We can't properly dispose of or recycle the batteries we have now!! EV's only have a battery life of 10yrs & we don't need more batteries in landfills!!!!
No one talks about the huge element storage in the deep ocean.... huge! But suppliers like China want to push the price up, so they leave the oceans untapped... it's a scam.
Best thing about sodium-ion batteries is that you can use desalination waste brine to make them - which can then go on to subsidize the cost of desalinated water. Win-win on multiple levels.
It will never happen, if we want dried salt we just dig it up out of the ground for far less then the cost of drying out seawater. All seasalt production is for human consumption where it can command a high price as a luxury form of salt. All industrial salt is mined and always will be due to lower cost.
@@kennethferland5579 Fancy Table salt and desalination sludge are two very different things. Currently most sludge is just pumped back into the ocean. And we need to start converting seawater to drinking water on the west coast pretty soon on a grand scale or the west coast of the US will run out of fresh water. When a company goes public to do either one of these things I will be in line to invest.
I am working on my own Sodium-Ion battery out of a garage workshop. I am going for the small devices now, but hope to grow in large scale end game. The garage projects work still work in this abundant material configuration. Long live ingenuity - one of us will build a great battery in their garage.
Those soidum ion batteries have a similar energy density to those used on the first Tesla Roadster, and only slightly less than the ones used on early Model S! They will of course be used for stationary storage, but they might also be used for some low cost EVs as well. An EV under $25,000 with a range over 220 miles would be a big hit.
Aren't they already using something similar in the budget level chinese teslas? I know they're not using bog standard lithium batteries in those lines. Those units are considerably cheap because they have no Self Driving features (prohibited by chinese law)
@@orionbetelgeuse1937 a 60% round-trip efficiency might not be a fatal flaw for grid-level storage as long as cost and life cycle numbers kept them compelling. I would assume that the lost energy is heat which could probably be harvested at very large scale to boost that total efficiency back up. It clearly would never approach 90% but you could probably wring a little bit more back out of a charge/discharge cycle. The big driver would need to be cost though.
@@orionbetelgeuse1937 But it has much more resources to make bigger storage Lithium isnt infinite We just need to keep improving in all sides ( they will all be usefull now or later )
I see sodium ion batteries as good for stationary storage, lithium ion batteries as good for ground and marine vehicles, and solid state batteries as good for medical and aerospace applications.
Sodiums advantage is that it functions better in cold environments. CATL is already offering a pack that has 20% sodium cells to off set the effects of cold weather.
CATL makes the batteries for Nio which are cars that can easily swap their batteries. A sodium ion battery doesn't need much density for daily commutes because a Nio could just swap it for a lithium ion or even more dense battery when needed.
I also think your stationary storage market is going to have a segment for very long term ~6 month long for balancing seasonal needs which will go to thermal or compressed air system, while battery systems are used at the 1-3 day range.
@@TwoBitDaVinci Yes, in the same way that one drop blood tests from the like of Theranos are “really” accelerating in many directions, Two Bit. Or is it Elizabeth?
@@jeffreymoffitt4070 Most of the grid scale battery storage is in (cabinets in) open air, and doesn't need a building around it. Lower density could mean a few more cabinets, but no big deal in the larger picture.
Food for thought, Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries were at 160 WH/KG when they started to get popular with EV makers (in China mostly). It was a complete shock to me when I read that CATL had Sodium Ion batteries at that density already. For most applications it is not highest energy density wins. It is lowest cost that meets the applications minimum requirements wins. For stationary energy storage the requirements that drive the decision are not energy density, but cost and cycle life... also temperature range. For cars it was fairly well proven that 160 WH/KG was high enough density if you don't need huge amounts of thermal management (again see LFP, and specifically the BYD blade battery). For aircraft, nothing meets the needs that is commercially available yet. You can make puddle jumpers work, but nothing longer than a few hundred miles. Solid state may be the first ones there, but my bet is on Lithium Sulfur, I think it will be out sooner. But who knows, the high energy market has a lot of potential contenders (none on the market yet): 1. Lithium Sulfur 2. Solid State (which could work with any chemistry) 3. Silicon and/or graphene in the anodes (also can be used with any chemistry) Your guess is as good as mine there, but despite the fact that I invested in solid state companies I think it will be Lithium Sulfur, it is just closer to mass scale production. CATL has announced they are making those too.
Mike, I suspect, in anything bigger than "Little Airplanes, and 100-200 Miles Range per charge, some "Blending" of Batteries, Solar, Fueled Generator Onboard, and maybe even, some with Supercapacitors, will be used at the Beginning of this Transition! It might depend on Forced Regulations, that pushes the change, or Businesses that push the Change. We all see the Difference of Tesla pushing, vs the CARB Push, back in 1998-2002!
@@robertweekley5926 Yeah, it is anyone's guess at this point. Wide open for advancements, but it will need much higher energy density then we have today. Keep in mind that lithium sulfur can be 5-6 times the energy density of current lithium ion batteries if they can work out the cycle life problems. It should be at lower cost per KWH too (once at scale). But if they don't get that working you are right there are other ways to augment electrical systems. At the scale a large plain (737 size) hydrogen may make sense, but I think they may do fuel cells instead of a generator if it is prop. For jets, not my area of expertise, probably best tech we have now is just cleaner jet fuel. Those things are easier to overcome than the problem of prop planes not being able to operate at different speeds (something about the pitch of the blade, again not my area of expertise). Point is that there are a lot of puzzle pieces to solve before we are flying around in high speed electric aircraft.
@@robertweekley5926 A start with regulation would be to not allow Li_Ion for grid storage because that's part of the reason costs are going up. The amount of battery needed for a single installation is too much when Li-Ion is used everywhere.
Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries LiFe for years had the same strategic road map as you new fangled sodium ion. Raw Materials was way cheaper, but lower energy density meaning heavier and slightly bigger than your Lithium standard counterpart. So what happened? Standard lithium ion battery technology just steadily and consistently improved, thereby moving the goal post further and further away for LiFe. 5 years ago I bought a LiFe battery power pack for jump starting a dead battery car. Kept it in the car trunk for a year. When I finally needed it , it was a piece of junk - couldn't charge and it was slightly bulging. Basically LiFe doesn't work in real world practice. Same could be said for Sodium ion. right now cycle recharge life is generally 1/10 that of standard lithium and so this is the biggest problem to overcome. Unfortunately 2bitDV doesn't go into the technical problems to give a clue how easy it is to overcome this problem.
In the meantime vanadium flow btteries are in production now and are ideal for use for grid storage with a long life that does not degrade with cycling fully every day and would allow lithium batteries to be used for mobile storage with only a small amount being required for fast response grid stabilisation.
Another place for sodium ion batteries would be heavy equipment that carry huge amounts of counter balance weight by design, forklifts, excavators to quickly name 2.
160Wh/kg is 4 times Pb acid and so fine for home and grid storage. Hopefully with CATL involved they will be coming to market in a few years for storage at least.
Wow this seems like it might actually be the next big thing in conventional batteries! I definitely wouldn't mind the slightly lower capacity for it being better in terms of price, environment and probably ethics.
Regarding "ethics". It should be noted that (all) existing Li-ion cells, of which a high and growing proportion don't use Cobalt (!) are more "ethical" than fossil fuel, suppliers of which have been surreptitiously using Cobalt (no doubt from the very same sources) for decades, to desulphurise their product.
It's nice when the most ethical thing is also the cheapest. We are finding the combination occurs more frequently as we do research with widely abundant materials in mind. Makes you wonder what we have been thinking.
Do you really think it's not possible to mine cobalt without using children? Everyone is obsessed with the kids, but they represent a small fraction of total production, if it's even still happening at all. Meanwhile, the newly-unemployed kids might be starving.
Very well presented yet again Ricky! But, as always, coming in second in the race is always a more difficult challenge. However, I would perhaps suggest there are more "levels" to be explored in the future battery market. One technology that just never seems to get "air-time" is as old as the hills, but almost never considered! The Nichol-Iron battery will never be useful for portable storage, but you mention grid storage often, and that is an area where this could very well eclipse other options, freeing up source materials for the portable use areas, if it could get the exposure and investment it deserves. And it does deserve this for a number of reasons, including the longevity and simple ability to rebuild them. It would be great to see you cover this option some time!
Coming in 2nd at what? Batteries have a lot of characteristics and you can start with cost. Energy density is important for some applications but not others. I don't need the best energy density for a home battery unit unless the home has very little space, so I can offer different solutions. You don't need either of these technologies for grid storage. Economics of scale should allow iron flow batteries to be much cheaper than typical batteries.
Not just grid storage - this would make a big difference in storage for off grid solar homes, for boat batteries, even for golf carts and some solar vehicles. I would love to have one for my canoe which is powered by a trolling motor. Any application that currently uses deep discharge lead acid batteries could benefit from this technology.
even if they're significantly bigger, if they can be used in a home to store solar and wind. I'd be nice if we can get the company making a vanadium redox flow battery to hurry up and make them available to the public. they're fridge sized batteries, but they have a ridiculous number of cycles and are great for home storage.
You can thank the government for delays in manufacturing of the vanadium redox flow batteries. They have so far refused to grant licenses to at least 2 companies spanning 2 plus years. Our government would rather have China make them for the world.
