The Liquid Batteries That Could Power Entire Cities | Answers With Joe
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- Опубліковано 21 вер 2024
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Redox flow batteries are one of the most promising energy storage solutions because they are powered by charged electrolytes that can be infinitely expanded. Today we look at how they work and the keys to their potential.
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The Vanadium fluid lasts forever in a flow battery, it may need to be reconditioned if contaminates get in, which is something that could be done on site very quickly with very simple equipment. The wear parts in a Vanadium Flow battery are the membrane and the pumps, those can wear over time and can be replaced.
Also, a neat thing about Vanadium is that if the four states of the electrolyte mix, like a crossover leak, they self correct after a cycle, self healing. This is because they are all the same as each other, except for the part that is changed via charge/discharge cycles.
You didn't mention cycle efficiency, but it's still better to collect and store renewable energy inefficiently than it is to not collect it (well, depending on the cost to collect it)
You're smart, question!
Pumps. Since the liquids are already charged, could a friction less system be made similar to ion propulsion that charges air and pulls it through/around something?
Seems like it'd reduce the maintenance requirement and also the potential for leaks and accidents since this is a highly toxic substance.
@@wizardtim8573 pumps are cheap and fairly simple, I don't think there is an advantage to some sort of ion propulsion. There are four tanks, one for each charged fluid and one for each discharged fluid, so the charged fluid tanks could be mounted above the membrane and the discharge tanks mounted below, for a gravity assisted flow.
Also compressed gas (probably nitrogen is best) could be used, instead of a pump touching the fluid, to increase the pressure on the feed side to push the fluid through the generator. This one way rockets like SpaceX use to push the liquids. The nitrogen tanks could be charged with a compressor, using the renewable energy source, or from generated power.
@@wizardtim8573 magneto-hydro-dynamic (MHD) pumps. Tech Ingredients here on UA-cam has a video or two about it.
These flow systems are very versatile, Scott touched on this briefly. Say you want to power a small load for 6 months with no input power, use large tanks and a small membrane (or one membrane unit, since I expect these will be manufactured in just a few sizes, and configured in parallel to increase output, just like how batteries are used). Or, say you want a short term high output UPS situation, you'd need many membrane units and relatively smaller tanks. These flow systems also scale and upgrade well, since more storage can be added, or more fluid to the system, also more membrane modules can be added.
@@coreys2686 exactly, I did my high school senior science project on MHD back in the 90s. Would you agree that it's not a technology I would use here, because there are much simpler, more efficient, and cheaper ways to do it?
Brawndo, It's got electrolytes!
Its got what plants need, it's got what plants crave!
Libtardia sure is an idiotic, spoiled Waster's paradise.... just forget all these crazy, expensive, sprawling 'renewable' (don't last very long) non-solutions and go with small, medium and large (floating) Thorium Molten Salt Breeder Reactors... More efficient and a hell of a lot less dangerous and wasteful than enriched uranium nuke bo££ock$.. It really is this simple. The technology is old but was not implemented because Cold War Naztis wanted the enriched uranium and depleted uranium and plutonium, ++ waste for nukes... Evil Nazti Wasters rule the world. Nuclear fusion power very likely requires the gravity of the a star to contain sustained fusion... All evidence so far points to this.
Marijuana Plants crave brawndo for the electrolytes
I love this movie
Idiocracy is fast becoming a documentary
8:15 I think 'organic' in this case just means that these are carbon compounds, rather than that they are somehow less toxic.
(It's a chemist's usage of the word 'organic', which most of us are unfamiliar with)
I had the same immediate thought when Joe said this. The adjective "organic" has a very different meaning to an organic chemist as opposed to the public perception of the word organic.
Ya I thought of Organic Mercury when he said Organic meant more safe and almost broke my eyebrows by how much they raised
Not USDA Certified??
Lol my chem classes stopped just short of organic in my engineering studies.... Surely heard plenty about it though.
@@DavidKutzler The same problem exists with the noun "theory". But I'm sure you knew that.
Wow, I never knew they stopped because they were producing too much energy! Thank you for enlightening me once again!
Or rates go negative like the price of oil. Some places utilities are forced to buy renewable energy from suppliers whether or not they need it or even export it.
Produce too much energy is a bit of a misnomer. The stations themselves don't produce too much energy, there is just too much on the grid. Its expensive to ramp up and down energy production and keeping coal and natural gas power stations idling all the time just in case a cloud floats in front of the sun is awful for the environment and very wasteful.
Dylan Hayes Yeah, I think we need widespread wind and solar but also nuclear power for backup energy.
@@FuturologyChannel nuclear for base load and natural gas for variable. Photovoltaic and wind are worthless on large scale.
@@dhayes907 Aren't wind and photo are just because we dont have the tech to efficiently "harvest" them? Just a simple question
"....Either that or make the sun shine at night...."
You *nearly* went fusion there!!
nahh just a big mirror..
When he said that I started wondering if there might be a way to create a network of solar power stations that circumnavigate the globe. After all, the sun is always shining somewhere on the planet so if you could find a way to link power stations (similar to the way they link satellite receiving stations) you would always have access to renewable energy.
Yeah, that's 20 years in the future. And 20 years from now, it'll *_still_* be 20 years in the future :-/
@@HungryGuyStories ITER is getting built...
Nuclear is still the best way.
