I just hope that other technologies that are better for longer duration storage don't get overlooked for investment and development on industrial scales.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/say-hello-to-th...
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/09/jeff-dahn-claims-new-po...
I think stationary storage batteries are great, but only for short duration storage (1 day) rather than long duration storage (months).
I am somewhat skeptical that it can work, but flow batteries are still in their industrial infancy, and with the right sort of cheap stuff to add to water this could potentially scale very well for some sources.
I also strongly agree that we will likely build renewable sources to match their output to the seasonal minimum needs, rather than have many TWh of storage, it I have been so wrong in the past that I no longer want to cut off potentially promising avenues.
I see our future as being one of electrical energy abundance at nearly all times, and only a few times a year will there be a crunch to limit consumption; however as we get used to that abundance, conservation could get more difficult, and also people will get far more clever with time arbitrage of energy demand. And once there's a huge market for arbitrage, people will get more clever to serve that economic need, in ways that we have not yet anticipated.
The same argument could be applied to solar panels (25 year warranty) or fibre optic cables. But as so many solar panels are required they will be producing them for decades before the market is saturated. Of course after decades the old ones have indeed started dying, so it isn't an issue.
Sure, I can do the math on that.
Gasoline has about 45 MJ/kg[1]. 1 kg of lithium contains 868x10^23 atoms, or 13.9 megacoulombs if each atom donates a single electron. Since a joule is one volt-coulomb, every electron must average out (nominal) to 3.24 volts. Todays li-ion batteries have a nominal voltage of ~3.65 V, and the nominal voltage of li-air batteries are 2.91 V.
The actual voltage of li-air is ~90% lower than the required voltage to reach raw parity with gasoline, which makes sense given that the theoretical limit of li-air batteries is 40.1 MJ/kg (.9 * 45 = 40.5).
Reaching the same power density as gasoline in vehicle engines (=<9 MJ/kg) isn't too bad (very close to 10x best current consumer batteries, closer to weirder chemistries), but parity with the real power of gasoline is a very hard ask. Donating more than one electron per lithium would require some serious re-evaluation of what we know about chemistry. If you only have one electron per atom, you have almost no weight left over for other materials to use to develop a voltage difference with. A battery that exceeds gasoline's full heat energy would need some very exotic materials- either lighter atoms[2], different ways of storing electrons[3], or ways to store energy besides electrons[4].
[1] divide by 5 for a realistic engine efficiency. At that rate, a gallon of gas provides 9.4 kWh- enough to get a Tesla model S over 35 miles.
[2] there are none, besides hydrogen, which itself isn't really helpful. It's not very good for electrochemistry.
[3] preferably, in a different state than me. Electrons hate each other. A 3 Ah battery has 11,000 hateful coulombs in it, each electron within a less than a nanometer of the others around it. That's a 10^9 on top and a 10^-9 on the bottom. Not positive on the math on that but I'm reasonably sure it's in the thousands of megatons. It is rapidly trying to change chemical and then geographical state.
[4] preferably on another planet from me. If you're storing energy with a different force than the electromagnetic force, you're pretty much guaranteed to be doing some real fuckery to subatomic particles, and they are not going to be happy.
So, GP's comment of "develop the tech that seems impossible as the biggininng" (typo included) is the important part. It might be that in the future, because the motors and other moving parts become increasigly efficient (& are already much better than a combustion engine) then less energy is required for the same resulting work. Even more so, the ingenious ways that energy can be 'reharvested' to flow back into the system could in fact allow us to develop something that seems impossible...simply because we're harvesting energy and pouring it into our Lion dependant system better than Gas ever can.
The resulting work is more important than the efficiency. Teslas have exceptionally low air drag, which is great for driving range.
However when you go from 80 to 90% system efficiency, you only increase range by 12%. Once youre at 99%, you really cant improve any more. 99% to 99.5% means the motor outputs half as much heat but goes hardly any farther.
Maybe because the cost of devices have skyrocketed and the battery dont last any longer... And in addition to that, you can no longer replace batteries.
Batteries aren't a feature to most people.
Also there's lots to be said about the scope of what most 'phones' do these days. The batteries are powering serious computers rather than just phones.
I don't think you're wrong, I just am not entirely clear on what claim you're making. I'll venture based on context that the cost you're talking about is either electrical charge or time, but it's very unclear what benefit you're talking about.
I think "free truck" operated to design specifications constitutes cost effective.
There is a prototype cybertruck, and Tesla is about to announce the location for the factory to build them. It will be either Tulsa, OK or just outside of Austin, TX.
One could equally argue that the fact we don't have a million mile battery already suggests that there may be intractible problems to solve.
Dahn's research is so well respected because he was incredibly good and thorough in measuring tiny amounts of heat and voltage changes in batteries so that you could trace their degradation over a much smaller number of cycles, then try them out at longer scales. Tesla has been funding much of his lab. There are very few people who can do this kind of research outside his lab, and IMO he's a wizard who will end up with a Nobel if he makes a few more big contributions.
The bottom line is that the only way to really tell if a battery will last a year or a decade is to watch it for a year or a decade. No amount of technology lets you forecast the future with perfect accuracy, and battery longevity testing takes time. That's the only reason we don't have a million mile battery.
A 1 million mile battery is kinda like fusion. Once it happens there is no going back so I don't think that failing to solve this problem is a blow to EVs.
I don't know whether to believe this, but he has the motive, opportunity, and is definitely present at the crime scene.
That would be a good argument if batteries had been stuck for decades at a much lower limit. But the fact is their lifetime has been steadily increasing, and will reach a million miles within a few years at most.
The iphone 11 has a 3110 mAh battery. The iphone 3 had 1220 mAh. I don't even remember the last time my phone died on me unexpectedly.
On top of that processors are faster, applications and sites are hugely more intensive to render, and the hardware (mainly antennas) suck up much more energy.
The ARM11 in the iphone 3 used <1 watt. The A13 in the iphone 11 uses 6 watts.
But of course modern smartphones do a lot more, and I spend lots more time with my smartphone as well.
That is not exactly true. OLED can be very efficient. Not just in Dark Mode, but you need to be aware of those pitfalls and optimise for it. Since in overall package the Display is roughly the same power but you get much better quality.
Not to mention there are at least 3 - 5 years roadmap of technology in the pipeline that makes it even more energy efficient and thinner. ( Thinner equals potential for larger battery )