@@michaelwatts1810 Something tells me "would rather have China make them for the world" is not the real reason for the delay. A construction project at my local high school generated a small mountain of dirt. Because it was found to have an excessive vanadium content (still ppm levels), it had to be treated as toxic waste. So maybe vanadium toxicity is the problem? Just a thought.
As always, Ricky has great content and has a fantastic narration voice. I could listen to him read legal boiler plate documents and it would sound interesting.
I appreciate that you do a more complete analysis by giving the cons as well as the pros. People need to understand there is no free lunch which would lead to better policy decisions.
For stationary use, Na-Ion batteries are definitely superior, i think somewhere it was also mentioned that they are much more robust when it comes to temperature than Li-Ion ones. So while not suited for EVs as of now, there IS definitely potential and value in their use.
I 100% agree, but I think that outdoor temperature isn't as much as an issue for stationary supplies as you might think. Small units for homes and businesses are going to probably have them indoors, and solar, wind, and local caches can keep them underground, below the frost line.
@@klepow That depends on WHERE it is used, and with the temperature resistance, it means it can be used in areas where Li-Ion would suffer. Let´s say northern Eurasia and America close ot the polar circle. Or literally everything equatorial.
@@sim.frischh9781 I doubt that it's going to be that much resistant to temperature. Although he didn't mention how much. I get the impression you would get maybe 70% of a warm battery. They would still have to be climate controlled, and burying them still would do the same thing.
@@klepow It´s not "that much" per se, however, Li-Ion is SO SENSITIVE to temperature that pretty much any other battery technology seems highly resistant in comparison. Like Einstein said, "everything is relative".
While this is encouraging (I'm always glad to see promising new battery tech) it's a little disappointing to see it's only 30-50% cheaper. I know that's still significant, but I was expecting more considering it's literally a *hundred times* more abundant than lithium, it no longer uses materials that are in even shorter supply than that, AND lithium prices have been skyrocketing to absurd levels recently. Maybe it's just a matter of scale, and it will be cheaper later, I don't know, but I want to see it go further.
The manufacturing itself makes up a big chunk of the costs, and that process more or less stays the same. But unlike raw material costs the manufacturing itself won't suddenly rise hundreds of %. In other words litium based batteries will get more expensive if the material costs rise further, widening the difference between both technologies.
Great information Ricky 👍, found you through Matt Ferrell's channel. He mentioned you and I think it's great you both are doing so much research into all these new technologies. Learning so much about all the different battery types and energy solutions coming our way. Keep up the great work 👌
Sure...give me a Sodium battery any day... trouble is...I need a battery for my home solar installation in the near future and so far there isn't even an announcement pf an actual product. On top of that, the battery needs to be compatible with your inverter, so not only do we need actual product announcements, we need them from specific brands and they need to be compatible with current inverters...
Lithium is NOT limited resources. It is not the amount of material that is in bottleneck, but refining them enough to meet the current/upcoming demand. Any new battery type will go through same bottleneck : Greedy & inefficient supply chain.
I don't care about the Tesla or mobile phone storage anywhere as much as I care about the on-the-ground fixed storage element - the ability to capture and maintain a charge close to point of consumption is key to the whole process. The Power Wall and other products tend to use very expensive tech to function and stories I've heard paint a less than ideal experience there (especially for the costs involved). If we had a lower kw/kg (or kw/sqm) density then so be it for fixed space applications, especially if there is a lower cycling impost and a reduced or eliminated fire risk from those cells. Right now I just can't see grid infrastructure coping with huge surges in demand from lots of new electric vehicles mandated and in regular use, even with an increase in nuclear generation (such as the SMRs) can the grid really distribute and carry those loads to major population centres? Chunks of "cached" power with tech like this could help smooth that out. I just hope people relent and realise that we need a hybrid of technologies with an acceptance that they will be superseded at some point in the future; then we can at least get somewhere.
Your information is invalid. The vast majority of stationary storage on the market is LiFePo4 chemistries which are a lot less flammable and a lot more stable. Simply because unlike NMC chemistries which have less than a 1500 cycle life, LFP can achieve more than 8000 cycles and still be able to function at 80% capacity. Even Tesla is moving to LFP now for storage because it does not matter how much it weighs.
Without having really looked at it the power wall seems like a waste. It's a huge amount of complexity, cost, and environmental impact. Simply having some solar panels to cover base load that work when they do and don't when they don't seems like low hanging fruit that could have a large impact with minimal effort/cost.
@@davefroman4700 moving to newer tech NOW but not before, my references were pointing to other RUclipsrs who have had ongoing issues such as CWEN88 and other so I don't see what is "wrong" about what I said.
@@davefroman4700 he may be known now as "tall Paul tech" and he is a network engineer from Brisbane in Australia. He was only one example I have seen of problems with the product, there appears to be a level of dissatisfaction out there that won't be readily highlighted or discussed by fanboiz or sales oriented types. Sure Tesla has been evolving the product as you mention but the core point of my original post was that expensive high density storage won't have the value in a fixed location installation (especially domestically) as it isn't being moved and space is less of a premium.
Volumetric/ specific density may well limit these cells to "larger" public transport vehicles. However, it should be noted that there's no real need for a dual motor, 100+ mph, sub 5 second "taxi"(!). . Dialling back and gearing down can substantially increase efficiency. 0-60 in 12 seconds? 60 mph max? Adequate in 90% of city trips. (Also bear in mind it's likely the "urban automated transport" of the future will be more of a "box" than a sports car, so won't be as aerodynamic. Low speed will be it's friend)
I really don't see why there should be such a big push for energy density over everything else. Energy density has no impact on grid storage or even home storage. What matters there is discharge capacity and responsiveness. In the UK, we have lots of decommissioned fossil fuel power stations on fairly large sites, couple this with the already existing power grid connections, these make an ideal place for grid battery storage along side solar generation.
Another good one! Let's hope sodium comes to market soon. By the way, it would be great if you made a video explaining all the terms you refer to in each of your energy videos. What is energy density, for example?
Sodium-Ion would be perfectly adequate for EVs in the UK - we are a small country with no point further than 113 Km from the coast and 95% of car journeys being 25 miles or less. The issues will be charging infrastructure and batteries for HGVs and vans that do long and/or many journeys. But you will still need Lithium Ion batteries for small scale products such as hearing aid and mobile phones.
Slow down. Pronounce important, new technically - relevant words clearly. Your information is on the forefront ; many come to you to learn and understand. Take your time. ( south Florida ).
Lead acid battery coupling with Sodium ion battery are a good choice for household energy buffering from multi-sources of energy supplies including DIY and off-grid.
Water Desalination Plants could process their brine to extract sodium/salt and sell it to battery companies. This would solve Water Desalination Plant's problem of how to dispose of brine and would create a source of sodium/salt for the battery industry.
Yet another battery that is "5 years away". I hope the Sodium Ion battery is successful.....but I am not going to get excited till we see them in quantity with competitive prices and properties.
Considering the demand of lithium and the investments from large companies, I think sodium batteries are more likely to be successful than others. Most technologies that have a hard time taking off are solutions for a problem that isn't yet worth fixing. I don't see sodium batteries ever finding their way into cars or high-end mobile electronics though.
What about ev farm tractors or heavy equipment like excavators that need addditional weight? Battery weight become much less a disadvantage and the longer life cycles a definite plus.
True. The counterweight hanging on the rear of an excavator weighs tons. Might as well be a battery bank. Without a large engine to drive the hydraulics there would be plenty of space available. NB: Volvo has introduced a small excavator and a wheel loader, both LION powered.
I agree. We need every type of competitive storage tech for the worlds long term storage needs. One question I didn't hear addressed was about safety. Sodium in its pure form, like lithium, oxidizes rapidly. Is there any information on that subject?
Using different batterie types and tech for various applications is exactly what I was thinking too! We need a varied approach in everything not getting stuck in one tech like we have with the ICE for decades and do it quickly and efficiently!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, ideas and videos. Always interesting and entertaining. A trend I’ve noticed is you like to point out all these abundant elements in your videos but I’ve never noticed you give a solution for all the other abundant elements that they are locked down with. Carbon is a great element that we have in abundance but once we link it to oxygen another abundant element and use the energy from the reaction that we start to have problems. Sodium chloride 🧂 we have in abundance but what are you going to do with all the chlorine it’s locked down with. I’m not a chemist but it seems that this could be the next way we could destroy our planet if we don’t give it any consideration. Maybe you could at least mention these possibilities in your videos in the future whenever you talk about using things we have in abundance. Thanks again for all the great videos you provide. Wishing you and your family the best.
I don't think "he" is the solutions person. He's merely reporting on new tech and things that are being worked on. I don't see how what your are asking him is his responsibility. After all.,,this is a RUclips channel. Perhaps you could start a channel or better yet, get a degree or two and come up with solutions to these problems. Lizten, I'm not trying to bust your balls here. I'm very cynical when it comes to these so called green energy solutions. I don't see anything yet really that appears to be a solution. I just for one... get worn out by people, especially young people, who do little actually research yet parrot way I see as almost religious like dogma spewed by the media and govts, while taking advantage of all that fossil fuels have created while ignoring viable solutions we already have. Like...Nuclear. Also, none of them are doing a damn thing about it. They aren't getting STEM degrees and working hard, like some of these people and companies featured on this channel, are doing. If you want change...you gotta make it. So yea... there's only so much the audience is interested in on these kind of channels. I post my doubts as well but...I'm not putting it on the host.