I'm an old lady and somewhat of a computer troglodyte. I stumbled upon your channel via a youtube suggestion on my tablet, so I watched. I'm not sure you fully understand your appeal. You break down very complex science explain it in a way even I can understand and mix it with humour, at the same time appearing to be the guy two houses down who waves 'hello' as he cuts his grass. An amazing mix of brains and personality. What ever 'it' is, you seem to have it in spades. I've become a binge watching fan! Well done.👵😊
@Jennifer: I am 87 yo, born poor during the Great Depression, into a Mexican-American copper miner familia. WW2 came and great changes occurred. One of my playmates was a kid named Joe who love science. He had a microscope, telescope, books, etc and his influence on me was immense. My point is that this guy's personality jumps out at me as an adult version of my friend 80 years ago. What he triggered was an immense curiosity about virtually everything and I've never been bored one second in my life. Being poor, I had to invent my own fun gadgets (toys?). Often the materials came from city dumps, auto junk yards, and curious things thrown away or given to me by friends and neighbors. My bedrooms ( we moved a lot) were little Frankenstein abodes full of "junk". I had many friends and was considered odd. I did not care if I got ribbed because, my own interests overrode everything.
In schools, a string of teachers nudged me along in positive directions.
So, Jennifer Wong, I lost track of Joe after about one year, but he is firmly lodged in my mind and being forever. This little post is a thank you tribute to this long ago kid in my life.
And, thank you for triggering my memories of him.
P.S. I am guessing that you had a very interesting childhood, yourself and would be great to know better.
There is a serious lightning obsession with Joe at the moment
It's very very frightening to me, actually
Gala mush gala mush do you do the fandango.
@@aaronmackay6123 bismillah no we will not let you go
Yeah but lightning is cool...
shocking
10:20 This requires a correction. That 48 volt power train has a 0 to 60 time of 2.4 seconds, which is very much super car territory. With a top speed limited to 186 mph, with an unspecified real top speed. We're talking 750-1000 horsepower on a car that is significantly lighter than any traditional battery power or combustion engine car. Keep in mind the range of over 600 miles. The real catch wit the nanoFlowcell cars are that they are concept cars with brand new technology. If they lead to a production car, which is it may not, the first ones are going to be obscenely expensive.
I'm getting a very strong "too good to be true" vibe here. If these batteries have only a tenth of the energy density of lithium ion batteries, how is this car "significantly lighter than any traditional battery power or combustion engine car" while still having the same or better range and power properties? That defies physics.
20kwh per kg. I don't think there range would be out of a long driveway.
One benefit I would add to flow batteries for grid power purposes is keeping all the renewable generating technology apparatus working. This will lower the payback period of wind mills, solar panels, hydro turbines, etc quicker making the switch to renewables more economically sound. Love the channel Joe keep up the good work!
Ahh could you imagine being quarantined with this guy? MONTHS would pass by in a breeze just talking about random awesome stuff
Science, the never ending story :) Never gets old or boring.
Found Joe's wife's account
11:18 yes you might have to truck it in at first, but remember, the spent electrolyte can be recharged at the station during of peak ours with solar electricity. Reducing the amount of refills needed at the station. Remember that if you use the electrolytes as a one use option, then they can be dumped at the station for recharging.
I was thinking exactly this. Why not just recharge the electrolyte on site and reduce the need for trucking it back and forth. Would the cost of recharging on site be prohibitively expensive for smaller scale "gas station" sized sites?
@@eriksolce7000 If not, there's no reason you couldn't pump it in/out across a metropolitan area where it's appropriate. So where space is at a premium, just pump it in. We do for natural gas anyway...
I’m thinking that the solar infrastructure needed to refuel 30-40 cars a day would be prohibitive. Even 10 cars a day would suck up huge amounts of power that would require vast fields of solar panels or other gathering means. It’s always a matter of scale.
The problem is at these densities, a full tank is going to be something like 500l, or about 10 times the volume of gas. You also need four tanks minimum, two for each charge state. To be able to deal with the influx at any time, those have to be oversized. Its just not going to work.
@@badfinger9 How is that any different from charging an electric vehicle? Either you charge an electrolyte that can be transferred into the car, or you charge the car directly. The energy need is the same (not counting any energyloss in one form vs the other).
And while direct energy gathering via solar panels on site is good, the gas / charging station is connected to the grid for its needs. Just in the case with the electrolyte, you can charge it in off peak hours, saving cost.
8:14
Him: Organic means safer!!
Organic Mercury: ok lol
Planrt Mercury is obviously more dangerous
Elemental Mercury isn't that bad.
Yeah lot of deadly organic compounds. A lot of environmental problems we have today is due to synthetic organic compounds we have made. Like all plastics are organic compounds. Every one of them.
About the most deadly substance you can encounter.
One word:
Anthrax
“Either that or figure out how to make the Sun shine at night.”
*Isaac Arthur wants to know your location*
Repeat after me
"Hello, Mr Bond" (strokes cat) 😁
Know the location of your enemy, that is the first rule warfare.
West of the wipply watery wiver winding wuffly over woks and wetlands. That is his location.
hahaha
I'm from Virginia but I moved to Germany back in December.
As someone who knows very little about chemistry, I always love to hear about a new way to use an element I have no knowledge of. Vanadium.....huh. I'm excited about the potential of this technology
0:14 Well, technically speaking, the sun does shine at night. There's just a big ass rock in the way, casting a shadow.
@Liam Well the earth is a big rock, and it is between you and the sun....
Tometo-tomato
@Liam jump
@Liam Don't be pedantic, Petulia!
Technically... moonlight is sunlight bouncing off the moon... so it does shine on you at night unless it is a new moon
Joe for someone who did not have a lot of chemistry and physics in college you do a very good job of laying out the basic science for different technologies and then using that as a basis for pros and cons and who are the movers in that space. well done
I love how you both teach and entertain me for no Charge.
Sorry for the cheap humour, by the way. I have trouble conducting myself. Thankfully, the nation-wide lockdown has me grounded.
=D
Those puns made my head hertz
Benjamin David Watt?
Poor you, Leyden with negative thoughts.
You need more likes.
I have no resistance to your puns.
The interesting part that was somewhat overlooked in the part where you look at flow batteries in EVs, is that the repurposed petrol stations could function simultaneously as on-grid storage *and* refueling stations for flow battery vehicles. This would mitigate most of the issues relating to 'trucking in' the fuel, as a bonus, since the replaced fluids could be recharged on-site.
