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saw a video on "3D current collector" potentially increasing EV range by 30% and was wondering if that was legit and if it can pair with a Sodium Ion Battery
Hi Matt, promising stuff. How is the world of mining minerals coming along and making it more eco friendly? Less intens on the use of pfas and other pollutants? Regards, Radboud
From the study referenced, "In this study, Mg and Sc are chosen as dopants in P2-Na0.67Ni0.33Mn0.67O2, and both have found to positively impact the cycling stability, but influence the high voltage regime in different ways." I was talking Magnesium and the dopants used. Here's the full study if you're interested: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202309842. Also, I include a citations link in the description of each video (here's this video's script/citations): undecidedmf.com/top-5-new-battery-technologies-to-follow-in-2024/
Except the batteries from northvolt and from the study he mentioned completely negate that advantage by using Nickel and Cobalt. How is that even an improvement over LFP, a chemistry that uses only Lithium and also gets better energy density? Maybe CATL batteires are better but I dont even know at this point.
I'm just sad it's not commercializing into home use. I only need like 10kWh to power my house overnight. I could probably skate by with 6 if I needed. If I had a large enough sodium battery 🔋 I could probably recharge even on a cloudy day with the right roof array. Sigh
@@NerfThisBoardGames it's probably only a matter of time. once demand goes up and the manufacturing process gets cheap and easy, it will spread to mainstream, at least I hope so
Sodium Ion honestly makes me extremely excited for stationary storage bases. Between Starlink, solar perovskites, and sodium ion home batteries I’m getting more and more excited to build a cabin in the mountains someday everyday.
One of the biggest drawbacks to large scale desalination (other than the power required) has always been what to do with the concentrated salt solution after the potable water has been made. It would need further purification, but those Sodium Battery plants might be a good candidate for using the salts.
There's lithium in seawater too - and pretty much the entire rest of the periodic system as well, at very low concentrations. Water isn't known as the "universal solvent" for nothing... :) We might not be able to fill all our lithium needs from desalination, but it could be a good start, and as you mention, we'd end up with crabloads of sodium as well... Just gotta find somewhere to get rid of all that chlorine, once we've extracted those salts. Ugh. :)
@@michiganengineer8621 I do often wonder if it would be feasible or not to just use marine drone vessels to send it out to sea and release it slowly across the course of many nautical miles, kind of streaming off the back like a salt truck. Because in theory wouldn’t the water cycle just ensure the salt content of the water is balanced? Water always eventually makes its way back to the ocean, it’s not like we feasibly truly can just delete it. So the salt would be a relatively high concentration for a short time but then go back to neutral after dissolving and being pushed around the currents, no?
I feel that it would be better to incentive finding industrial or otherwise productive uses for the waste, similar to how pigs are turned into thousands of products after they're butchered, or how sawdust and shavings from timber are repurposed. Just throwing it back into the ocean feels like sweeping dust under the rug.
For those wondering like me. The Picture for batsand at 5:00 is the heatexchanger/ controlunit. The mentioned 40m^3 are to be buried outside and connected to said exchanger
Not to pull the rug out, but I wouldn’t trust him for any of these technical topics. He happily promoted that scam solid-state battery a few weeks ago, and still hasn’t done anything to attract it even though it’s been proven to use a standard lithium battery.
Cheaper batteries as long as the efficiency is good even if the energy density is not great is an interesting thing for prototyping, DIY, off-grid home applications!
Indeed. I worry about chasing higher energy density as it just makes failures a bigger problem due to more energy released. Having a bigger less energy dense battery makes more sense for stationary storage, as you have a better chance of isolating individual cells that fail from setting the whole battery on fire. Personally I just don't feel comfortable with current technologies for home storage, particularly in dense neighbourhoods where a single house fire could spread quickly. Switching to technologies that don't self ignite or release toxic gases is all very well, but it getting insanely hot will still start a fire or couse you major burns if its a phone in your pocket, or some of the more worrying things like rings that might be hard to remove fast enough.
Wow! There are so many new battery "Breakthroughs" and yet we still use the same 30+ year old battery tech. I wonder, when the new amazing batteries enter the market and change the world. I have been waiting for at least 10 years now.
