India’s Big Bet on Sodium Ion Batteries

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In January 2022, Reliance New Energy Solar Limited – a subsidiary of India’s biggest private enterprise – purchased a company called Faradion Limited for about 100 million British pounds.

Faradion is a technology pioneer in the sodium ion battery space. These batteries have had a higher profile recently due to sustainability concerns around lithium ion batteries.

I’ve previously done a video [below] about sodium ion batteries. In this follow-up video, let’s take a look at this purchase and what it says about this tantalizing technology.

Key facts:
Price lithium vs sodium per tonne: $5000 vs $150.
Energy density: lithium vs sodium per kg: 270 Wh vs 160 Wh.

Smaller energy density doesn’t need to be as problem for grid storage: simply dig a hole and place them underground.

[pubs.acs.org] – How Comparable Are Sodium-Ion Batteries to Lithium-Ion
[cen.acs.org] – Reliance buys sodium-ion battery start-up Faradion
[spectrum.ieee.org] – Sodium-Ion Batteries Poised to Pick Off Large-Scale Lithium-Ion Applications
[wikipedia.org] – Sodium-ion battery

The sodium-ion battery (NIB) is a type of rechargeable battery analogous to the lithium-ion battery, but using sodium ions (Na+) as the charge carriers. Its working principle and cell construction are almost identical with those of the commercially widespread lithium-ion battery types, but sodium compounds are used instead of lithium compounds.

Sodium-ion batteries have received much academic and commercial interest in the 2010s and 2020s as a possible complementary technology to lithium-ion batteries, largely due to the uneven geographic distribution, high environmental impact and high cost of many of the elements required for lithium-ion batteries. Chief among these are lithium, cobalt, copper and nickel, which are not strictly required for many types of sodium-ion batteries. The largest advantage of sodium-ion batteries is the high natural abundance of sodium. This would make commercial production of sodium-ion batteries less costly than lithium-ion batteries.

As of 2020, sodium ion batteries have very little share of the battery market. The technology is unmentioned in a United States Energy Information Administration report on battery storage technologies. No electric vehicles use sodium ion batteries. Challenges to adoption include low energy density and a limited number of charge-discharge cycles.

Ohmium Promises $1/kg ‘Indian’ Hydrogen by 2025

[source]

US-based electrolyser maker Ohmium will be able to produce green hydrogen in India at a levelised cost of $1 by 2025, its chairman Ahmad Chatila told Indian business newspaper The Economic Times. “We have a roadmap to continuously improve the performance of our systems and reduce the levelised cost of hydrogen to $1 per kg by 2025,” he said. “This will be our cost in India utilising the government’s proposed policies like dollar-denominated renewable and hydrogen contracts, concessional transmission of renewable for green hydrogen generation, banking of renewable power, etc.”

1 kg hydrogen = 33 kWh.
This would mean 3 $-cent per kWh.
Consultancy Wood Mackenzie had recently claimed that hydrogen would arrive at $1/kg in 2030.

If this materializes, any energy problems the planet might have would be solved once and for all. It also would provide good economic opportunities for poor but sun lite countries to finally escape poverty. Oil and gas companies would melt and evaporate like snow in the Sahara, and their fate would be sealed by 2030.

[rechargenews.com] – ‘We will reduce the cost of green hydrogen to $1/kg by 2025’, says electrolyser maker chairman
[ohmium.com] – Company site
[deepresource] – WoodMac – $1/kg Green Hydrogen by 2030

Corona is not All Bad News

The Himalayas are visible 125 miles away in India for the first time in 30 years after coronavirus saw pollution levels drop across the country. The snowy mountain range can be seen clearly among billowing clouds as the India’s pollution levels drop.

Do we really want to go back to BAU for 100% after corona or should we use the corona-shock to push through measures that were in the pipeline for decades anyway? How about limiting flying, limiting global trade and stimulate local production, increase speed renewable energy transition, forbid gasoline cars by 2025, etc., etc.

[thesun.co.uk] – CRYSTAL CLEAR Himalayas are visible 125 miles away in India for 1st time in 30 years after coronavirus lockdown saw pollution plummet

Power Mix India

[cleantechnica.com] – Share of Fossil Fuel In Indian Power Mix Drops For 14th Consecutive Quarter

Molten Salt Storage

Wire Up Geothermal Heat With Graphene

Two Russian scientists discovered that graphene can have exceptionally large thermal conductivity, up to 5300 W/(m.K), something like 12,000 times better than copper and got rewarded with the Nobel Prize in 2010. Watch the video below showing how you can cut though ice with a graphene blade, using heat from your fingers. The Manoj Bhargava Indian billionaire thinks that graphene (carbon) cables could revolutionize how we extract heat from geothermal wells and distribute heat and invests in the technology. The idea is to abandon the concept of geothermal heat transfer through fluid motion, and instead use thermal conductivity of graphene to bring heat to the surface of the earth via wires, without moving material, pumps and pipes.

[wikipedia.org] – Manoj Bhargava
[phys.org] – Physicists show unlimited heat conduction in graphene
[wikipedia.org] – Graphene
[thinkgeoenergy.com] – Could a new approach to thermal conductivity revolutionise geothermal?
[futurism.com] – Thanks to Graphene, We May Harness The “Limitless Energy” Beneath Earth’s Surface
[graphene-info.com] – Graphene thermal conductivity

Kamuthi Solar Power Plant Construction Documentary

Location: Kamuthi
Power: 648 MW (2nd largest in the world)
Commission date: 13 June 2016
Panels: 2.5 million
Annual generation: 1.3 TWh
Project: 8,500 workers completed the project in 8 months
Contractor: Adani Power
Grid connectivity: ABB Group

[wikipedia.org] – Kamuthi Solar Power Project
[Google Maps] – Kamuthi Solar Power Project

Texas Solar Tower Go Ahead?

What we love about the project are the video and music, but that’s about it.

Last year we reported about an Australian company promoting the design of a solar downdraft wind tower and expressed our skepticism regarding the energy efficiency of the project:

[deepresource] – Solar Downdraft Wind Tower Planned in Arizona

To our amazement, Environmission reported that Texas agreed to invest 1 million $ in the undertaking.

[enviromission.com.au] – Texas Solar Tower Development Agreement US$ Banked

Furthermore, India seems to be interested as well:

[cleantechnica.com] – EnviroMission Reports Progress On The First Solar Chimney In India

[wiki2.org] – Solar updraft tower

India Ready to Pay Iranian Oil in Euro

New Delhi, March 23: India is likely to grant Iran’s request to be paid fully in euros for oil, against the current practice of partial payment in rupees… Reports quoting Mohsen Qamsari, director for international affairs of the National Iranian Oil Company, said, “Indians are interested in increasing oil imports from Iran and we welcome this matter in the event that it would be possible for us to receive payments in euros in our accounts.”

[telegraphindia.com]

Wind-Coal Break-even in India

[source]
The cost of wind power has dropped below the price of coal-fired energy in parts of India (like Karnataka, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh) for the first time as improved turbine technology and rising fossil-fuel prices boost its competitiveness, Greenko Group Plc said. The current cost to build wind farms in India is about $1.25 million a megawatt.

[renewableenergyworld.com]