Can you please just keep uploading forever, these are amazing and fun to watch.
Joe, from 1978 until 1995, there was a magazine published called OMNI Magazine. It had a wonderful combination of science, fantasy, current events, science fiction, social awareness and futuristic stories. OMNI’s lifespan happened to coincide with my late high school years through into my 30’s. I loved it and read it cover to cover every month for most its published life. It struck me the other day, that you are OMNI Magazine ... only funnier. Thanks for bringing back that joy for me. Great stuff!
This is a great way to bring in the new week. I’m going to enjoy my coffee, watch this video, and try to avoid catching a case of the Mondays.
My family and I have been stuck at home for so long we don't even know when it's Monday anymore, it's kinda nice
Didn't you see???! All our civil liberties have been expunged! The government politely asked us to stay inside and take basic precautions to avoid spreading an infectious disease- MARTIAL LAW DECLARED!!!! The Bill Gates shadow cabal has initiated protocol 560ffFfffffFFFFFppfpg for the advancement of his depopulation agenda!!
How can you relax with your coffee when all your freedoms are at stake!!!!
@@choronos is this a parody?
too late for me. got that case already...
Joe's intro to Brilliant is the only paid promotion I watch as he introduces it really good and explains a course quickly. Keep it up like that, Joe. Much love from Ontario, Canada.
YES!!! AN ANSWERS WITH JOE VIDEO FOR MY MORNING COFFEE TIME!!!!!
I figured you'd do an episode on vanadium redox batteries at some point given your previous episodes on green technology.
I remember reading about them about a decade ago. There's a lot of different solutions you can use in redox batteries. The main reason Vanadium stands out as a good one is because Vanadium has such a wide range of charges that it can be used as BOTH the cathode AND the anode. This is important. Ion membranes eventually degrade, meaning that, in a liquid battery like this, the cathode and anode solutions eventually mix. Normally this would be bad if you're using 2 different solutions. But because a Vanadium battery can use the same solution in both the cathode and anode, it literally doesn't matter if the solutions mix because they are made of the exact same stuff (they just have different charges when charged). So, ion membrane degrades or fails, just replace the membrane. No need to remove and replace the liquids, or deal with some complex recycling method with the waste liquid.
Joe, thank you for being my favorite channel on UA-cam.
FINALLY! Someone who 'gets' it... I have been saying for YEARS that the issue with Li ion is disposal, and I keep getting shouted down with stupid comments like 'by the time we have the problem, we'll have a solution'. And you also get it that the energy 'cost' to make them is higher than they ultimately 'return'... Liked and subbed!
One would think that scrap Lion(or LiFePO4) batteries would be easier to smelt and process back into raw metal than digging it out of the ground or extracting it from brine(which they found sources 30x more concentrated than the ground mines) ???
I deal with green recycling of e-waste and always try to get something to run a bit longer before finally taking it apart into pieces for recycling. Mostly computers and servers.
However, car Lion batteries can be repurposed to off grid storage since they can't deliver peak amperage and capacity to satisfy range and speed issues anymore. Some of the batteries are only at 70-80% state of charge can be used for off grid and DIY powerbanks.
@@forgetitanyway 2 years after I made my comment, and we're still no recycling Li... Q.E.D.
I never knew I was so interested in batteries before finding this channel.
I never knew I was so interested in [literally anything Joe talks about] before finding this channel
My friends keep saying that we need to develop alternative energy. I keep telling them we ARE working very hard on alternative energy. Thanks to this video, I can add flow cells to my discussion of what we're doing to use less oil
11:30 "having to truck in electrolyte" ? Couldn't you just recharge the electrolyte, the same way your vehicle discharges it as it drives - so there is only so much electrolyte actually needed.
*The only thing you have to "truck in" is the electricity for recharging it* (through wires ofcourse)
Just a thought, maybe this is complete nonsense. Also nice video, thanks Joe :)
That would be EXACTLY the Same as hydrogen fuel cells then.
The selling point is that your car "recharges" in the time it takes to pump in new electrolyte. Recharging while it's in the car would be counterproductive. Maybe if that old electrolyte was then recharged at the station?
@@teknophyle1 the point was to recharge it at the station
you swap V3 and V4 for V2 and V5, V3 and V4 get recharged into V2 and V5 by the station, like hydrogen as semu said.
You might get a lower power loss in the process than hydrogen tho, but you have added complexity with the refueling (you need 4 fuel lines, 2 in and 2 out, and if you still use vanadium you probably want a really good seal to avoid any spill)
my vote is on electric recharge on the vehicle XD
That's something I was thinking. You'd go to a station where it'd siphon off the old electrolyte and replace it with charged electrolyte. Later on, the used electrolyte is reconditioned for the next day. Vanadium electrolyte solutions only ever need to be cleaned and filtered and could potentially be used forever from what I understand.
So the answer is, in fact, Brawndo.
This is becoming my favorite show on UA-cam. Keep it up Joe.
Flow batteries could probably work well in marine applications, but as the energy observer ship has shown us, you can just regenerate a hydrogen fuel cell direct from the ocean using the abundant unblocked sunshine and wind on the open sea.
Hi Joe, great video! If you have the time I suggest having a read up on liquid metal batteries also (Ambri is one manufacturer I am aware of). Like Vanadium they also have their downsides (500°C Operating temperature & ~80% round trip efficiency), however they are specifically designed to use the cheapest widely available materials and as they have as they have no moving parts or materials to break down their service/cycle life is probably easily on the order of decades if not longer. My understanding that they can already be low volume manufactured for half the cost of lithium cells!
The great part about them is that once charged, you can let them cool down and they become solids that are safe to transport / handle & as soon as you heat them up again (weeks-years later) you have a fully charged battery ready to go!
