get ready for my online class. I choose the new undecided video.
Ha!
Under grid load, one good earthquake and KABOOM!
Wouldn’t anti-slosh baffles work?
Actually, no. An internal short will increase the temperature, but not to the point of a phase change, so there's no explosion and the cell housing can easily handle the temperature rise.
EDIT: It would leave the batteries discharged at the very moment they would be wanted to help deal with an emergency situation, though.
@@dmdeemer In a high voltage situation like that, the heat from the short will likely cause gas to form from the liquid in the cell. The cell will explode if that is the case. Never underestimate the power of a high voltage short.
Great technology. Till an earthquake, then BOOM as everything mixes.
That's why they put it in nevada
As long as it does not break ..... the layers separate themselves, you only lose one charge (and may not get much out of the battery when you would need it. But I doubt the disturbance would be that bad, that it upsets the layers a lot and if the earthquake is that strong it cracks the container, that is much more problems.
Luckily there are lots of regsions where you do not have to expect heavy ! earthquakes.
The container could be also placed on some shock absorbers.
Grid sized stirage is currently done using pump storage plants, which is very cheap in comparison and efficient
There are actually a number of axes here that folks are not really hitting on. That said, the comments here that I read are quite astute. But the degrees of design freedom under consideration need to include:
1) The y = mx + b of scaling the technology
2) The availability of the materials and other economic uses of those materials (shadow prices)... that drive the value of the 'm'
3) The total amount of energy that such a system can store
4) The rate at which energy can be added or removed from the system, the dE/dt...
5) Latency and response time issues
6) Deep cycling issues (discussed, thank you...)
7) Design robustness / sensitivity to perturbations... how does a liquid metal battery deal with an 8.0 earthquake?
8) Whether or not the design is adiabatic or if not, what the heat is doing to the surrounding environment (there needs to be a Lagrange multiplier associated with any impact of this system on the local environment... look for 'Dantzig Wolfe Decomposition' on wikipedia)
9) MTBF / E[longevity] of the system
10) If there are any sensitivities to changing conditions in the environment. LIke not just earthquakes, but wildfires, snow, hail storms or whatever
11) Thermal stability, perhaps these are great for some deserts but not all. Or perhaps the performance becomes crappy in climates with cold winters
12) Is it possible for these liquid battery components to attack the walls of the containers they are in? Like having copper and steel pipes next to each other when water is running through the copper pipe?
13) Need to look at end-of-life issues and recycling of the components. All newly made systems need to be able to be reused / recovered losslessly... Or else humanity ends up a creek without a paddle.
“No, one technology to rule them all, having options…” agree, yes, options, like nuclear power that should recognized as a strong player in the fight against fossil fuels.
I agree. Replace fossil fuels with a highly energy-dense and practical solution until we have the time to *experiment* with a less-dense source (which is what we are doing as the situation gets deeper)
Safety and co$ts. Hippies didn't kill fission, cost & safety did. The need? Perfect fission to run safely + cheaply. Probable fix for this? Probably molten salt reactors. I ask, however, is this even doable?
It was proven that Tesla lied about the sub 2 second speed.
LMB is the only way to go.
It's worth noting that the thermal management of these systems is not anywhere near as problematic as it may sound. Blacksmiths have been working iron since Roman times, and getting iron to forging temperature means getting it upwards of 1300 degrees Celsius. And that's a furnace you're actually working next to, putting stuff in and out of, and straight up hitting the thing you've just pulled out of it with a hammer. Getting a battery you set up and largely forget up to less than half that should not be difficult for modern engineers to design safe insulation for.
I couldn't more highly recommend watching Donald Sadoway's MIT lectures on RUclips, on Solid-State Chemistry. He's the best teacher I've ever seen on the subject, hands down
There was a recent fire of an electric car in an archway below a station in London. That caused mayhem and caused the train station to be shut and trains to be rerouted and cancelled. It just shows how bad they can be.
The technology looks well suited for large scale execution
This sounds amazing from a maintenance, recycling, and reuse perspective.
Your reminders that there isn’t one technology to rule them all is a good one as it is so easy to become convinced that one technology in particular must be the solution. Thanks again for your insights!
