Hacker News Reader

Comment by ColdHawaiian | Hacker News Reader

It's cool that this new storage system is 1/3 the cost of current battery technology, but I wonder what the environmental impact of "liquid metal" batteries would be. The article says one of their prototypes used antimony, which is toxic, with effects "that are similar to arsenic poisoning"[1].

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimony#Precautions

Lithium-ion batteries, at least, "contain no toxic metals"[2].

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Environment...

View on HN

Lithium and lithium compounds can be toxic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Precautions

The batteries envisioned by Ambri would be enormous, shipping-container-sized things sitting (stationary) in the same place (e.g. electrical substations) for decades. If one cracked open, it would be a bad day at the plant, but nothing like a nuclear reactor meltdown. It could probably be back to normal in days or weeks.

The fact that the Ambri batteries are made using abundant materials means that those very materials are already present, in vast quantities, in the environment.

> I wonder what the environmental impact of "liquid metal" batteries would be

Keep in mind that in the use case these batteries are designed for, they would largely be replacing coal, oil, and natural gas.

Probably not. It's commonly assumed that the development of grid-scale energy storage will enable a large-scale transition to intermittent renewables like solar and wind. In reality, it will just entrench the lowest cost energy source. If you can store large amounts of energy, why not use it with a natural gas plant that produces electricity at much lower costs than solar or wind?

>> why not use it with a natural gas plant that produces electricity at much lower costs than solar or wind?

I was under the impression that natural gas plants can operate continually and that therefore energy storage isn't needed. Could you explain how cheap energy storage would enhance natural gas plants?

"Earlier versions used molten magnesium and antimony, separated by a layer of salt, to store and release electricity"

This sentence implies that they changed type of medium. I scanned article, but have not seen claims of any other materials.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com