They may not be an ideal solution but we desperately need a CHEAP method to allow us to better align electricity supply & demand, and IMO these could be a great option!
“Maybe you’ll never see a windmill sitting still again” except you will, because wind.
They don't seem to do much milling these days either.
No
Lol, most people who have wind turbines never ave to worry about power going to waste... Most of them sell excess power to local power grids. So yeah short of no wind you'll never see them not spinning.
SilvaDreams When the local grid doesn’t need the intermittent power from wind and solar, they get shut off. It happens a lot. Comes down to politics and money.
Unless you’re in Kansas, where the wind hasn’t stopped blowing in ever. I was passing through, the wind blowing a steady 45 mph. An old man told me once long ago, one day the wind stopped blowing, and everyone fell over!
When my biggest stock holding (vanadium company) and my favorite science channel intersect! When I first heard of flow batteries I went big(for me) on vanadium!
Me too-feel exactly the same way-what a great day this has been! bought a V mining company over a year ago when V price had just recently spiked and then V was coming down, way way down. Never thought it would get as low as it did. Only this week has it shown a small bit of life. Still holding long on LR!! Thanks Joe for getting the word out-has made plenty of sense to me-it just needs to be put it in better action and get those economies of scale working.
@@canalroyale8763 is there any on the moon? Asteroids? Possible?
I see all these patron comments and I’m so jealous lol
Edit: Wow Joe, congrats on 800k!
Patreon is biased and silenced creators that they dont agree with political. There censoring is highly anti constitutional and I refuse to support any creator that uses them and advertises for them. If you dont learn who your dealing with freedoms are stripped away.
@@helloifromthegovernmentand5657 he made an entire video about this, actually
Michelle Newsome no
@@michellenewsome4389 link?
@@slayzer4526 wdym "no"
When you said 'Redox' I thought of that old Charlie Sheen movie: Hot Shots: Part Deux
Gas stations would just take the electrolights out of your car and replace them with recharged electrolights, then they would recharge the electrolights that they got from your car.
Yep.
*electrolytes
Yeah absolutely - same kind of deal as for electric chargers - in fact, you could have them sit alongside as for electric chargers, you still need to get power to the station to begin with.
Throw some solar panels on the roof of the gas pumps and the station can charge almost nothing to fill up!
@@joshh7533 Negative on that. You wouldnt charge them quick enough.
Brawndo approves
Not to mention that we have a whole global industry around the storage of bulk liquids, usually petrol and diesel, and their entire experience is around storing massive quantities of nasty stuff and pumping it around
Red Flow? Like... you know... hey I’m just saying that that’s a bad name. Great company, bad name
I'll have you know that it's in fact the best name,
*PERIOD!*
Red Mercury? Havta watch "Red" and "Red 2" those are gudt movies.
Red Bull!
Just know up front that you shouldn't piss it off.
A friend brought a crazy person to our land in California recently and managed to burn our mountain house down. The place was powered by solar and batteries, which obviously are now melted into the ground beneath the area the house once stood. So I've been looking into more eco-options, and the mechanical flywheel has me excited. Even if it doesn't hold up to the potential of and juice-based batteries, the steampunk aesthetic in the hallway closet would be fun to show off.
I thought this would have been about massive resevoirs and lakes at a higher elevation that get pumped full and then drain when needed to generate electricity.
He already did that i think. Or maybe another channel, cant remember exactly
Yeah, it's mentioned briefly at 7:25 as 'pumped hydro'
My first thought too lol
@@darlantro Unfortunately he basically dismissed it... It scales up quite well for grid storage.
1 kg of water (or any mass) has just under 10 Joules of energy per meter of elevation; so 360m to get 1 Wh/kg... but they build these in lakes, up mountains, across dams, underground, etc. Mass isn't a relevant comparison. Instead look at cost of infrastructure for a given capacity (of both peak demand and energy). I've never seen apples-to-apples comparison, but I'd bet on pumped hydro if you want > 1 MWh and > 1 GW
As usual, Joe, thank you, you’re on it!! Keep going!
Regarding wind and solar the contest isn't between different types of batteries, it's between storage and natural gas, at the moment natural gas is way cheaper than storage.
Nuclear. Done.
What if we put these ideas together? use nuclear energy to produce methane gas and then burn it in a power plant to even out the peaks and troughs, and unlike batteries, it can actually run jet engines, and rockets which are currently impossible for batteries, also it's a carbon-neutral process now while battery production is carbon positive now and won't be carbon neutral until we have enough batteries in circulation to be recycled
Or you could just produce aviation biofuel from onions. It's possible to grow a million pounds of food on 3 acres of land using aquaponics. You won't even have to pull any weeds. The stronger the onion better the result. 🙏
I found a pretty simple solution.[pun mine]
The physics suggests that flywheels work best if kept small and ran at high rpm (in a vacuum), they do eventually spin down but it takes a good bit of time. The problem is that they are just very expensive to make. What we should do in stead if make barely balanced giant sausages of demolition material and concrete, make them hollow or wrap them in some floating material, treat them with yacht coating and put them in a ditch. The fatter you make them the more mass per surface area. OF COURSE they will spin down pretty fast but the losses are not in money or rare resources, they are in electricity that you didn't know where to put anyway.
With high voltage you get to use rather small engines into which you can dump rather amazing amounts of power but if you make a wind turbine with adjustable blade angle you can probably hook it up directly with nothing more than a clutch. Solar can also be dumped into it.
The biggest gains are to be made in balancing the sausage of demolition waste. The reusable mold can probably be floated out. As soon as it is reasonably round and fixed to the axles of the generators/motors it can be polished and coated.
Burring these things doesn't take much space. You can probably make it into a park off limits for humans :)
A different approach is to learn from the old days,
the windmills use to produce goods directly and only when there was wind. It would have to be an industrial application where energy is the biggest cost, something that can be shut down.