I have always been keen on the idea of using old mines for pumped hydro. Both surface and underground operations...... If you are able to get an underground mine that is close to closing, they would be perfect for pumped hydro. Obviously the size of the openings underground, depth etc will effect the capacity.
I always look at people like you who do all these researches and publish all these papers with great admiration. You guys are making our civilization advance, keep up the good work! 🫶
@@broadsword6650 Just a guess, but it's probably because they need overhead access to the battery units to lift them in and out of place with a crane. Can't do that if there's a roof over them.
The electric eel is a rechargable sodium-ion battery that is self replicating, safe for the environment, with zero fire incidents over it's long development. Amazon currently carries several versions but shockingly there's no competition despite it's high potential.
if you look at the periodic table you will notice that Sodium is in the same column (2) as Lithium. It has similar properties, it also blows up in water, but it is much more abundant, and its properties are better understood. Also, the news this week were the magical golf balls on the floor of the ocean that generate electricity and make oxygen.
This is huge ! Removing lithium from the equation is a game changer in long term storage. Obviously were years away from out of the box residential systems. In 5 to 10 years things could really be different. Its very exciting to me. Ty Matt as always ! Looking forward to the follow ups on this one
Some time ago I read about this thing called Pumped Heat, which stores energy as heat but by the compression of a gas to create that heat and an expansion side to create a cold side. So here it isnt really storing energy as heat, but more accurately as a temperature difference. Its a closed system too
Enovix is already ramping production of a pure Si anode battery, they are at least a year ahead of Amprius and their batteries are much cheaper. Sila only makes a Si anode material that they sell to battery OEMs, they have no plans to make their own batteries from what I've heard them say.
On Tuesday I talked to an Amprius VP who is in charge of building their new factory in Brighton near Denver International Airport. Once their factory - which is huge - is fully operational they'll be producing at considerable scale and their target market - drones and surveillance satellites - are hungry for their products.
@@mv80401 When will they be in full production, what customers have they lined up, what is the energy density and cost per Watt hour, how many cycles can it do before degradation starts are some of the questions I'd love to ask him.
Yeah that monster place was a Kmart distribution center. Then a Costco center. It is now empty. I was in there during Kmart days for electrical work on the crazy conveyor system. If that conveyor is still there, Amprius is gonna have a ton to do to clear it out before tooling up and moving in.
Planned for 2025. ASAP is what is needed to get to GWH production over the Calf facility. Cells are mostly used for various aircraft due to their high energy density (and cost).
@@hallkbrdz Yes. I have been in contact with a VP at Amprius and he indicated the designs for the interior layout/construction were almost complete. That was about a month ago. What was funny was during the planning and zoning stage with the city, residents were complaining that they would end up with lithium in their water. Mostly because of its close location to one of the cities water treatment facility (across the street). Which, is of course, complete nonsense.
Matt the most challenging metals in battery are copper and aluminium and steel for the casing. For NMC Nickel is important for LFP Iron is the replacement. The lithium is 10% by weight of these other metals. This is the same for Sodium as a replacement for lithium.
@@francois7355 China 'copied' the LFP technology from a Canadian patented process. This patent prevented development in the US and Asia because they have laws.
@@johndinsdale1707 interesting to know that, thanks for the info. I'm in the Southern Hemisphere, I saw a VOX video where they spoke about the import bans from China, I understand there is politics involved. But letting the average consumer suffer by hindering their access to better technology... Excuse my poor English, it's not my first language.
There was a recent article on how MIT has come up with a way to make concrete a battery. That will be pretty cool to have every house have a battery built in to it.
I'm looking forward to thermal batteries for home/business use. Low BTU models have existed for thousands of years but denser storage sounds wonderful.
Re Sand for thermal storage. We are rapidly running out of building sand, used in concrete and mortar; actually, really rapidly. The good news is, that thermal can use any old sand, like desert sand, which is of no use in construction, and is abundant.
ESS Inc, in Wilsonville Oregon makes iron flow batteries and is in production now. They have I believe several dozen 500 kWh units in place with utilities and commercial users now...