Best video so far on the liquid metal battery!
It's worth noting that Ambri is comparing their active material cost to LCO ($51/kWh), which is the most expensive lithium ion chemistry. LFP (Iron) is much cheaper at $8/kWh active material cost. Nickel will achieve ~$20k in the next few years - which is near Ambri's $16/kWh.
Furthermore: How much are the inactive material costs for Ambri? I'm assuming they require a lot of expensive thermal protection/insulation.
Also, what will happen to the cost of antimony if this technology is deployed around the world at scale?
I've got nothing to offer I'm just here to have a good time guys
Love that. 👍
Lab : This is a great battery!
Earthquake : Oh yeah!
As a Tesla owner I can say… launching never actually gets old. I thought it would eventually, but 13 months in every red light is an opportunity.
So in an earthquake do they explode or catch fire?
prob detect and turn them into solids
exactly what i was wondering. but at least it doesnt seem like it would be a runaway effect like w lithium... the one next to it would tolerate the heat fine (so long as the container wasnt compromosed)
If these things are really sensitive to being shaken then you would want to make sure that the facility storing them is also sufficiently earthquake resistant, which will add another cost to building.
Always interesting to hear about new power storage and creation technologies. Thanks for the excellent video.
Speed & scale (both in production & recycle phase) will solve everything, I think that is why Tesla is so focused on lithium Ion batteries. It is also most reactive to load changes.
Once perfected, I could see this being a great base load battery... I still think something like Solid State batteries for peak/impulse supply would be needed.
I've followed this technology for several years, but it is always nice to have another perspective. Thanks :-)
One has to wonder why energy day-traders have not gotten into the grid storage game yet.
sound like a good idea
lit-ion is still the best on a small scale
liquid metal would be the best if you need large capacity and fast reaction time (for power spikes)
and liquid oxygen goes well with high capacity slow response time like storing power overnight
I wish you had mentioned that the batteries maintain their own operating temperature through regular charge and discharge cycling. It is an important part of the conversation.
People seem to assume there is a need to keep them hot to keep them liquid where as they are able keep them selves hot through regular use.
In the future.. very much awaited small-scale battery for companies and households
Ha, I wrote a research paper on this at Uni and used his research as a reference. Fantastic to see this idea still going.
It seems like the efficiency of these batteries would increase with use since maintaining a liquid state costs energy, they could be scaled up and buried with alternating charge/discharge cycles with the adjacent cells so that heat loss can be minimized.. Instead of a backup storage system they could be used all across the grid for cycle stabilization and efficiency, that would also allow any renewables to contribute to the grid from anywhere..
Most high capacity/ Utility Scale storage has a serious KISSW factor. Simplre, Reliable and cheap and most techologies I see tend to fail that. The Sadoway battries tend to meet those requirements.
I love new concepts
It keeps us moving forward
Even the failures gives us knowledge
Great video!
Cheers
I have had Ambri and Donald Sadoway on my radar for many years now. It's very promising to see them making more substantial progress in the form of medium scale test installations now. As you said, there won't be any single solution for a complex problem like energy storage. We'll need a healthy mix of different solutions for a sustainable future, but Ambri with their liquid metal battery seems to be a very likely candidate for short term energy storage and for grid-level load management.
Also Sodium is even more abundant than the mentioned Metals and NaS Batteries are a thing for quite a while now.
I think the real problem is that, in the past,there was not really a market, for the type of energy storage we need for the Future.
Reading the Wikipedia, sodium-sulphur batteries have issues. The main difference is that Na-S used a solid electrolyte that degraded over time and the whole thing was corrosive and full of pure sodium (exposing that to air or water will result in a bad day) requiring a more complicated enclosure. Some of these issues will be shared with Ambri's batteries, but I assume that there's an improvement. Though only time will tell.
@@johnsmith34 well cycle stability
is less of a concern for seasonal storage. Na-S Battaries are useless for private usage but I think pure Sodium can be stored savely in an indusriall envirement. The most limiting value in my eyes is price for roar material per MWh capacity. That makes Na look pretty good.