@@Sabotage_Labs 😂, loved your response. Right there with you on the need for the next generation to get stem degrees and we need to work with technology that we already paid for the development and are abandoning due to the political pressures of a few uneducated people. Really big fan of the Nuclear fission cycle and think it’s time for new reactors that are safer with a more complete fuel cycle such as liquid thorium. As far as getting a degree, been there a few decades back, now retired from power system operations. Have supervised operations of Hydro, Pumped Storage, Nuclear, both BWR, PWR, gas/oil fired steam, combined cycle gas, and utility sized wind. The most reliable and the biggest pain is the older generation Nuclear. It’s time to build some newer reactors that can burn up the untapped energy in the fuel from the early reactors and close the Nuclear fuel cycle. The strict regulations needed to safely operate the current generation of reactors are smothering any savings they provide. It’s time for newer safer reactors that will not only provide abundant clean energy, but make the economy of those that embrace them flourish.
@@tbix1963 Absolutely! We're wasting trillions on options that just won't work. Ignorance is the biggest problem. Especially our politicians and ruling elite class but, the media has done so much damage to Nuclear! If it bleeds it leads. 3 mile island incident... ZERO deaths Fukushima... 1 death which is disputed. Chernobyl.. deaths were caused my the communist system as much as the nuclear accident. Designed poorly and on the cheap! The tech we have now and that's being developed is far superior. I look forward to the day when small reactors and in every few square miles in urban areas basically running on autopilot with a Homer Simpson working there just to make ignorant people feel "safe" lol. It never surprises me when someone like yourself that knows what they are talking about, has applied knowledge, can see the facts and understand the science. It's the other ones....I see them as corrupted automatons sucking up the the elites. We need better education...not politics! Cheers!
I think the great failure in the system is that we are looking for a single solution, and there are going to be a dozen solutions. Na-Ion would be good where weight and size are not huge factors, for example a power wall or grid storage. However Hydrogen may work better for transportation, where charging time is a big factor. This leaves Li-Ion where battery weight and size are critical factors. At least for now.
I’m sceptical about hydrogen after I have read more about it. Low energy density, creation, storage, distribution, safety, inefficient in thermal engines, NOx, and so on.. Should only used in chemical processes, where there is no substitutes.
@@Harrythehun Actually.... H2 has one of the highest energy densities going, by weight OR by volume (liquid form, obvs). But, as you say, from a practical perspective, it's a nightmare. It leaks out of almost anything, and to get it to be a liquid it needs cooling to within a few degrees of absolute zero AND compressing. And even then, your woes are only just beginning- Hydrogen can be absorbed by various metals, notably steels, which become brittle (search for Hydrogen Embrittlement), so your fuel system will need to be made of all kinds of exotic if it's to last a lifetime. Then there's all the hassle of transporting it (you can't just use the existing gas pipelines). There's also the whole Hindenburg perception - how many times have you heard people talking about "not wanting to carry a bomb around in the back of my car"; and yet, ironically, H2 is FAR safer than gasoline in that respect; if your tank does rupture, the H2 will rise away from the scene of the accident in seconds, and even if there IS a fire, it will be very short lived... unlike petrol, which hangs around on the ground releasing vapours for ages, looking for that elusive spark... and thin walled petrol tanks will be much easier to rupture than thick H2 tanks, which are trying to keep back the pressure of all that liquid H2 which is just desperate to turn back into a gas...
@@theelectricmonk3909 Ok I have knowledge about hydrogen. I have worked as inspection manager for inspections of refineries, power plants and QA engineer for ESPE project of pulp and paper and chemical plants. Look up how many cubic meters you need to replace same energy amounts compared to natural gas and other energy fluids. You will be surprised about dimensions for pipelines and how many additional truckloads you need for hydrogen.
@@theelectricmonk3909 H2 has a really high energy density, but you have to compress it at great expense, and you have to contain it, typically with a heavy, expensive device.
The logical place for Sodium ion batteries is house batteries (like TESLA's power wall) where having LARGE batteries is not a problem, so long as they are a LOT cheaper than large house lithium batteries. House batteries can save a HUGE amount of money if you use them to either store excess solar electricity (from having a solar roof) to use at night or charge the house battery at off peak cheaper electricity rate times, then use its charge instead when mains electricity becomes a lot more expensive! House batteries just make sense, but most people just don't know they exist, or can't afford the cost of expensive large lithium batteries.
We are already doing that: LFE Batteries in the Model3 and Model Y are a small performance hit (0.4sec slower 0-60) with the tradeoff being Longevity and capability to charge 100% battery all the time.
I love seeing battery tech advance, but I do want to point out one issue. Videos like this often start by assuming that battery demand will grow infinitely, but that doesn’t have to be the case. If we push to build more walkable and bikeable cities while also making public transit more robust then battery demand won’t need to grow anywhere near as much! So we should pursue those actions at the same time that we work on better battery tech. I’m still excited for tech like this though. Making batteries less expensive and more abundant will make the conversion to sole power so much easier for many families!
Walkable and Bikeable cities depend on a year round temperate climate, plus the willingness to install and suitability of infrastructure. . In an ideal world, yes..
Great ideas and I’m all for more walking and biking. But energy use will still soar, as we have more electric heating and cooling to do, more industries like smelters turning electric…
@@TwoBitDaVinci I agree 100%. It would be nice to see that nuance stated in a video intro sometime. Help set you apart from the other channels who don’t seem to understand it.
Making cities walkable and bikeable won't keep the lights on at night. He stated in the video that the highest demand won't be cars ect. but grid storage. I agree that cites should ban ice vehicles downtown but what about commuters who have to travel longer distances to get to and from work. EV's and electric trains should help to do that. Same with long haul trucks converting to Hydrogen/battery type systems. Germany is experimenting with trucks that can draw most of their electricity from overhead power lines, so they only need enough battery to get the final few miles to their destination. Geothermal technology is advancing faster now too and that might reduce the need for batteries by a large amount since it is available 24/7 rain or shine.
For solar installations this can be a very big thing. Stationary storage is not much bothered by size and weight. As the owner of a Solar energy startup this is great news. I am from Argentina, LFP storage has almost double in price after the pandemic and is not going down. A new competitor in town is very welcomed.
We should see these in homes in the next few years. $11K for one Tesla battery is nuts. If we could have somewhat larger, but much longer lasting similar storage capability for 1/5 the price.. that would be HUGE. A lot more people would buy them.. heck maybe home builders would start building homes with them built in.
Agreed. I’m in CA where Nem 3.0 killed the ROI on solar because they want to drive people to have batteries, but batteries are so expensive. Would love to have a solar system with a more affordable battery
What about Sodium Sulfur Batteries? I saw recently that a university team, developed a Lithium Sulfur variant that had major promise, and they are now looking into using sodium.
Our EV is rarely driven more than 100 miles per day. Several recent 12 hour trips demonstrated that 200miles between charges was perfect. Good time stretch, take a bio break, and a fast charge. Recharging over night is the norm, so 300 - 500 mile range is generally an emotional need, not a requirement. If a sodium battery can provide 200-250 and a 20% cheaper battery, I’m in. That said I expect to see this tech in stationary applications for the near term.
You're right. But making EVs 20% cheaper could make a BIG difference in terms of adoption in developing countries. I think companies like Tesla should consider cheaper versions of their vehicles for those markets, and replacing Li-ion with Na-ion could be the best way to make that easy.
@@Israel_Two_Bit I’d be happy with a simple, less expensive EV. without all the fancy luxury toys. I don’t need a car that drives itself and does my taxes at the same time!
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There have been some really exciting developments coming out of the University of Texas regarding Potassium-ion batteries. John Goodenough’s lab was working on them when he passed away. (Goodenough won the Nobel prize for his development of LIBs). Another great idea to consider!
Hi In the not to distant past we were using lithium cells for some applications and most people weren't aware of them if you said battery to people 25 years ago it meant lead acid or an alkaline cell both of which are still relivent today, isn't it time that equipment manufacturers took some responsibility and select the most appropriate battery technology for the job it is to do as it seems to me that everyone wants to use lithium for everything. When looking at power storage on a large scale why use lithium when iron flow will work or even lead acid both fully recyclable and no real danger or needing any special battery management systems they just take up more space, to many people work about cars and there batteries, I belive the Nissan leaf still uses nickle cells. It might be time to change our transport habits and use public transport more Keep up the good work
5:30 ah! $$$x amount for mining lithium. Well they would still be mining it if we stopped using lithium, why? Because as your image shows, it's a copper mine. Lithium is often found with copper and they have been mining it for centuries. It's just now the mining companies are getting a 2 for 1 mining bonanza.
I don’t know of any copper mine that is mining lithium. Most copper mines like the one show is a copper porphyry system and lithium isn’t part of the mining system. The granites could possibly contain higher levels of lithium but it’s very minor compared to the Cu. The average composition in such deposits is around 30 ppm and even then is most likely tied up in the micas.