Sandy Munro's podcast featured the SAKUU printed dry battery that saves up to 25 percent manufacturing cost and material with improved performance and safety on the best lithium battery cells. I missed that in your report.
Excellent overview piece. The only issue I have is in the silicon battery (silicon anode) segment it focuses on three albeit fine companies (Amprius, OneD, Sila) but overlooks the leader in supplying silicon anode material - Group14 Technologies. Group14 is about to commission the first "EV scale" silicon anode plant in the world with its JV with SK in Korea (2,000 MT/yr. or 10 GWh) and has two more of the same scale under constructoin in Moses Lake, WA that will come on line in the next 6 months. No one else is even close to that reality in manufacturing scale-up.
@UndecidedMF12 I sent you an email with more detail than it makes sense to list here. If it did not get through, please let me know here and I'll resend.
The best thing about thermal batterys is that you dont need a battery at all, only a charging system as you can use the dirt sand and rock underneath structuures (like your house) as the thermal medium. Not nearly as efficient without isolation but it will hold enormus amounts of energy. And im sure on new structures insulation can be build in and the batterys themselves can be used as structural elements.
Great video! For some reason the use of the word "salt" instead of Sodium bothered me =D There is no reason to consider Sodium more or less of a salt than Lithium from a chemical perspective.
What about storing energy as compressed gas? There was a concept a few years ago where a company was offering compressed gas powered forklifts. You get an air compressor that would fill up bottles and then you put that bottle onto the truck in the same way you do for LPG powered trucks.
I use PCMs with compute to heat my house. Much higher energy density because it incorporates phase change than Rondo's Bricks (My wife works for Rondo) and the PCMs can be 'tuned' with nano metal particles to hit the right temperature band. Finally, some thermal discussion @undecidedMF. 'bout time. 🤨
Do you happen to know what kind of batteries the engineers at the Parallel company are using for their autonomous rail cars? Have you done an episode on autonomous rail cars yet?
Iron Air seems more energy dense still... glad too see all the science getting done too. Those carbon dioxide compressed air batteries looked good too.
Living off grid I would be very much interested in sand batteries. Both for heating the house, hot water and electricity. So I have my eyes out for Batsand in Latvia.
Sodium Ion seems like the most achievable but I remember reading a science journal that mentioned an Aluminum batter tech that seems like no one is taking about.
You missed another thermal energy storage method, and that is to cover a swimming pool that have been so readily abundant and use that water as the medium. It's been tested in Arizona and Florida.
I wish you would cover the October 28 demonstration of the ECat NGU charging a Twizzy EV for 5 hours while driving on a racetrack and the Twizzy without the ECat ran out of power in 1 hour and the Twizzy with the ECat had a higher charge than that of the start of the demonstration. It’s been said by the inventor the ECat could potentially run for 30,000 hours
Pointing out the water heater in every home is a thermal energy storage battery blew my mind. I wonder how difficult it would be to concentrate solar into a off the shelf water heater and use it's heat to warm a building through the night? Further if the concentration of the solar was a roof top system it'd cool during the day by diverting energy that otherwise would have gone down into the building.
It's already been around, for decades (centries actually but not in modern form). It's pretty universal as well, in country's with a lot of sunlight for example you'll often see a silver metal canisters on the roofs to heat water than then supports heating and washing needs. In more northern climes your find glass tube or matt panel systems doing similar. Modern versions also use heat pumps to increase the rate of energy extraction from the panels into water based thermal stores. Cooling is a little more difficult as you have to have a temperature difference to convect the heat away from the roof, often though the outside temperature is higher than the inside temperature so this tends not to work. Although, there are systems that use white panels with a special radiative paint that cools buildings by radiating infrared light off into space.
@@GruffSillyGoat Yea it's also similar to the concept of a boiler room making hot water to distribute to buildings, but that tends to be powered by fossil fuels. But it shows that we have already thought about hot water distribution into radiators to heat buildings. I've just never thought about catching sunlight to skip the nasty fossil fuels for this. I mean, I've also seen people just line up a bunch of black hoses on their roof then connect that to a shower, for a simple solar heated shower..