A truly fantastic formula was to plant trees where the windmill was to be build. Wait a bit for them to grow then build the turbine with a lot of human power (and a few animals)
8:15 in the context of heavy metals 'organic' probably doesn't mean it's safer!
I love seeing wind farms throughout Indiana. They're massive.
John B Goodenough is shaking his head in disappointment with you Joe. He loved your video on solid state batteries but now.....
mrjgrothe we have so many options for the future of battery tech that I don’t think he’ll mind. Between these, solid-state batteries, and graphene batteries we should be set, at least until we figure out fusion.
John b goodenough actually coauthored quite a few of literature papers on lmbs
The simplicity of liquid cooled air energy storage and turbofan to recover the power, 60% efficiency. Popular as well.
How about the "liquid metal battery" coming out of M.I.T. ?
I've heard of that. AMBRI. I was impressed.
Thanks for sharing. Based on it I watched a video on youtube
"Don Sadoway | Innovation in Stationary Electricity Storage: The Liquid Metal Battery"
Seems promising!
There is a comment at the very end of it about liquid flow batteries. He thinks that the biggest issue with them might be the relatively frequent replacement of pumps.
He's talking about liquid METAL. There is no flow or pumps. Different concept/tech.
@@dslinger7897 He was talking about liquid flow compared to liquid metal.
On a serious note I like the idea that you included hydroxy gas generation for vehicle powering. It is the future of all combustion engines which will be around for a very very long time
11:50 from some who lives in this town. We can't even get fiber much less leading edge energy storage.
Space X Starlink should help with that.
I’m amazed how the words roll off your tongue. Excellent presentation.
When will we have a molten salt gen 4 nuclear reactor? That is the future of energy production until we get fusion power.
As a detractor of the thorium craze, I have the very same question. I still don't see one around.
Gave me a proper good old laugh out loud moment when you mentioned "trying to figure out a way to make the sun shine at night"... thanks for a pure little moment of gold there Joe 😂👌
sounds like a joke but researchers are working on a panel that charges at night.
@@linemanap ..really!?... well I suppose there is always going to be somebody that will at least try and shed a little light on this kind of topic... who knows, maybe there is some kind of panel that can absorb energy from dark matter 😉
We should fund research into *uranium fed 30 foot tall buff mutant hamsters* in hamster wheels as an alternative energy source.
Had something I was trying to think to ask you just subscribed maybe 5 minutes ago but came up blank until now. I write down parts of dreams that seem relevant and as vague as this sentence I wrote down is I still think about it. “Shoot cell/cells into space, have them charge, power world”.
So, these batteries are literally a nerd's "wet" dream. I'm in love😍
One thing I've wondered, is if maybe the focus for car batteries should be slightly less on max range/battery life and more on making the battery packs more modular and easier to remove/install - that way you could turn the idea of petrol stations into something like a battery service station where you rock up, pay a fee and they exchange the battery currently in your car with one from the station that's already at max charge (with the discount affected by how much they need to charge up/repair the battery you gave them) and then they can properly recharge/repair the battery into a better state or depending on the state, sell it to a factory where they recycle the materials into creating a new battery.
Potential advantages would be
Quicker 'recharge' than plugging it in.
Significantly more consumer-friendly.
Potential for a future where your car could carry multiple batteries for long-distance trips.
Better performance in cities due to decreased weight from not needing a battery with such a large potential range.
Puts the onus on companies to find and fund better recycling techniques, battery life and faster charge mechanisms rather than just being a consumer issue..
Less likely for battery wear/damage to go unnoticed (need I remind you these things are not only highly toxic but also potentially explosive).
If powered entirely by renewables, may end up with an end price which is cheaper/more efficient than home charging.
Upgrading your battery with the latest advances in technology is significantly easier and does require buying a whole new car.
Could create an industry for arranging road-side swaps with trucks that carry cells for when you run out of juice in a long journey (rather than requiring a full tow to a power output and a overnight stay until your car recharges).
Probable disadvantages:
Worse range per charge.
Might (probably will) require specialised equipment/skills to perform the swap, increasing the requirements for initial investments for service stations.
Makes cars dependent on being in an area with the required facilities (also reduces potential consumer market).
Potential for a-holes to misuse the batteries to hurt people or make car crashes significantly worse (though, that is an issue for all electric cars)
Not unlikely that a removable battery will be less energy efficient than a built-in one.
If standardisation can't be agreed upon, it's not unlikely that car companies will pull an 'Apple' and make their cars only compatible with batteries of their own brand - maybe even on a 'per car' basis, meaning unless stations carry multiples of every battery type, it further limits the clientelle for the idea.
Dangerous if removal/install is done by someone who's confidence outstrips their ability (although it could be argued that Darwinism is an overall positive).
Could you make a video about psychedelics? Like the science of it and everything?
@ArmchairWarrior Facebook has tons of mushroom groups
It's a front
Thats pretty vague, as psychedelics are a pretty diverse group of drugs and their effects are similar, but also very different.
I think researching the effects and the science behind specific psychedelics would be better than just talking about all of them as if they could easily be grouped together.
Something like psilocybin just cant be compared to 5-meo-dmt, although both technically are psychedelics.
Yes please
Marvin Xox actually psilocybin can be compared to 5-MEO-DMT... they’re actually very similar.... not in effect but they are indole alkaloids my dude. and so many more psychedelics belong to this group and work on the brain in very similar ways, but produce vastly different effects. Many of these drugs are very important throughout history
Can't wait to see him try to explain away the machine elves, lol.
Great job! Joe. I particularly liked how you brought it back around to the wind turbine not being wasted. Cheers!
It would be interesting to see how this holds up against solid-state batteries that are in development at the moment!