Hi thanks for the information you have provided. I’m no expert but I do understand the electron transfer process and the chemical interactions. I noted that when you talk about separator you don’t go into any details. This is the area of focus not the anode cathode materials … This is where the mystery starts. What’s required is a polymer that allows a chemical transfer of matter without dendritic action. When dendrites grow through the permeable membrane the use life is over.. The other factors of weight to efficiency is another concern. Plus environmental issues of pollutants in waste . For this reason alone I believe a bin should be provided at the cross roads of every suburban street like in France for bottles.. So let’s look at the permeable membrane. Any of the reactive metals such as phosphorus magnesium or sodium can be used as an anode lithium is another highly reactive material in the same manor. The membrane needs to be inert and permeable. Carbon graphene a six sided strong bonding layered inert material is perfect if controlled to perfection in its production. If it could move with the fluctuations of charge and discharge without cracking the mystery would be solved. This is where manganese and nickel step in.. malleability is essential to the membrane . So inert metallic polymers could be the answer IMO
..or gets quickly swapped for a charged one as in NIO cars. If NIO wanted a cheap car, they could use sodium battery - or offer a choice Li vs Na at the swapping station.
Sodium Ion batteries could be a game changer for off grid locations where people are dependent of solar panels and etc. in a farm, where space is not really an issue, having a huge battery pack that is cheap and could last for thousands of cycles without losing much energy density it could be a game changer.
Ngl, when I saw the clickbait title I assumed it was like a thermal battery made of sand or something lol. Super glad to see it's something really awesome. Really gonna make whole home batteries cheaper and UPS batteries more awesome!
CATL is releasing their 2nd generation of sodium batteries and they claim 260kwh. If this is true then they surpass present Li ion batteries. The first gen was a 160kwh and have been in use for a year. Sodium is also not affected by temperatuers( no thermal runaway). They also can discharge completely and recharge completely without harm. Yes they are slightly heavier, but they have a few things in their favor.
You don't even need the sodium based batteries to work like litium, you just need it to be cheaper. Even if it means it lasts half as long with half the charge requiring at least double the batteries, as long as the gross cost is less than lithium, that's all you need. At least for larger scale batteries like house batteries or general grid storage
I would love to have a sodium ion battery as a backup energy source for my house combined with solar. If 30% of houses in metro areas had solar and battery backups the grid would be much more robust and a lot of the burden on the grid would be lifted
Wind turbine blades? Fossil fuels. Plastic. Solar cells? More electricity in the summer than in the winter. Depending on latitude. I look forward to 3 to 6 months of efficient electrical storage with huge capacity. Batteries everywhere.
I think that sodium ion batteries maybe better suited for home and business storage or wherever you need portable static power, liquid air batteries I think are a better option for grid level storage manufactured from readily available off the shelf components that are already used in other industries they don't use rare earth materials making them affordable and scalable there's already some test plants operational.
For stationary storage for wind and solar, this battery is perfect. When it just sit on land, it doesn’t matter how big and heavy it is. This is a game changer it they can produce it much cheaper than current lithium cells. Imagine being able to store renewable energy very cheap. Then we have solved most of our energy problems. Electricity needs to be so cheap it is virtually free to use, that will greatly increase a nations ability to compete on the world market.
Home batteries are way too expensive right now. I would love to have 10-20kwh home batteries, but the price of just the battery can’t cost the same as the install of the solar system. The sodium batteries seem like a good fit.
I'd love a home battery, but I'm not willing to pay today's prices. It's annoying that I have a large battery in my car that I can't use for home power.
THANK YOU - I agree we need to stop wasting Li-ion for grid storage and save it for high energy density applications (small devices, cars, planes, VTOLs). For grid storage, who cares if a battery is heavier or bigger. Let’s build grid storage with abundant materials and technologies that make sense for the area of application.
The most important features of a battery for static applications is price and longevity with volume or weight of far less importance. And if we find such a technology, it reduces the pressure on Li, leaving more available for mobile applications. Think, for instance, how many Teslas you could power with the Li in the Hornsdale mega battery. A Tesla, has, say a 60kWh battery while Hornsdale, I believe, is up to 180mWh. Dividing one by the other you could power 3000 Teslas with that amount of Li. An alternative static battery technology could well bring the price of Li for mobile applications down by simple supply and demand.
the sodium vs lithium battery issue is very similar to diesel vs gasoline for ICE vehicles. Gas for passenger cars, diesel for towing/ trucking, shipping.
Great explanation. Sodium ion compares well with ni-cd and way out performs lead acid. It sounds like a win in so many low performance applications. As a power wheelchair user I see the benefits over lead for sure. It's a mindset that needs to be changed, lead and nickel worked for decades and work today along side lithium. We need to fix all the problems but one battery type may not be the answer.
Kalium is used for Potassium because Potassium was originally made from potash aka "pot ash" that was extracted from wood that was burned to ash in a pot. Potash was an "alkali" (opposite of an acid). In other words, potassium was originally associated with "alkali" from which it became "kali" and eventually "kalium". And Sodium aka soda+ium was originally found in natron aka "nitre" chemical compounds (potassium nitrate, sodium nitrate/nitrite etc), which is why its original name is Natrium.
The elephant in the room is round trip efficiency, this can be found for lithium variants. Although I have not recently looked for data sheets on sodium batteries, a few years ago I considered them for home storage but the cycle efficiency was not clear.
battery producers still have to invest to build the manufacturing facility that can produce sodium batteries. although sodium can decrease some of the costs, you still have to build the battery factories, which cost a lot. right now i'm not sure the investments and the market are there for sodium batteries.
Hey Ricky if you use the vortex microhydro by Turbulence. a 3 ft x 3 ft cube of water multiplied over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles along a river or stream bank dumping the same 3 ft of water thru a Vortex generator will solve energy problems for 100% of the folks that live near a river. Simple. A 6' drop between generators will produce enough electricity for 40ish homes. No fish ladders, no damage to environment, no downside. The water ends up more oxygenated and cleaner at the bottom end. Zero water is "used up". Zero fish kill. Zeros across the board...except you get free POWER. DO THE MATH! I'm not wrong.
We will never see "dozens" of battery chemistries on the market, nor do we need that. A relative handful of the best chemistries will meet our needs. Sodium ion looks like a winner for grid storage and low-end EVs, at least until something better comes along. Really looks like CATL is killing it these days.
I believe there is a sodium ion battery company in Santa Clara called Natron. I think they are focused on serving the tech industry. Do you know about zinc-ion batteries being developed by Salient Energy? It sounds like this technology may be close to commercialization. They have a deal with a home developer.
does a Na battery love 100% to 0% state of charge? In other words, does the battery degrade faster in different states of charge? If so, lower mileage is not an issue, unless the difference is very significant. Charging time would be the next big issue.
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just because they can make it 99% cheaper doesnt mean they will charge 99% less for it, in fact the price will probably go up
We can't properly dispose of or recycle the batteries we have now!! EV's only have a battery life of 10yrs & we don't need more batteries in landfills!!!!
No one talks about the huge element storage in the deep ocean.... huge! But suppliers like China want to push the price up, so they leave the oceans untapped... it's a scam.
Batteries and heavier cars are shedding tires faster then ever putting more rubber tire polution in the air compared to gas.
I see water as the energy storage future. It has 5 phases of phase change plus it is the working fluid. Reach out to me if you wanna hear my idea
Best thing about sodium-ion batteries is that you can use desalination waste brine to make them - which can then go on to subsidize the cost of desalinated water. Win-win on multiple levels.
It's not as profitable as lithium and cough great rest cough. FYI running out of diesel in 2 weeks.
Interesting new desalination method on Matt Ferrell, lower energy desalination. There's definitely a need, so hopefully both will reach production.
Or we can just look at patents for sodium batteries and just make it for ourselves.
It will never happen, if we want dried salt we just dig it up out of the ground for far less then the cost of drying out seawater. All seasalt production is for human consumption where it can command a high price as a luxury form of salt. All industrial salt is mined and always will be due to lower cost.
@@kennethferland5579 Fancy Table salt and desalination sludge are two very different things. Currently most sludge is just pumped back into the ocean. And we need to start converting seawater to drinking water on the west coast pretty soon on a grand scale or the west coast of the US will run out of fresh water. When a company goes public to do either one of these things I will be in line to invest.
I am working on my own Sodium-Ion battery out of a garage workshop. I am going for the small devices now, but hope to grow in large scale end game. The garage projects work still work in this abundant material configuration. Long live ingenuity - one of us will build a great battery in their garage.
Wow impressive
Hi I’d like to talk more on your experiences with garage work ..
cheers
Geoff
Do you also use Nickel?
How’s it going?
Those soidum ion batteries have a similar energy density to those used on the first Tesla Roadster, and only slightly less than the ones used on early Model S! They will of course be used for stationary storage, but they might also be used for some low cost EVs as well. An EV under $25,000 with a range over 220 miles would be a big hit.
Aren't they already using something similar in the budget level chinese teslas? I know they're not using bog standard lithium batteries in those lines. Those units are considerably cheap because they have no Self Driving features (prohibited by chinese law)
@@seanbrockest3888 Probably LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate)
@@orionbetelgeuse1937 a 60% round-trip efficiency might not be a fatal flaw for grid-level storage as long as cost and life cycle numbers kept them compelling. I would assume that the lost energy is heat which could probably be harvested at very large scale to boost that total efficiency back up. It clearly would never approach 90% but you could probably wring a little bit more back out of a charge/discharge cycle. The big driver would need to be cost though.