Everything in battery adoption comes down to high quality and high volume manufacturing. Quality to convince buyers and volume to reach economies of scale
Not all solid state batteries are the same. Quantumscape's SSB has lithium metal anode and Solid Power's SSB has silicon anode. According to Solid Power's presentation, they are in an early R&D stage of developing their own lithium metal anode SSB which could be years away. Perhaps this is why Solid Power's market cap is only 1/10th of Quantumscape's. It would be good to see a video that compares different technologies of SSB's.
I like the idea of largeish batteries for my 1970s Finnish home. I still have the 3 sqm steel oil storage using one room in my garage. I'm using heatpumps only now so it's just sitting there...
This is a great video. I used to listen to Dr Bill Wittenberg on KGO (a SF based talk radio show). I’m pretty sure he mentioned having built some kind of an underground heat storage on his property. Not sure if it was heated with wood or some other means. Probably used the heat to heat his home hydronically. (At least that would be my preference.) Anyway this video reminded me of his comment. It shouldn’t be too hard to build but determining the size needed would require some engineering.
Great info. Good level of detail while still understandable by the average educated person. I have worked in some of the traditional power industry fields and as an amateur tinkerer I’ve played with several power generation technologies like concentrated Solar power and Hydrogen. The biggest problem with hydrogen I have found is that extracting hydrogen takes about as much power as it produces. Sorry for the long intro. Are there any studies on using hydrogen as a power storage medium instead of a power source? There is very little power loss. When collecting Hydrogen using electrolysis. And then feeding it back through a fuel cell on demand.
one type of battery im interested in is hemp batteries. you take hemp and bake it at 350F for like 24 hours iirc. its basically a regular li-ion battery afaik otherwise. but by baking hemp like that you create carbon sheets that can then be used for the membrane in batteries. and its already being mass produced in wisconsin.
Love these videos.. request!.. can you look more into upcoming and next Gen at home purchase & or project availabilities.. like the solid state off grid battery you did recently.. keep going man thanks
hey about heat capture in ice piston engines, why not use wax based steam type engine, wax has high heat capacity and higher boiling temp than water. for a steam engine. point is, it can store all the heat that is produced by the engine and convert it to motion. 350C boiling point to liquefy the gas wax, and transfer final heat cycle out of the engine
One thing that has to be considered when moving energy from solar or wind to a thermal source is the requirement for water. To convert heat to electricity requires a steam driven turbine. A 240MW combined cycle power plant in my area uses 1.25 million gallons of water per day to generate power. It affects where this type of storage should go: only where water is plentiful.
Great video as always Matt. There is so much going on in the battery world it must be hard to keep track of it. Samsung just announced this week their SSB for mass production in 2027 with several big car OEMs on board to use them.
at 08:04 you mention the dimension of the smaller unit of batsand as 40m3. Their website indicates Size L x W x D 140 cm x 72 cm x 55 cm (0.55m3), Weight 142 Kgs.
I'm keeping an Ion on Graphene Aluminum-Ion Batteries. I think Graphene and other nano technologies are going to be big in the future. The batteries charge fast, don't get as hot when doing so, and are recyclable.
For what it's worth the R/C hobby power Lipoly batteries with Graphene cathodes are proving to have some larger capacity and have high discharge rates, and they don't get as hot when working close to their C limits
What interests me is the sand batteries. They can be heated in various ways, such as solar, gas, or geothermal. The output is electricity at 90% efficiency. What was not mentioned was the optimum temperature ranges for getting electricity out. Is the temperature metal melting, or could it be something closer to boiling water?
They're mostly not used for electricity. They're mostly used for storing heat. Which is actually quite useful because heating is one of the biggest loads in many applications (like buildings). The internal temperature inside most of them is very high because that's good for efficiency, but that doesn't mean the output must be at very high temperatures.
Concentrating Solar Plants store their energy as heat, it's incredibly efficient because none of the source sunlight is wasted, it all gets used to heat the salt medium. And Moltex Energy's Safe Salt Reactor does exactly the same thing, melts a vat of salt with the heat from the fission. This means that even though it's a Small Modular Reactor, it's low GWt output is used to heat a salt vat when power demands are low and when demands get too high, above what the reactor can produce, the output is boosted by combining the heat in the salt vat with the maximum output of the reactor
You can rank thermal storage materials by dividing their specific heat by their specific cost, ie kJ/kg / $/kg giving kJ/$. Personally, I think phase change materials are the way to go, because melting a material requires lots of energy.