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Celina K yes
completely different use case, solid-state batteries are expensive, super high-density units for phones and maybe aircraft. flow batteries are cheap, low-density, low-maintenance devices that can be scaled up to grid scale. they won't compete with each other, they solve completely different problems.
Money for scale. What you need to run a car is totally different from grid storage. It's like a irrigation pump against a super car. Two different purposes.
@@cerebralm
Actually unless I'm mistaken, one great advantage of solid state batteries is that they will be *cheaper* ?
*Certainly* over their lifetime?
They would also be totally maintenance free.
Just drop a container wherever needed and plug in.
Hey Joe, I've heard you mention poor sleep more than once, is it just a busy brain or could you have sleep apnea? My husband got a CPAP 7 days ago. My life has improved because of it, and the change for him is indescribable. Sleeping well totally rocks. You deserve it! Maybe check out a sleep study?
I'm all on the liquid battery hype train and this just reaffirms it
I'm a huge fan of hydro pump for power storage. Extremely low cost in materials and low environmental impact. I need to be a huge fan because of the energy density of this solution.
I read recently that someone made a breakthrough in solid state batteries. I can't remember who it was or the details. If I am dissemination false information please correct me; respectfully.
Here is a link:
www.motorauthority.com/news/1024979_samsung-makes-solid-state-battery-breakthrough
Sounds Goodenough to me
I was thinking it was Samsung , what was it , a week aho?
Christopher Ritt
The thing to be hyped about are breakthroughs in manufacturing of solid state batteries. There’s a new battery breakthrough like every other week, but none are even close to being mass produced:
Wasn't that Joe Scott?
@@nicholasn.2883 Thank you for the information. I'm not always up to date on breakthroughs and research. Since it's fairly plentiful. I have learned the value of my own ignorance and it is extensive.
You should do an episode on liquid metal batteries like those pioneered by Dan Sadoway at MIT. Overcomes these issues you described here.
TIL LiPo batteries are just not... Goodenough
That joke just never gets old, Does it?
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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My favorite battery at grid scale is the Liquid Metal Battery by Ambry. The battery lasts over 100,000 cycles of 100% charge 100% discharge cycles or mathematically about 300 plus years. In practical terms that means the battery will outlast the installation. All batteries make heat, and at grid scale, a battery makes a lot of heat. Because it is a Liquid Metal Battery it must be hot to operate, and at grid scale that means it doesn’t need cooling and will self heat during operation. And also because it is a Liquid Metal Battery, you can shovel in the materiel for the cathode, electrolyte and anode and they will self form when the battery is heated at startup. They are more efficient than pumped hydro, and will be cheaper than any battery with a solid membrane that limits current before deforming, melting or boiling issues set in.
Joe: could you give a review of “planet of the humans”
Is our energy grid getting cleaner all the time?
I watched the planet’s recently and it is very compelling. Please have a look.
Planet of the humans misses the point. They only talk about problems with the energy transition without giving a good alternative or solution. The energy transition is still a way better future than sticking with fossils, even with all the problems involved. Their critisism of natural gas and biofuel are absolutely right. Wind and solar not so much, they both already produce substantial amounts of energy in some countries in Europe, which prove it's possible, and together with storage will be countless times better than a fossil fuel based economy. Which is why the kind of solutions like the one in this video are so important.
@@Requiredfields2 In Europe this is the case. I'd think in America* and in China it shouldn't be much different at the moment. Australia probably as well. I don't know about Russia, India and Africa, though. But that does not mean, we have clean grids. They are getting cleaner, but are still far away from optimal :)
*But you never know when the next part of the orang-utans brain is gonna go haywire...
Abol It’s true what you say they offered no alternative in the documentary. But I came away feeling like it was “we need to consume less energy”. Wasn’t it?
Check out QUENSOR, “quantum energy storage or retrieval “ An organic ultra capacitor., based on polyacetylene conductors with fluorine based non-cascading capacitors. Energy density slightly higher than gasoline, many times greater than lithium ion batteries. Inventor, Alvin Marks, deceased.
I am here and ready to nerd out. Love the vids and am proud to be a patron joe I watch every video you put out and this video is interesting , we are using a lot of energy even if they make too much. I think flow will work well in our society , it’s renewable and can power for a long time , but I think it won’t come into fluision for years as lithium ion is on top and all of these companies won’t take the chance and people will stay with the norm like usual also I’m new to the patron my name is joe Calhoun lol but again love u
You commented a day ago. And UA-cam says this video was loaded less than 10 minutes ago.
@@chanceDdog2009 he's a patron
@@chanceDdog2009 yeah
I would recommend the channel ‘Isaac Arthur’ for you
@@chanceDdog2009 patreon supporter. For just a dollar per month you get early access, and more importantly, support Joe's videos. And you get more little benefits for donating more, which everybody should.
out of curiosity... what would a disaster look like with this? For instance if the two storage towers collapsed causing a rapid mixing of the two fluids. Would it be a rapid discharge or does the technology not work in that way?
They'd simply cancel each other out, the charge carried on one would pass into the other. Like 2 towers with hot and cold water, mixing them would just make warm water.
Nuclear.
One thing which pops to my mind with EV's and flow batteries - you said that electrolyte solution would need to be trucked in to the existing infrastructure, and sure you would have to do this once at setup and any time you need to replace a solution. but there is nothing stopping the average gas station swapping out your EV's electrolyte to a fully charged V2 and V5 and then charging up the drained electrolyte from your EV at the station.
maybe a separate "charging" flow battery to charge the solution before it's pumped into the "ready to sell" tanks, as this would avoid needing to fill your tanks and the station only having a partially charged electrolyte available.
This would also have the added benefit of serving as a backup power source for the station in the event of power outages, in order to pump from the charged tanks even when there is a blackout or the like.
Of course I'm no scientist, and I could easily be missing some crucial aspect, or misunderstanding the whole point. Either way thanks for the great videos - I have been binge watching a load of them the past few days and loving them!