@@orionbetelgeuse1937 But it has much more resources to make bigger storage
Lithium isnt infinite
We just need to keep improving in all sides ( they will all be usefull now or later )
I had heard some of the companies making claim that sodium batteries can have double the capacity as compared to lithium technology.
I see sodium ion batteries as good for stationary storage, lithium ion batteries as good for ground and marine vehicles, and solid state batteries as good for medical and aerospace applications.
And hydrogen for planes!
There are more than 100 different (non Li-ion) battery chemistries emerging right now
Sodiums advantage is that it functions better in cold environments. CATL is already offering a pack that has 20% sodium cells to off set the effects of cold weather.
CATL makes the batteries for Nio which are cars that can easily swap their batteries. A sodium ion battery doesn't need much density for daily commutes because a Nio could just swap it for a lithium ion or even more dense battery when needed.
I also think your stationary storage market is going to have a segment for very long term ~6 month long for balancing seasonal needs which will go to thermal or compressed air system, while battery systems are used at the 1-3 day range.
It’s very reassuring that battery technology is accelerating in many different directions
it really is Robert, and I agree it's really exciting to see
Progress in AI is leading to lots of advances in materials science.
diversifications will allow for us to find the best and also situations where one battery may trump another depending on situation.
@@TwoBitDaVinci Yes, in the same way that one drop blood tests from the like of Theranos are “really” accelerating in many directions, Two Bit. Or is it Elizabeth?
Where there's money to be made, there'll be progress without a doubt.
Good coverage. Thanks.
Grid storage is what we really need, for which slightly lower energy density really doesn't matter.
It would be the difference in a few steel beams and roofing in a warehouse. Negligible costs really
@@jeffreymoffitt4070 Most of the grid scale battery storage is in (cabinets in) open air, and doesn't need a building around it.
Lower density could mean a few more cabinets, but no big deal in the larger picture.
I think ion-sodium will scale way faster than expected in stationary storage and catch up with Lithium sooner.
Food for thought, Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries were at 160 WH/KG when they started to get popular with EV makers (in China mostly). It was a complete shock to me when I read that CATL had Sodium Ion batteries at that density already. For most applications it is not highest energy density wins. It is lowest cost that meets the applications minimum requirements wins. For stationary energy storage the requirements that drive the decision are not energy density, but cost and cycle life... also temperature range. For cars it was fairly well proven that 160 WH/KG was high enough density if you don't need huge amounts of thermal management (again see LFP, and specifically the BYD blade battery). For aircraft, nothing meets the needs that is commercially available yet. You can make puddle jumpers work, but nothing longer than a few hundred miles. Solid state may be the first ones there, but my bet is on Lithium Sulfur, I think it will be out sooner. But who knows, the high energy market has a lot of potential contenders (none on the market yet):
1. Lithium Sulfur
2. Solid State (which could work with any chemistry)
3. Silicon and/or graphene in the anodes (also can be used with any chemistry)
Your guess is as good as mine there, but despite the fact that I invested in solid state companies I think it will be Lithium Sulfur, it is just closer to mass scale production. CATL has announced they are making those too.
Mike, I suspect, in anything bigger than "Little Airplanes, and 100-200 Miles Range per charge, some "Blending" of Batteries, Solar, Fueled Generator Onboard, and maybe even, some with Supercapacitors, will be used at the Beginning of this Transition!
It might depend on Forced Regulations, that pushes the change, or Businesses that push the Change. We all see the Difference of Tesla pushing, vs the CARB Push, back in 1998-2002!
@@robertweekley5926 Yeah, it is anyone's guess at this point. Wide open for advancements, but it will need much higher energy density then we have today. Keep in mind that lithium sulfur can be 5-6 times the energy density of current lithium ion batteries if they can work out the cycle life problems. It should be at lower cost per KWH too (once at scale). But if they don't get that working you are right there are other ways to augment electrical systems. At the scale a large plain (737 size) hydrogen may make sense, but I think they may do fuel cells instead of a generator if it is prop. For jets, not my area of expertise, probably best tech we have now is just cleaner jet fuel.
Those things are easier to overcome than the problem of prop planes not being able to operate at different speeds (something about the pitch of the blade, again not my area of expertise). Point is that there are a lot of puzzle pieces to solve before we are flying around in high speed electric aircraft.
@@robertweekley5926 A start with regulation would be to not allow Li_Ion for grid storage because that's part of the reason costs are going up. The amount of battery needed for a single installation is too much when Li-Ion is used everywhere.
@@johndoh5182 Better than prohibitions are cost targets.
Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries LiFe for years had the same strategic road map as you new fangled sodium ion. Raw Materials was way cheaper, but lower energy density meaning heavier and slightly bigger than your Lithium standard counterpart. So what happened? Standard lithium ion battery technology just steadily and consistently improved, thereby moving the goal post further and further away for LiFe. 5 years ago I bought a LiFe battery power pack for jump starting a dead battery car. Kept it in the car trunk for a year. When I finally needed it , it was a piece of junk - couldn't charge and it was slightly bulging. Basically LiFe doesn't work in real world practice. Same could be said for Sodium ion. right now cycle recharge life is generally 1/10 that of standard lithium and so this is the biggest problem to overcome. Unfortunately 2bitDV doesn't go into the technical problems to give a clue how easy it is to overcome this problem.
In the meantime vanadium flow btteries are in production now and are ideal for use for grid storage with a long life that does not degrade with cycling fully every day and would allow lithium batteries to be used for mobile storage with only a small amount being required for fast response grid stabilisation.
Another place for sodium ion batteries would be heavy equipment that carry huge amounts of counter balance weight by design, forklifts, excavators to quickly name 2.
160Wh/kg is 4 times Pb acid and so fine for home and grid storage. Hopefully with CATL involved they will be coming to market in a few years for storage at least.
That is a lot a juice. A Spicey a meatball. A pipe dream though for now.
And will be totally disruptive to Pb acid battery market.
Wow this seems like it might actually be the next big thing in conventional batteries!
I definitely wouldn't mind the slightly lower capacity for it being better in terms of price, environment and probably ethics.
Regarding "ethics".
It should be noted that (all) existing Li-ion cells, of which a high and growing proportion don't use Cobalt (!) are more "ethical" than fossil fuel, suppliers of which have been surreptitiously using Cobalt (no doubt from the very same sources) for decades, to desulphurise their product.
@@rogerstarkey5390 Oh absolutely, not to even mention the lacking ethics inside coal power plants!
It's nice when the most ethical thing is also the cheapest. We are finding the combination occurs more frequently as we do research with widely abundant materials in mind. Makes you wonder what we have been thinking.
Do you really think it's not possible to mine cobalt without using children? Everyone is obsessed with the kids, but they represent a small fraction of total production, if it's even still happening at all. Meanwhile, the newly-unemployed kids might be starving.
Very well presented yet again Ricky! But, as always, coming in second in the race is always a more difficult challenge. However, I would perhaps suggest there are more "levels" to be explored in the future battery market. One technology that just never seems to get "air-time" is as old as the hills, but almost never considered! The Nichol-Iron battery will never be useful for portable storage, but you mention grid storage often, and that is an area where this could very well eclipse other options, freeing up source materials for the portable use areas, if it could get the exposure and investment it deserves. And it does deserve this for a number of reasons, including the longevity and simple ability to rebuild them. It would be great to see you cover this option some time!
Coming in 2nd at what?
Batteries have a lot of characteristics and you can start with cost.
Energy density is important for some applications but not others. I don't need the best energy density for a home battery unit unless the home has very little space, so I can offer different solutions. You don't need either of these technologies for grid storage. Economics of scale should allow iron flow batteries to be much cheaper than typical batteries.
Not just grid storage - this would make a big difference in storage for off grid solar homes, for boat batteries, even for golf carts and some solar vehicles. I would love to have one for my canoe which is powered by a trolling motor. Any application that currently uses deep discharge lead acid batteries could benefit from this technology.
even if they're significantly bigger, if they can be used in a home to store solar and wind. I'd be nice if we can get the company making a vanadium redox flow battery to hurry up and make them available to the public. they're fridge sized batteries, but they have a ridiculous number of cycles and are great for home storage.
Except Vanadium isn’t common and can’t scale like sodium.
You can thank the government for delays in manufacturing of the vanadium redox flow batteries. They have so far refused to grant licenses to at least 2 companies spanning 2 plus years. Our government would rather have China make them for the world.
@@michaelwatts1810 Something tells me "would rather have China make them for the world" is not the real reason for the delay. A construction project at my local high school generated a small mountain of dirt. Because it was found to have an excessive vanadium content (still ppm levels), it had to be treated as toxic waste. So maybe vanadium toxicity is the problem? Just a thought.
As always, Ricky has great content and has a fantastic narration voice. I could listen to him read legal boiler plate documents and it would sound interesting.
haha thats my favorite comment of the Month Bruce! I appreciate you!
Takes to long to get to tne point: talk about the NEW battery!
I appreciate that you do a more complete analysis by giving the cons as well as the pros. People need to understand there is no free lunch which would lead to better policy decisions.
For stationary use, Na-Ion batteries are definitely superior, i think somewhere it was also mentioned that they are much more robust when it comes to temperature than Li-Ion ones.