Love the channel Matt - Energy Production and Storage are major areas of development and I am glad to see someone actually taking the time to examine these developments and weigh their cost / benefit. Too many others get caught up in political dialectics rather than focus on science and engineering. Energy is too important a topic to leave to pundits and talking heads. Keep up the good work!
I don’t think I would trust him with any technical research, considering he still hasn’t done anything about the scam solid-state battery he promoted a few weeks ago.
I am curious to see how well the semi solid battery will fare in all aspects against conventional lithium-ion batteries. 24M tech looks promising.. could be the next breakthrough!
I've seen quite a few companies claiming they can use second hand EV batteries to create grid level storage options. There must be still a fair bit of life in them once they are no longer suitable for EV use for this to be viable. Could be an option for both reusing EV batteries and also supplying cheaper grid level storage. Solid State batteries could definitely be a way forward for longer life of batteries as well. I am on the fence with Sodium batteries still, Maybe good for grid level storage, but it may take a while before they can be small enough for EV and electronics use. I defintely like the idea of heat storage systems, which they are calling "sand batteries" for things like heating, and for some solutions, they could repalce fossil fuel powered stema generators for power plants that may need to be used to hel bolster renewables in the gird
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saw a video on "3D current collector" potentially increasing EV range by 30% and was wondering if that was legit and if it can pair with a Sodium Ion Battery
"an eye on"
Hi Matt, promising stuff. How is the world of mining minerals coming along and making it more eco friendly? Less intens on the use of pfas and other pollutants? Regards, Radboud
2:50 - Manganese, not magnesium.(?)
From the study referenced, "In this study, Mg and Sc are chosen as dopants in P2-Na0.67Ni0.33Mn0.67O2, and both have found to positively impact the cycling stability, but influence the high voltage regime in different ways." I was talking Magnesium and the dopants used. Here's the full study if you're interested: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202309842. Also, I include a citations link in the description of each video (here's this video's script/citations): undecidedmf.com/top-5-new-battery-technologies-to-follow-in-2024/
Sodium Ion tech is still the one that I'm the most excited about. Safe batteries that are easy to make with abundant materials? Hell yeah.
Perfect for grid storage. Loooong lifespan is crucial here
I'd love cheap battery storage for my house.
Except the batteries from northvolt and from the study he mentioned completely negate that advantage by using Nickel and Cobalt. How is that even an improvement over LFP, a chemistry that uses only Lithium and also gets better energy density? Maybe CATL batteires are better but I dont even know at this point.
I'm just sad it's not commercializing into home use.
I only need like 10kWh to power my house overnight. I could probably skate by with 6 if I needed.
If I had a large enough sodium battery 🔋 I could probably recharge even on a cloudy day with the right roof array.
Sigh
@@NerfThisBoardGames it's probably only a matter of time. once demand goes up and the manufacturing process gets cheap and easy, it will spread to mainstream, at least I hope so
Sodium Ion honestly makes me extremely excited for stationary storage bases. Between Starlink, solar perovskites, and sodium ion home batteries I’m getting more and more excited to build a cabin in the mountains someday everyday.
0:33 "So, what kinds of batteries am I keeping an ion". hahaha, I see what you did there. 😜
@@ChrispyNut Nerds 🙄
@@ChrispyNut ikr 🤣
@@kh9242that's rude
I heard that too.
Came to say this lol
One of the biggest drawbacks to large scale desalination (other than the power required) has always been what to do with the concentrated salt solution after the potable water has been made. It would need further purification, but those Sodium Battery plants might be a good candidate for using the salts.
There's lithium in seawater too - and pretty much the entire rest of the periodic system as well, at very low concentrations. Water isn't known as the "universal solvent" for nothing... :) We might not be able to fill all our lithium needs from desalination, but it could be a good start, and as you mention, we'd end up with crabloads of sodium as well...