Making the sun shine at night? Sounds like a job for nuclear energy gang. 😎
Nickel-metal hydride batteries are where it's at. Maybe not for electric cars but for household stuff their amazing.
Energizer rechargeable batteries are NiMH rather then lithium ion, I make sure to use those in my flashlight. Lithium is better for rapid discharge but if you have something that will slowly drain the better over hours then get NiMH like the Energizer batteries. I've had these for years & they haven't failed & still hold amazing charge after probably 100 recharge cycles on my flashlight. For double & triple A, their good.
I do hope that your viewership knows you well enough to know the 5G-virus remark was sarcasm and real sarcasm too, not Trump sarcasm!!
We do , lol
This comment has nothing to do with this video. I have watched and liked a ton of your videos and I always feel like I kinda understand what you're talking about.......until i scroll down to the comment section and I reliably get thrown off into a world of confusion that only Gene Wolfe could write. I think an interesting channel idea would be a series on competing comments in your more popular videos. Popularity being valued by interesting conversation within the comment section.
Edit: Thought i would include that my son (who very recently turned a year old) and I have a routine of stretching out on my recliner in the early morning and watching your videos while he takes his first bottle of the day! Thanks a lot for your content!
While storage options will no doubt get increasingly helpful, talking of “Elephants in the room” there is a new generation of ‘passively safe’ Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) that produce order-of 2% waste compared to today’s high-pressure (water cooled) solid-fuel reactors that generate order of 98% waste. They do not need massive and insanely expensive containment vessels (that Chernobyl didn’t bother with) because they run near atmospheric pressure. Temp typically runs around 700 Centigrade (vs 300C for today’s reactors) where molten salts are almost water consistency. If they ‘runaway’ the salt gets hotter causing it to expand that slows fission passively due to inherently negative feedback. If cooling stops the radioactive fuel melts ‘freeze-plugs’ at bottom of reactor and the fuel drains into cooling tanks where the reaction stops - no human or computer interaction is required. These reactors can be far cheaper to make and maintain due to their size scalability, inherent safety and cheap fuel sources such as thorium or . Yet they can also run on existing nuclear waste! Many MSR designs are underway in about a dozen countries. The one that started it all as proof of concept was the Oak Ridge Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) that successfully ran over four years in the 60’s. Funding costing nuclear waste from water reactors where only 2% of fuel can be used. MSR funding was cut off during Nixon administration to boost employment in California on traditional water reactors and because thorium is really bad at making bomb grade materials such as plutonium during the Cold War period. The other advantage if MSRs are that their very high operating temperature is more efficient for power generation and their heat can be used directly to desalinate water and be applied to (large) industry heating requirements bypassing the need to generate electricity. Wind, solar etc are not viable as fossil fuel alternatives for most industry heat requirements.
ua-cam.com/video/H6mhw-CNxaE/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/tyDbq5HRs0o/v-deo.html
Yea this is probably the phenomena ppl keep refering as "all the jokes are new to the newborn". I mean you are right, but we know this for a long long time, even Joe made videos on it so its nothing like a "new insight" or anything. That's being said welcome to the club, you are a few years late but you arrived here and that's what matters. And you are on the right track too I fallow Gordon's content for 12 years now and it reports well on the frontier. I suggest you to watch most if not all of his content, because there is a lot to learn from real nuclear industry experts there. I especially reccomend you to check out Kirk Sorensen's LFTR idea or maybe even a better one the MCSFR concept from Ed Pheil and his team.
Kenlwallace, I've been hearing that "MSR designs are underway in about a dozen countries" for literally decades now. No seriously, first time I hear about that and the magic thorium was back in the 1980s (yes, I'm that old, but actually the thorium/MSR thing has been going on since the 60sat least). And ever since then you'll hear "the technology isn't quite ripe, but we're almost there". When such a high hopes technology doesn't take off after so long, you kind of have to come to one of two possible conclusions:
1. There's a global conspiracy against it! (Notice that the conspiracy does have to be global, because the USA isn't the only country that stands to gain from such technology nor the only one that can do the research.)
2. Maybe the technology isn't quite as promising as certain people made it out to be. Because real reasons, devil tends to be in the details. This does not imply that there is no potential at all, but at the very least it's harder and more complex than it was made out to be.
My Occam's razor-o-meter is leaning towards the latter. Nonetheless, I'm willing dip into a little bit of conspiracy theory, myself. It seems to me that these days thorium is more often brought up as an alternative to _renewable energy_ rather than directly to fossil fuel. E.g. with sentences such as "Wind, solar etc are not viable as fossil fuel alternatives for most industry heat requirements"***. Sure, there seems to be a presumed premise that fossil fuel eventually needs to be replaced, but renewable and MSR are competing for public funding in regards to research/production/efficiency, whereas fossil fuel is not, at least not in the same way. Renewables have taken over large portions of market share from the huge powerful fossil fuel industry in recent years, whereas MSRs have gone practically nowhere. Hm, I wonder who stands to profit from public resources being redirected from the booming renewable energy sector to that technology that hasn't had a major breakthrough in decades.
*** which makes absolutely no sense. The electricity creating the heat doesn't care from which source it was generated. If you're trying to suggest that wind, solar etc don't have the potential to generate enough energy to fulfil our current industrial needs, that's clearly not true. We have a rough idea of how much energy there is in wind, sunlight and other renewables, and it is literally millions of times higher than our current industrial needs. If you're pointing out that they _currently_ can't fulfil our industrial needs, well guess who can currently do even far less: MSRs. Both would need further research, development and subsidies. But one has been growing potentially over the past years, while the other has been almost stagnant for decades.
Gravity batteries exist. When there is excess power pump water uphill, when you need more power use the water flowing down hill.
Also known as pumped storage hydroelectricity.