So while not suited for EVs as of now, there IS definitely potential and value in their use.
I 100% agree, but I think that outdoor temperature isn't as much as an issue for stationary supplies as you might think. Small units for homes and businesses are going to probably have them indoors, and solar, wind, and local caches can keep them underground, below the frost line.
@@klepow That depends on WHERE it is used, and with the temperature resistance, it means it can be used in areas where Li-Ion would suffer.
Let´s say northern Eurasia and America close ot the polar circle.
Or literally everything equatorial.
@@sim.frischh9781 I doubt that it's going to be that much resistant to temperature. Although he didn't mention how much. I get the impression you would get maybe 70% of a warm battery. They would still have to be climate controlled, and burying them still would do the same thing.
@@klepow It´s not "that much" per se, however, Li-Ion is SO SENSITIVE to temperature that pretty much any other battery technology seems highly resistant in comparison.
Like Einstein said, "everything is relative".
While this is encouraging (I'm always glad to see promising new battery tech) it's a little disappointing to see it's only 30-50% cheaper. I know that's still significant, but I was expecting more considering it's literally a *hundred times* more abundant than lithium, it no longer uses materials that are in even shorter supply than that, AND lithium prices have been skyrocketing to absurd levels recently.
Maybe it's just a matter of scale, and it will be cheaper later, I don't know, but I want to see it go further.
The manufacturing itself makes up a big chunk of the costs, and that process more or less stays the same.
But unlike raw material costs the manufacturing itself won't suddenly rise hundreds of %.
In other words litium based batteries will get more expensive if the material costs rise further, widening the difference between both technologies.
Sounds, at the very least, suitable for home and grid-scale storage.
Great episode. It makes complete sense to have less high density storage in a home or other areas where weight and size aren't an issue.
Great information Ricky 👍, found you through Matt Ferrell's channel. He mentioned you and I think it's great you both are doing so much research into all these new technologies. Learning so much about all the different battery types and energy solutions coming our way. Keep up the great work 👌
I look forward to the companies that actually make those
Sure...give me a Sodium battery any day... trouble is...I need a battery for my home solar installation in the near future and so far there isn't even an announcement pf an actual product. On top of that, the battery needs to be compatible with your inverter, so not only do we need actual product announcements, we need them from specific brands and they need to be compatible with current inverters...
There are a few sorry I dont remember their names. I belive there is another youtuber that goes over them though...
Loved your video as always. It would have been nice to hear about charging times and what the loss in storage efficiency is over time.
Lithium is NOT limited resources. It is not the amount of material that is in bottleneck, but refining them enough to meet the current/upcoming demand. Any new battery type will go through same bottleneck : Greedy & inefficient supply chain.
I don't care about the Tesla or mobile phone storage anywhere as much as I care about the on-the-ground fixed storage element - the ability to capture and maintain a charge close to point of consumption is key to the whole process. The Power Wall and other products tend to use very expensive tech to function and stories I've heard paint a less than ideal experience there (especially for the costs involved). If we had a lower kw/kg (or kw/sqm) density then so be it for fixed space applications, especially if there is a lower cycling impost and a reduced or eliminated fire risk from those cells. Right now I just can't see grid infrastructure coping with huge surges in demand from lots of new electric vehicles mandated and in regular use, even with an increase in nuclear generation (such as the SMRs) can the grid really distribute and carry those loads to major population centres? Chunks of "cached" power with tech like this could help smooth that out.
I just hope people relent and realise that we need a hybrid of technologies with an acceptance that they will be superseded at some point in the future; then we can at least get somewhere.
Your information is invalid. The vast majority of stationary storage on the market is LiFePo4 chemistries which are a lot less flammable and a lot more stable. Simply because unlike NMC chemistries which have less than a 1500 cycle life, LFP can achieve more than 8000 cycles and still be able to function at 80% capacity. Even Tesla is moving to LFP now for storage because it does not matter how much it weighs.
Without having really looked at it the power wall seems like a waste. It's a huge amount of complexity, cost, and environmental impact. Simply having some solar panels to cover base load that work when they do and don't when they don't seems like low hanging fruit that could have a large impact with minimal effort/cost.
@@davefroman4700 moving to newer tech NOW but not before, my references were pointing to other RUclipsrs who have had ongoing issues such as CWEN88 and other so I don't see what is "wrong" about what I said.
@@davocc2405 I cannot even find a channel by that name so I have no idea what you are talking about.
@@davefroman4700 he may be known now as "tall Paul tech" and he is a network engineer from Brisbane in Australia. He was only one example I have seen of problems with the product, there appears to be a level of dissatisfaction out there that won't be readily highlighted or discussed by fanboiz or sales oriented types. Sure Tesla has been evolving the product as you mention but the core point of my original post was that expensive high density storage won't have the value in a fixed location installation (especially domestically) as it isn't being moved and space is less of a premium.
Volumetric/ specific density may well limit these cells to "larger" public transport vehicles.
However, it should be noted that there's no real need for a dual motor, 100+ mph, sub 5 second "taxi"(!).
.
Dialling back and gearing down can substantially increase efficiency.
0-60 in 12 seconds? 60 mph max? Adequate in 90% of city trips.
(Also bear in mind it's likely the "urban automated transport" of the future will be more of a "box" than a sports car, so won't be as aerodynamic.
Low speed will be it's friend)
Well this is also a great way to bring industry back here and breaks monopolies.
I really don't see why there should be such a big push for energy density over everything else. Energy density has no impact on grid storage or even home storage. What matters there is discharge capacity and responsiveness.
In the UK, we have lots of decommissioned fossil fuel power stations on fairly large sites, couple this with the already existing power grid connections, these make an ideal place for grid battery storage along side solar generation.
Did I miss it? How does Na ion battery compare in lifetime measurements.. charge cycles, shelf life..?
Another good one! Let's hope sodium comes to market soon. By the way, it would be great if you made a video explaining all the terms you refer to in each of your energy videos. What is energy density, for example?
Energy density is energy (kWh) / mass (kg) or sometimes kWh/volume, known as "volumetric energy density".
Sodium-Ion would be perfectly adequate for EVs in the UK - we are a small country with no point further than 113 Km from the coast and 95% of car journeys being 25 miles or less. The issues will be charging infrastructure and batteries for HGVs and vans that do long and/or many journeys. But you will still need Lithium Ion batteries for small scale products such as hearing aid and mobile phones.
Slow down. Pronounce important, new technically - relevant words clearly. Your information is on the forefront ; many come to you to learn and understand. Take your time.
( south Florida ).
Lead acid battery coupling with Sodium ion battery are a good choice for household energy buffering from multi-sources of energy supplies including DIY and off-grid.
Water Desalination Plants could process their brine to extract sodium/salt and sell it to battery companies. This would solve Water Desalination Plant's problem of how to dispose of brine and would create a source of sodium/salt for the battery industry.
As long as you're not suggesting Hydrogen as a "Byproduct" (😉)
Use the chlorine to make zinc-chlorine batteries. It's proven tech that was put in busses in the 60s.
Yet another battery that is "5 years away". I hope the Sodium Ion battery is successful.....but I am not going to get excited till we see them in quantity with competitive prices and properties.
Considering the demand of lithium and the investments from large companies, I think sodium batteries are more likely to be successful than others. Most technologies that have a hard time taking off are solutions for a problem that isn't yet worth fixing. I don't see sodium batteries ever finding their way into cars or high-end mobile electronics though.
glad you have gone back to good high quality programs rather than just adverts
Another interesting battery type is aluminum sulfer with a chloro-aluminate salt as the electrolyte.
What about ev farm tractors or heavy equipment like excavators that need addditional weight? Battery weight become much less a disadvantage and the longer life cycles a definite plus.
True. The counterweight hanging on the rear of an excavator weighs tons. Might as well be a battery bank. Without a large engine to drive the hydraulics there would be plenty of space available. NB: Volvo has introduced a small excavator and a wheel loader, both LION powered.
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I agree. We need every type of competitive storage tech for the worlds long term storage needs. One question I didn't hear addressed was about safety. Sodium in its pure form, like lithium, oxidizes rapidly. Is there any information on that subject?
Good point
@@carmenmariacortesmarin2664 And try putting out a sodium fire with water! Doesn’t go well! 🔥🔥🔥
Whatever happened to the sodium ion based solar generator announced by Bluetti at the end of 2021? Was that ever launched? Was it cancelled?
Using different batterie types and tech for various applications is exactly what I was thinking too! We need a varied approach in everything not getting stuck in one tech like we have with the ICE for decades and do it quickly and efficiently!
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts, ideas and videos. Always interesting and entertaining. A trend I’ve noticed is you like to point out all these abundant elements in your videos but I’ve never noticed you give a solution for all the other abundant elements that they are locked down with. Carbon is a great element that we have in abundance but once we link it to oxygen another abundant element and use the energy from the reaction that we start to have problems. Sodium chloride 🧂 we have in abundance but what are you going to do with all the chlorine it’s locked down with. I’m not a chemist but it seems that this could be the next way we could destroy our planet if we don’t give it any consideration. Maybe you could at least mention these possibilities in your videos in the future whenever you talk about using things we have in abundance. Thanks again for all the great videos you provide. Wishing you and your family the best.