Just gotta find somewhere to get rid of all that chlorine, once we've extracted those salts. Ugh. :)
@@lennyvalentin6485 Swimming pools
@@michiganengineer8621 I do often wonder if it would be feasible or not to just use marine drone vessels to send it out to sea and release it slowly across the course of many nautical miles, kind of streaming off the back like a salt truck. Because in theory wouldn’t the water cycle just ensure the salt content of the water is balanced? Water always eventually makes its way back to the ocean, it’s not like we feasibly truly can just delete it. So the salt would be a relatively high concentration for a short time but then go back to neutral after dissolving and being pushed around the currents, no?
I feel that it would be better to incentive finding industrial or otherwise productive uses for the waste, similar to how pigs are turned into thousands of products after they're butchered, or how sawdust and shavings from timber are repurposed. Just throwing it back into the ocean feels like sweeping dust under the rug.
@@cameronf3343 In theory it should
For those wondering like me. The Picture for batsand at 5:00 is the heatexchanger/ controlunit. The mentioned 40m^3 are to be buried outside and connected to said exchanger
Like in a pyramid for example?
Thanks!
Thanks so much.
Not to pull the rug out, but I wouldn’t trust him for any of these technical topics. He happily promoted that scam solid-state battery a few weeks ago, and still hasn’t done anything to attract it even though it’s been proven to use a standard lithium battery.
@@Neberheim see my other comment to you about this. I’m working on a follow-up investigation.
Cheaper batteries as long as the efficiency is good even if the energy density is not great is an interesting thing for prototyping, DIY, off-grid home applications!
Indeed. I worry about chasing higher energy density as it just makes failures a bigger problem due to more energy released. Having a bigger less energy dense battery makes more sense for stationary storage, as you have a better chance of isolating individual cells that fail from setting the whole battery on fire. Personally I just don't feel comfortable with current technologies for home storage, particularly in dense neighbourhoods where a single house fire could spread quickly.
Switching to technologies that don't self ignite or release toxic gases is all very well, but it getting insanely hot will still start a fire or couse you major burns if its a phone in your pocket, or some of the more worrying things like rings that might be hard to remove fast enough.
Wow! There are so many new battery "Breakthroughs" and yet we still use the same 30+ year old battery tech. I wonder, when the new amazing batteries enter the market and change the world. I have been waiting for at least 10 years now.
If MAtt is "reporting" on something, you can be alsmost sure it is at least one of the following things: shill talk, vaporware or outright scam.
Because current big players do everything to maintain status quo - any breakthrough means end of monopoly.
I always liked gravitational storage.
Whether 2 lakes at different levels or a crane lifting and lowering huge concrete blocks :)
Pumped-Storage - it's been a thing for literally decades, half a century in fact.
I have always been keen on the idea of using old mines for pumped hydro. Both surface and underground operations...... If you are able to get an underground mine that is close to closing, they would be perfect for pumped hydro. Obviously the size of the openings underground, depth etc will effect the capacity.
Yea! A paper, where I am a co-author, appears in the YT video!!!
At what point in video?
@@joep5170At 2:05
@@joep5170 2:06
I always look at people like you who do all these researches and publish all these papers with great admiration. You guys are making our civilization advance, keep up the good work! 🫶
'what batteries are you keeping an ion" killed me - bravo
Those drone shots of battery farms at the start of the video make me wonder why they aren't roofed in solar panels.
I know right. Most of the big factories and distribution centers in my area have panels on them. It almost seems like a no brainer.
Maybe the roof couldn't take it or there were some problems with regulations
@@broadsword6650 Just a guess, but it's probably because they need overhead access to the battery units to lift them in and out of place with a crane. Can't do that if there's a roof over them.
@@richardmillhousenixon The batteries appear to be in metal containers, though - so either they could be slid out, or the panels could be moveable.
@@broadsword6650 They just pull the entire container out.
The electric eel is a rechargable sodium-ion battery that is self replicating, safe for the environment, with zero fire incidents over it's long development.
Amazon currently carries several versions but shockingly there's no competition despite it's high potential.
Its green but has a high consumption rate, and is temperamental.