Pumped storage is by far the largest-capacity form of grid energy storage available, and, as of 2017, the United States Department of Energy Global Energy Storage Database reports that PSH accounts for over 95% of all active tracked storage installations worldwide, with a total installed nameplate capacity of over 184 GW, of which about 25 GW are in the United States
planet of the humans - review and fact check please!
Yeah, Planet of the Humans was pretty eye opening/disillusioning. I had some gripes with it regarding editing & it's general lack of numbers comparing the breakdown in costs & calculations of carbon footprint of renewables, but overall like I said it was pretty disillusioning.
Wind and solar are so variable that it's hard to give hard numbers. Go nuclear
@@dhayes907 its not hard to find hard numbers the utility records everything. We are going nuclear its called the sun. it's 100% proven all we have to do is scale it up. Variability is solved with storage.
@@linemanap You should watch the movie. No amount of batteries will solve the problem. The resources it takes to manufacture Solar panels is staggeringly harmful to the environment. There needs to be a serious new breakthrough in PV before it starts to counteract ecological damage. But, it is preferable to Biofuel.
There is promise in nuclear tech that can use up spent nuclear waste, and it's far safer than the old reactor tech that caused disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima. It could be used not only to provide power on a large scale but, it could also help dispose of decades-old Nuclear waste that would otherwise take thousands of years to degrade to "safe" levels. You should look into it before shooting it down so quickly.
@@dhayes907
How many times must it be said?
Nuclear had its chance.
It's *far* too expensive too build.
The power sold is *far* too expensive (2.5 × wind)
It takes *far* too long to build (we're *out of time* )
Companies building nuclear even *now* can't make a profit doing it.
(EDF, Toshiba, Hitachi)
Apart from that? Yeah "Go nuclear!!" (Whoop whoop)
Smh
I worked with a guy who had a former job as a representative of Bendex, who manufactures brake shoes for wind driven electrical generator or windmills. He said that is the most expensive part a windmill, that wear out just like they do on a car, and need to be replaced.. If you didn’t have brakes on the windmills, they would just spin faster and faster until they flew apart...
4:04 If only there was a handy unit for MWh/hour, we could use it to measure power consumption.
I get the joke, but since we are talking about batteries going to MW is useless XD
Howdy! Thanks for mentioning Hornsdale, in my state. Another connection is that Simon Hackett (local rich guy) has invested in a flow battery tech
I wish Joe was my next door neighbor. While I am no genius, my family watches really bad tv and does little reading and has zero intellectual curiosity. I spend a LOT of time on the internet and am losing my ability to have social skills by interacting with real people in real time.... sigh!
I will be looking into this topic much further, very interesting!
Dear Joe. Can you please do a video about quinine. I was taught about it at university and found the history of it fascinating
I think you miss an important point in the operation of the Vanadium redux flow battery - which is, you can always keep a stock of V3 and V4 powders and add the powders to the battery at will. So you can actually have "electric powder".
Man I used to work in a plant that extracted molybdenum and vanadium from spent catalyst. One of the dirtiest most dangerous jobs ive ever worked. We basically stayed coated in the stuff. Some people couldnt work in the finishing building because they would break out in sores.
This would've been so helpful two semesters ago when we were studying Redox batteries in chem, cause I finally understand them
There is a way to make the sun shine at night.
We place in orbit huge mirrors that reflect the sun's light, thus the side of earth currently "at night" will get instead the sun reflected on it
You could even direct the mirrors in such a way that the sun light is directed in specific locations that can be used for power generation
I noticed you showed negative electric charges flowing in the cathode and out the anode. Just to clarify, for confusion, it’s the opposite. The cathode “sucks in” electrons and the anode “overflows” them out. This confusion is because of defining electric charge as negative, meanwhile all other common physical energy gains are defined as positive, such as gravitational potential energies climbing mountains.
One of the biggest advantages of full flow batteries is that they are immune to heat, and they don't degrade.
I believe many flow batteries are being used as backup generators for communication towers.
Li Ion are designed for mobile applications. Flow batteries solve a different problem. Great to see someone who realises this. And explains this in a technically accurate manner.
Another type of flow battery is the plating battery. Notable is the ZnBr flow battery which plates zinc onto plates when charging and then dissolves the zinc during discharge.
The Moltex energy store sounds like a great idea. It’s a 1000MW molten salt nuclear reactor which heats a huge thermal store. 3000MW of steam turbines can be ramped up and down to follow demand. If necessary even the reactor can naturally follow demand.
It’s cheap and it’s simple.
It works because molten salts run at about 620 deg C with standard spec steam turbines running at 565 deg C. They can also supply heat directly for things like ammonia and cement production. 1% of the worlds energy budget goes to make ammonia.
Talk to Ian Scott at Moltex.
You could also use Zinc Bromide batteries for bulk storage. The salt for it might be a bit hard to get, but they have a similar energy density to lead acid.
A remark regarding 48V: You can do high voltage, low current or low voltage, high current. Some manufacturers are going the low voltage route, because it‘s safer. You don‘t need people who are trained to handle high voltage systems for maintenance. One of the downsides is, you need thicker wires for the same power.
The great thing is: Energy storage is NOT a show-stopper for renewable energy. There are a BUNCH of workable solutions. Flow batteries are one. V2G is another. Simply better, smarter grids are another. There are several more.
I'm thinking flywheels should get more attention. Make a massive object, put it in a vacuum, spin it at about the maximum speed it can stand, float it on magnetic bearings, and discharge it by spinning it down with magnetic couplings. For stationary storage, this could work quite well. And it doesn't require special materials. You need something dense, and fairly strong, and which is not bothered by being in a vacuum. Many things qualify. In fact, with the right kind of sealed container, the bulk of the material would not even have to withstand vacuum well. Do you see any downsides?
If you pump the liquid to an uphill storage tank and generate power (the same way as pumped hydro storage) when it comes downhill you could increase power density of the system.