To solve the mobile vs stationary problem you just put it inside a spinning flywheel. The centrifugal force could be may times the shaking forces. Then make sure the flywheel never stops spinning. :-) Possible, but challenging.
Very interesting. I'm interested to see how this and other grid-scale and smaller energy storage systems develop.
Man it's crazy what kind of break through a they are having with battery technology.
this sounds better for the main powerplant to reduce the need for peaker plants.
Energy storage on a longer scale like 2~3 week cycle time sounds more proper for sources like solar since rainy seasons will see the ignition of peaker plants with just a daily power storage.
Molten Metal will be big in the future. Solar is best in warm regions, and Li-Ion that requires a ton of healing is really bad in those regions.
Having a very large storage system at high temperatures, might also allow you, to recover some of the lost energy via a thermal power station. Its definitely warm enough for that.
there are many ways of storing energy.. gravity storage, inertial storage, heat storage (molten salts), pressure storage, chemical storage... but if you want to store electricity, the options narrow down a lot and things get a bit more costly and complex. Probably the most affordable and easier way for large storage capacity are *flow batteries*. This molten metal tech is also interesting, but seems a bit overcomplicated by comparison
Speaking of cordless vacuums I bought an expensive Dyson cordless. It only runs for 3 minutes after a 12 hour charge and is really quite useless. I subsequently found thousands of people online were experiencing the same issue with their Dysons
Hi Matt! I know you are a journalist, and not a scientist or engineer, so I'm going to try my best to bridge the communication gap. I'll start by offering 2 free "Peer Reviews" of your up-and-coming y-tube videos on electricity. That said, I am 100% on board with Ambri, and glad that someone with your public speaking skills (namely you) put up this video. And here is your first free peer review! 1) The Electricity Establishment did a really silly thing - they use a stand-alone word, "kilowatt" (also "megawatt", "gigawatt", etc) to mean A FLOW RATE! Any normal people use 3-word phrases, but not the EE's! You are used to "miles per hour", and "gallons per minute", all very normal. BUT a kilowatt is:"1 kilowatt (kW) = 1,000.00 joules per second (J/sec)". This confuses half of the world's population, so they end up saying things like "5 kilowatts per second" and "250 kilowatts of energy", but kilowatts are energy flow, AKA "power". It's not your fault when you say a battery "stores 100 kilowatts" when it might store 1,000 kilowatt-hours of energy, and deliver it as power at a rate of 100 kilowatts. Think of a water tank. if it holds 100 gallons, that is like a battery holding 100 kilowatt-hours. The tank might have a pipe that flows water in or out at 100 gallons per hour. That is going to drain the tank in one hour. A 100 kilowatt-hour battery that flows electricity out at 100 kilowatts will be drained in one hour. I hope this pushes the confusion out, and makes sense. I look forward to watching more of your videos. Cheers, Tom Gearing. PS if you think I'm a troll, just read my best publication: www.google.com/books/edition/An_Alternate_Solution_to_the_FUNARG_Prob/ooz-NwAACAAJ?hl=en
I would be curious to see your take on Flow Batteries for grid scale applications.
I guess the less expansive way of energy storage would be: using a crane with a motor to lift heavy blocks up. For release of that energy stored would be to use the crane with a electric generator that would grab that heavy block and allow the gravity to pull the heavy block down that would spin the generator producing electricity.
Lithium battery technology benefited from economy of scale because they are well suited to EV's. Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries work well enough for short term grid storage, but the need for daily load cycling is a great fit for the Ambri battery and with scale and technical tweaking the cost of production will fall well below lithium as the materials are inherently low cost and available. Ambri has potential to overtake lithium for grid storage. They might develop more quickly, if the company went public.
Great stuff! I hope one day there will be an infinite time for battery power storage. Maybe we're standing on it?
Water stored optimally at higher altitudes can be most affordable for storing electricity and water.
In a completely different kind of molten salt battery, they just announced a planned next-gen nuclear reactor that will use liquid sodium and will have the capacity to store power in the molten sodium for later discharge that will be built in Wyoming.
Stationary storage usually don't require a small footprint .
I see no problem with low power density solutions
There is also Flow batteries like redflow that loves deep cycling and are already being put in place around the world.