I don't think "he" is the solutions person. He's merely reporting on new tech and things that are being worked on. I don't see how what your are asking him is his responsibility. After all.,,this is a RUclips channel. Perhaps you could start a channel or better yet, get a degree or two and come up with solutions to these problems.
Lizten, I'm not trying to bust your balls here. I'm very cynical when it comes to these so called green energy solutions. I don't see anything yet really that appears to be a solution. I just for one... get worn out by people, especially young people, who do little actually research yet parrot way I see as almost religious like dogma spewed by the media and govts, while taking advantage of all that fossil fuels have created while ignoring viable solutions we already have. Like...Nuclear. Also, none of them are doing a damn thing about it. They aren't getting STEM degrees and working hard, like some of these people and companies featured on this channel, are doing. If you want change...you gotta make it.
So yea... there's only so much the audience is interested in on these kind of channels. I post my doubts as well but...I'm not putting it on the host.
@@Sabotage_Labs 😂, loved your response. Right there with you on the need for the next generation to get stem degrees and we need to work with technology that we already paid for the development and are abandoning due to the political pressures of a few uneducated people. Really big fan of the Nuclear fission cycle and think it’s time for new reactors that are safer with a more complete fuel cycle such as liquid thorium. As far as getting a degree, been there a few decades back, now retired from power system operations. Have supervised operations of Hydro, Pumped Storage, Nuclear, both BWR, PWR, gas/oil fired steam, combined cycle gas, and utility sized wind. The most reliable and the biggest pain is the older generation Nuclear. It’s time to build some newer reactors that can burn up the untapped energy in the fuel from the early reactors and close the Nuclear fuel cycle. The strict regulations needed to safely operate the current generation of reactors are smothering any savings they provide. It’s time for newer safer reactors that will not only provide abundant clean energy, but make the economy of those that embrace them flourish.
@@tbix1963 Absolutely! We're wasting trillions on options that just won't work. Ignorance is the biggest problem. Especially our politicians and ruling elite class but, the media has done so much damage to Nuclear! If it bleeds it leads.
3 mile island incident... ZERO deaths
Fukushima... 1 death which is disputed.
Chernobyl.. deaths were caused my the communist system as much as the nuclear accident. Designed poorly and on the cheap! The tech we have now and that's being developed is far superior. I look forward to the day when small reactors and in every few square miles in urban areas basically running on autopilot with a Homer Simpson working there just to make ignorant people feel "safe" lol.
It never surprises me when someone like yourself that knows what they are talking about, has applied knowledge, can see the facts and understand the science. It's the other ones....I see them as corrupted automatons sucking up the the elites. We need better education...not politics!
Cheers!
I think the great failure in the system is that we are looking for a single solution, and there are going to be a dozen solutions. Na-Ion would be good where weight and size are not huge factors, for example a power wall or grid storage. However Hydrogen may work better for transportation, where charging time is a big factor. This leaves Li-Ion where battery weight and size are critical factors. At least for now.
I’m sceptical about hydrogen after I have read more about it. Low energy density, creation, storage, distribution, safety, inefficient in thermal engines, NOx, and so on.. Should only used in chemical processes, where there is no substitutes.
@@Harrythehun Actually.... H2 has one of the highest energy densities going, by weight OR by volume (liquid form, obvs). But, as you say, from a practical perspective, it's a nightmare. It leaks out of almost anything, and to get it to be a liquid it needs cooling to within a few degrees of absolute zero AND compressing. And even then, your woes are only just beginning- Hydrogen can be absorbed by various metals, notably steels, which become brittle (search for Hydrogen Embrittlement), so your fuel system will need to be made of all kinds of exotic if it's to last a lifetime. Then there's all the hassle of transporting it (you can't just use the existing gas pipelines).
There's also the whole Hindenburg perception - how many times have you heard people talking about "not wanting to carry a bomb around in the back of my car"; and yet, ironically, H2 is FAR safer than gasoline in that respect; if your tank does rupture, the H2 will rise away from the scene of the accident in seconds, and even if there IS a fire, it will be very short lived... unlike petrol, which hangs around on the ground releasing vapours for ages, looking for that elusive spark... and thin walled petrol tanks will be much easier to rupture than thick H2 tanks, which are trying to keep back the pressure of all that liquid H2 which is just desperate to turn back into a gas...
@@theelectricmonk3909 Ok I have knowledge about hydrogen. I have worked as inspection manager for inspections of refineries, power plants and QA engineer for ESPE project of pulp and paper and chemical plants. Look up how many cubic meters you need to replace same energy amounts compared to natural gas and other energy fluids. You will be surprised about dimensions for pipelines and how many additional truckloads you need for hydrogen.
@@theelectricmonk3909 H2 has a really high energy density, but you have to compress it at great expense, and you have to contain it, typically with a heavy, expensive device.
@@Harrythehun it's a good call... By weight, H2 is awesome... By volume, not so much.
The logical place for Sodium ion batteries is house batteries (like TESLA's power wall) where having LARGE batteries is not a problem, so long as they are a LOT cheaper than large house lithium batteries. House batteries can save a HUGE amount of money if you use them to either store excess solar electricity (from having a solar roof) to use at night or charge the house battery at off peak cheaper electricity rate times, then use its charge instead when mains electricity becomes a lot more expensive! House batteries just make sense, but most people just don't know they exist, or can't afford the cost of expensive large lithium batteries.
We are already doing that: LFE Batteries in the Model3 and Model Y are a small performance hit (0.4sec slower 0-60) with the tradeoff being Longevity and capability to charge 100% battery all the time.
I love seeing battery tech advance, but I do want to point out one issue. Videos like this often start by assuming that battery demand will grow infinitely, but that doesn’t have to be the case.
If we push to build more walkable and bikeable cities while also making public transit more robust then battery demand won’t need to grow anywhere near as much! So we should pursue those actions at the same time that we work on better battery tech.
I’m still excited for tech like this though. Making batteries less expensive and more abundant will make the conversion to sole power so much easier for many families!
people require a lot of energy and anything reliable & cost-effective is going to fill that growing need. plentiful and clean are the keys.
Walkable and Bikeable cities depend on a year round temperate climate, plus the willingness to install and suitability of infrastructure.
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In an ideal world, yes..
Great ideas and I’m all for more walking and biking. But energy use will still soar, as we have more electric heating and cooling to do, more industries like smelters turning electric…
@@TwoBitDaVinci I agree 100%. It would be nice to see that nuance stated in a video intro sometime. Help set you apart from the other channels who don’t seem to understand it.
Making cities walkable and bikeable won't keep the lights on at night. He stated in the video that the highest demand won't be cars ect. but grid storage. I agree that cites should ban ice vehicles downtown but what about commuters who have to travel longer distances to get to and from work. EV's and electric trains should help to do that. Same with long haul trucks converting to Hydrogen/battery type systems. Germany is experimenting with trucks that can draw most of their electricity from overhead power lines, so they only need enough battery to get the final few miles to their destination. Geothermal technology is advancing faster now too and that might reduce the need for batteries by a large amount since it is available 24/7 rain or shine.
For solar installations this can be a very big thing. Stationary storage is not much bothered by size and weight.
As the owner of a Solar energy startup this is great news.
I am from Argentina, LFP storage has almost double in price after the pandemic and is not going down. A new competitor in town is very welcomed.
We should see these in homes in the next few years. $11K for one Tesla battery is nuts. If we could have somewhat larger, but much longer lasting similar storage capability for 1/5 the price.. that would be HUGE. A lot more people would buy them.. heck maybe home builders would start building homes with them built in.
Agreed. I’m in CA where Nem 3.0 killed the ROI on solar because they want to drive people to have batteries, but batteries are so expensive. Would love to have a solar system with a more affordable battery
What about Sodium Sulfur Batteries? I saw recently that a university team, developed a Lithium Sulfur variant that had major promise, and they are now looking into using sodium.
Our EV is rarely driven more than 100 miles per day. Several recent 12 hour trips demonstrated that 200miles between charges was perfect. Good time stretch, take a bio break, and a fast charge. Recharging over night is the norm, so 300 - 500 mile range is generally an emotional need, not a requirement. If a sodium battery can provide 200-250 and a 20% cheaper battery, I’m in. That said I expect to see this tech in stationary applications for the near term.
You're right. But making EVs 20% cheaper could make a BIG difference in terms of adoption in developing countries. I think companies like Tesla should consider cheaper versions of their vehicles for those markets, and replacing Li-ion with Na-ion could be the best way to make that easy.
@@Israel_Two_Bit I’d be happy with a simple, less expensive EV. without all the fancy luxury toys.
I don’t need a car that drives itself and does my taxes at the same time!
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There have been some really exciting developments coming out of the University of Texas regarding Potassium-ion batteries. John Goodenough’s lab was working on them when he passed away. (Goodenough won the Nobel prize for his development of LIBs). Another great idea to consider!
Hi
In the not to distant past we were using lithium cells for some applications and most people weren't aware of them if you said battery to people 25 years ago it meant lead acid or an alkaline cell both of which are still relivent today, isn't it time that equipment manufacturers took some responsibility and select the most appropriate battery technology for the job it is to do as it seems to me that everyone wants to use lithium for everything. When looking at power storage on a large scale why use lithium when iron flow will work or even lead acid both fully recyclable and no real danger or needing any special battery management systems they just take up more space, to many people work about cars and there batteries, I belive the Nissan leaf still uses nickle cells. It might be time to change our transport habits and use public transport more
Keep up the good work
Sounds like a good solution for grid scale energy storage.
