World Map Adjusted for Carbon Emissions

Sodium-Ion Could Replace Lithium-Ion

Sodium-Ion batteries may have slightly less energy density than Lithium-Ion (roughly 125 vs 150 Wh/kg), but that is outweighed by many advantages:

– no Sodium scarcity
– much cheaper ($40/kWh)
– safer
– no need for cobalt, copper, graphite

China is spearheading this technology, the BYD-Seagull e-vehicle has Sodium-Ion battery as an option. China will probably own 95% of the market.

[wikipedia.org] – Sodium-ion battery
[cnbc.com] – Here’s why sodium-ion batteries are shaping up to be a big technology breakthrough
[wiki.aalto.fi] – Na-ion batteries

Belgium Will Have the First North Sea Energy Island

Elestor Flow Batteries Update

[elestor.nl]
[elestor.nl] – Equinor Ventures-led consortium invests €30 million in electricity storage company Elestor
[elestor.nl] – Elestor gaat dit jaar een fabriek bouwen voor grote batterijen

Are Flow Batteries About to Take Over?

YouTube text:

Energy storage is a huge topic these days as electricity grids are seeing larger and larger proportions coming from variable renewable sources like wind and solar and storage is used to fill the gaps between variable supply and demand. Traditionally, nearly all storage in the electricity grid came through hydroelectric dams, but in recent years the new storage capacity that’s been added has been overwhelmingly lithium-ion batteries. This has occurred in tandem with EVs and their lithium ion batteries also experiencing exponential growth. But if this exponential trend is going to continue, there will be supply chain problems to overcome as there aren’t yet enough mines for several key minerals, like lithium, to fill all the projected demand over coming decades. This is one of the number one objections that I hear from climate pessimists: we don’t have enough critical minerals to make enough lithium ion batteries to support a 100% renewable electricity grid. Now, those arguments are misleading for several reasons, but the main one is that lithium ion batteries aren’t the only electricity storage technology available.
Lithium ion batteries are incredibly appealing for EV applications because they can pack a lot of energy into a small and light package. But for stationary storage, the size and weight don’t really matter. What does matter is cost, especially for longer storage durations of ten hours and more. That’s something that li-ion batteries don’t do particularly well. To double the storage duration of a lithium ion battery you pretty much need to double the cost.
That is not the case for flow batteries, which is the topic of today’s video.
Flow batteries are a type of rechargeable battery that use two chemical components dissolved in liquid electrolyte. The electrolyte is stored in external tanks and pumped through a reaction chamber to produce electricity. The key thing about flow batteries is that is cheap to increase the storage duration, much cheaper than for lithium ion batteries – I’ll explain why later on.

Last year while I was in Brisbane I had a chance to tour a hybrid flow battery manufacturer, Redflow.
In this video we’re going to look at how their batteries work, how they’re tested and how their design has evolved over the years.
I was keen to visit Redflow because while the hype around flow batteries is a pretty recent thing, these guys are no spring chickens. They kicked off pilot studies back in 2010 and by now there are Redflow batteries in over 250 sites. Originally they were just selling single 10kWh batteries for residential and remote sites, for example for communications. And these days they are looking at large modular systems in the tens to hundreds of MWh.

Bookmarks
00:00 Intro
00:50 Redflow
01:12 How does a hybrid flow battery work?
02:10 Anatomy of a Redflow Battery
03:49 Pure vs Hybrid Flow Batteries
04:48 Redflow’s Technology Development
06:26 Recyclability of Redflow’s Batteries
07:15 Applications and Scale Up Plans
09:19 Latest updates from Redflow
09:47 Outro

Renewable Energy Pushes Olkiluoto 3 out of Business

The brand new 1.6 GW Olkiluoto 3 Nuclear Power Plant, that went online only weeks ago, has to be regularly switched off or limit its output due to to the availability of ultra-cheap renewable electrcity, outcompeting the much more expensive nuclear power.

[yle.fi] – Finnish nuclear plant throttles production as electricity price plunges
[wikipedia.org] – Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant

China Installs 18MW Wind Turbine

0.711 kWh/kg Battery Breakthrough

Cleantechnica:

Lithium-ion batteries today struggle to reach an energy density of 300 Wh per kilogram. That’s too low for the long range electric vehicles many drivers crave, or for applications that require high power with low weight, such as aircraft. In a recent issue of Chinese Physics Letters, researchers Quan Li, Yang Yang, Xiqian Yu, and Hong Li of the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, write that they have manufactured practical pouch type rechargeable lithium batteries by using an ultra-thick high discharge capacity cathode with an areal capacity exceeding 10 mAh/cm2 and a lithium metal anode.

[iopscience.iop.org] – A 700 W⋅h⋅kg−1 Rechargeable Pouch Type Lithium Battery
[cleantechnica.com] – Chinese Researchers Announce 711 Wh/Kg Lithium Battery

Elon Musk Revealed Breakthrough Silicon Battery

YouTube text:

In recent years, the demand for higher battery consumption has not yet been met, which is unlimited for a better battery nowadays. There have been breakthroughs that could be the next step in battery technology. Elon Musk also revealed that it would be improved with 500 Wh/kg. Besides that, it enables extreme fast charging capabilities in just 6 minutes and a range of 600 miles or more!

Let’s discuss this new battery technology through today’s episode. But before we begin, please show us some love by subscribing to the channel and ringing the bell so you’ll never miss out on future updates of the EV and Green Technology industries.

Finally Happened! Elon Musk Revealed Breakthrough Silicon Battery, Entire Industry Change!

80% charging time: minutes
Price tag: less than $100/kWh by 2025.
Car batteries will become ca. $2550 cheaper per 75 kWh battery.

[wikipedia.org] – Lithium–silicon battery
[spectrum.ieee.org] – The Age of Silicon Is Here…for Batteries The mainstay material of electronics is now yielding better energy storage
[cnbc.com] – Why Porsche, Mercedes and GM are betting on silicon-anode batteries