5:30 ah! $$$x amount for mining lithium. Well they would still be mining it if we stopped using lithium, why? Because as your image shows, it's a copper mine. Lithium is often found with copper and they have been mining it for centuries. It's just now the mining companies are getting a 2 for 1 mining bonanza.
I don’t know of any copper mine that is mining lithium. Most copper mines like the one show is a copper porphyry system and lithium isn’t part of the mining system. The granites could possibly contain higher levels of lithium but it’s very minor compared to the Cu. The average composition in such deposits is around 30 ppm and even then is most likely tied up in the micas.
Absolutely one of my favorite channels. I love your measured delivery and super interesting content.
GMGMF also working on an Aluminum Graphene battery that looks promising. It looks to have a high density, charges much faster and has a long life.
Hi thanks for the information you have provided. I’m no expert but I do understand the electron transfer process and the chemical interactions. I noted that when you talk about separator you don’t go into any details. This is the area of focus not the anode cathode materials …
This is where the mystery starts. What’s required is a polymer that allows a chemical transfer of matter without dendritic action. When dendrites grow through the permeable membrane the use life is over.. The other factors of weight to efficiency is another concern. Plus environmental issues of pollutants in waste . For this reason alone I believe a bin should be provided at the cross roads of every suburban street like in France for bottles..
So let’s look at the permeable membrane. Any of the reactive metals such as phosphorus magnesium or sodium can be used as an anode lithium is another highly reactive material in the same manor. The membrane needs to be inert and permeable. Carbon graphene a six sided strong bonding layered inert material is perfect if controlled to perfection in its production. If it could move with the fluctuations of charge and discharge without cracking the mystery would be solved. This is where manganese and nickel step in.. malleability is essential to the membrane .
So inert metallic polymers could be the answer IMO
Longer life and bit Lower range at a cheaper price sounds excellent for the majority of our driving, as long as it still charges at a reasonable rate.
..or gets quickly swapped for a charged one as in NIO cars. If NIO wanted a cheap car, they could use sodium battery - or offer a choice Li vs Na at the swapping station.
Sodium Ion batteries could be a game changer for off grid locations where people are dependent of solar panels and etc. in a farm, where space is not really an issue, having a huge battery pack that is cheap and could last for thousands of cycles without losing much energy density it could be a game changer.
Now this here is some real deal proper information. I really appreciate it.
A win win. Yes, Lower range for longer life (I am using it for local use only) I'll save my 2007 Gasser - for ranged travel.
Ngl, when I saw the clickbait title I assumed it was like a thermal battery made of sand or something lol. Super glad to see it's something really awesome. Really gonna make whole home batteries cheaper and UPS batteries more awesome!
CATL is releasing their 2nd generation of sodium batteries and they claim 260kwh. If this is true then they surpass present Li ion batteries. The first gen was a 160kwh and have been in use for a year. Sodium is also not affected by temperatuers( no thermal runaway). They also can discharge completely and recharge completely without harm. Yes they are slightly heavier, but they have a few things in their favor.
Amen to this new battery and it is safer than all others hands down.
Always great videos 2BDV
Has anyone else thought that sodium batteries make water desalination much more attractive?
You don't even need the sodium based batteries to work like litium, you just need it to be cheaper. Even if it means it lasts half as long with half the charge requiring at least double the batteries, as long as the gross cost is less than lithium, that's all you need. At least for larger scale batteries like house batteries or general grid storage
I would love to have a sodium ion battery as a backup energy source for my house combined with solar. If 30% of houses in metro areas had solar and battery backups the grid would be much more robust and a lot of the burden on the grid would be lifted
Wind turbine blades? Fossil fuels. Plastic. Solar cells? More electricity in the summer than in the winter. Depending on latitude. I look forward to 3 to 6 months of efficient electrical storage with huge capacity. Batteries everywhere.
Sounds ideal for municipal and residential use
If you make the homestorage batteries kind of flatt and putt hooks on them you can put them on a wall, store energy in them, and stuff on them 😃
I'm glad I found this channel.
I think that sodium ion batteries maybe better suited for home and business storage or wherever you need portable static power, liquid air batteries I think are a better option for grid level storage manufactured from readily available off the shelf components that are already used in other industries they don't use rare earth materials making them affordable and scalable there's already some test plants operational.
I'm all for cheaper as long as they work and last longer.
Thank you for the video
For stationary storage for wind and solar, this battery is perfect. When it just sit on land, it doesn’t matter how big and heavy it is. This is a game changer it they can produce it much cheaper than current lithium cells. Imagine being able to store renewable energy very cheap. Then we have solved most of our energy problems. Electricity needs to be so cheap it is virtually free to use, that will greatly increase a nations ability to compete on the world market.
Home batteries are way too expensive right now. I would love to have 10-20kwh home batteries, but the price of just the battery can’t cost the same as the install of the solar system. The sodium batteries seem like a good fit.
I'd love a home battery, but I'm not willing to pay today's prices. It's annoying that I have a large battery in my car that I can't use for home power.
Seems like a reasonable strategy to have a mix of battery types for different applications.
THANK YOU - I agree we need to stop wasting Li-ion for grid storage and save it for high energy density applications (small devices, cars, planes, VTOLs). For grid storage, who cares if a battery is heavier or bigger. Let’s build grid storage with abundant materials and technologies that make sense for the area of application.
Very well done presentation! So much so, I subscribed! This is my first video and look forward to the others.
sounds good for grid energy storage products
great stuff.
some of the jumping around you did with dates got confusing. don't know how to fix it, just something I wanted to mention.
thank you
The most important features of a battery for static applications is price and longevity with volume or weight of far less importance. And if we find such a technology, it reduces the pressure on Li, leaving more available for mobile applications. Think, for instance, how many Teslas you could power with the Li in the Hornsdale mega battery. A Tesla, has, say a 60kWh battery while Hornsdale, I believe, is up to 180mWh. Dividing one by the other you could power 3000 Teslas with that amount of Li. An alternative static battery technology could well bring the price of Li for mobile applications down by simple supply and demand.
You could offset the cost for desalination plants for clean drinking water and sell the sodium
the sodium vs lithium battery issue is very similar to diesel vs gasoline for ICE vehicles. Gas for passenger cars, diesel for towing/ trucking, shipping.
Great explanation. Sodium ion compares well with ni-cd and way out performs lead acid. It sounds like a win in so many low performance applications. As a power wheelchair user I see the benefits over lead for sure. It's a mindset that needs to be changed, lead and nickel worked for decades and work today along side lithium. We need to fix all the problems but one battery type may not be the answer.
Beginning - look how cheap this new battery will be, ending - it's not even close to the batteries we have.
I wonder why Na (=Natrium) is called sodium and why K (= Kalium) is called potassium in most languages. Any explanation?
Kalium is used for Potassium because Potassium was originally made from potash aka "pot ash" that was extracted from wood that was burned to ash in a pot. Potash was an "alkali" (opposite of an acid). In other words, potassium was originally associated with "alkali" from which it became "kali" and eventually "kalium".
And Sodium aka soda+ium was originally found in natron aka "nitre" chemical compounds (potassium nitrate, sodium nitrate/nitrite etc), which is why its original name is Natrium.
@@arunramachandran5012 Thanks a lot!
The elephant in the room is round trip efficiency, this can be found for lithium variants. Although I have not recently looked for data sheets on sodium batteries, a few years ago I considered them for home storage but the cycle efficiency was not clear.
battery producers still have to invest to build the manufacturing facility that can produce sodium batteries. although sodium can decrease some of the costs, you still have to build the battery factories, which cost a lot. right now i'm not sure the investments and the market are there for sodium batteries.
Keep blowing smoke. I love it.
Hey Ricky if you use the vortex microhydro by Turbulence. a 3 ft x 3 ft cube of water multiplied over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles along a river or stream bank dumping the same 3 ft of water thru a Vortex generator will solve energy problems for 100% of the folks that live near a river.
Simple. A 6' drop between generators will produce enough electricity for 40ish homes. No fish ladders, no damage to environment, no downside. The water ends up more oxygenated and cleaner at the bottom end. Zero water is "used up".
Zero fish kill. Zeros across the board...except you get free POWER.
DO THE MATH! I'm not wrong.
We will never see "dozens" of battery chemistries on the market, nor do we need that. A relative handful of the best chemistries will meet our needs. Sodium ion looks like a winner for grid storage and low-end EVs, at least until something better comes along. Really looks like CATL is killing it these days.
I believe there is a sodium ion battery company in Santa Clara called Natron. I think they are focused on serving the tech industry.
Do you know about zinc-ion batteries being developed by Salient Energy? It sounds like this technology may be close to commercialization. They have a deal with a home developer.
Been so excited about this.
Lower density doesn't matter if you are doing a battery bank for buildings. Move some boxes and add a few more batteries to your stack.
does a Na battery love 100% to 0% state of charge? In other words, does the battery degrade faster in different states of charge? If so, lower mileage is not an issue, unless the difference is very significant. Charging time would be the next big issue.