Excellent report and research, well done.
if you look at the periodic table you will notice that Sodium is in the same column (2) as Lithium.
It has similar properties, it also blows up in water, but it is much more abundant, and its properties are better understood.
Also, the news this week were the magical golf balls on the floor of the ocean that generate electricity and make oxygen.
This is huge ! Removing lithium from the equation is a game changer in long term storage. Obviously were years away from out of the box residential systems. In 5 to 10 years things could really be different. Its very exciting to me. Ty Matt as always ! Looking forward to the follow ups on this one
Some time ago I read about this thing called Pumped Heat, which stores energy as heat but by the compression of a gas to create that heat and an expansion side to create a cold side. So here it isnt really storing energy as heat, but more accurately as a temperature difference. Its a closed system too
that's just the refrigeration cycle used by heatpumps\fridges\air conditioners.
Enovix is already ramping production of a pure Si anode battery, they are at least a year ahead of Amprius and their batteries are much cheaper. Sila only makes a Si anode material that they sell to battery OEMs, they have no plans to make their own batteries from what I've heard them say.
Yeah, he’s done a bunch of battery videos yet has never mentioned Enovix, wonder why?
On Tuesday I talked to an Amprius VP who is in charge of building their new factory in Brighton near Denver International Airport. Once their factory - which is huge - is fully operational they'll be producing at considerable scale and their target market - drones and surveillance satellites - are hungry for their products.
@@mv80401 When will they be in full production, what customers have they lined up, what is the energy density and cost per Watt hour, how many cycles can it do before degradation starts are some of the questions I'd love to ask him.
I never knew this process was so fascinating.
The Amprius facility in Colorado is not in production yet. They haven't even moved in at this time. I drive by it daily.
I was wondering about this. He must have been confused on that point.
Yeah that monster place was a Kmart distribution center. Then a Costco center. It is now empty. I was in there during Kmart days for electrical work on the crazy conveyor system.
If that conveyor is still there, Amprius is gonna have a ton to do to clear it out before tooling up and moving in.
Planned for 2025. ASAP is what is needed to get to GWH production over the Calf facility. Cells are mostly used for various aircraft due to their high energy density (and cost).
@@hallkbrdz Yes. I have been in contact with a VP at Amprius and he indicated the designs for the interior layout/construction were almost complete. That was about a month ago.
What was funny was during the planning and zoning stage with the city, residents were complaining that they would end up with lithium in their water. Mostly because of its close location to one of the cities water treatment facility (across the street).
Which, is of course, complete nonsense.
Great overview - as a mining executive, that also holds various lithium projects, this development is critical to watch and understand
Very useful for home power backup system is sodium ion battery
Matt the most challenging metals in battery are copper and aluminium and steel for the casing. For NMC Nickel is important for LFP Iron is the replacement. The lithium is 10% by weight of these other metals. This is the same for Sodium as a replacement for lithium.
LFP is all we have in my country, Lithium is old news and worse for the environment. I'm perplexed why the US doesn't have LFP batteries.
@@francois7355 China 'copied' the LFP technology from a Canadian patented process. This patent prevented development in the US and Asia because they have laws.
@@johndinsdale1707 interesting to know that, thanks for the info.
I'm in the Southern Hemisphere, I saw a VOX video where they spoke about the import bans from China, I understand there is politics involved. But letting the average consumer suffer by hindering their access to better technology...
Excuse my poor English, it's not my first language.
There was a recent article on how MIT has come up with a way to make concrete a battery. That will be pretty cool to have every house have a battery built in to it.
0:32 “Keeping an ion” 😂
You beat me to it. Such a try hard. 😝
👍
@@ChrispyNut As revenge you could resort to a salt and battery.
@@feraudyh But then you could be brought up on charges.
@@farmergiles1065 I'm positive he'd put up some resistance to that, resulting in a negative outcome.
Though I'd remain relatively neutral.
I came looking for this comment! Glad I wasn't the only one!
I love your optimism. The industry needs optimism to succeed. Keep it up!
I'm looking forward to thermal batteries for home/business use. Low BTU models have existed for thousands of years but denser storage sounds wonderful.
Re Sand for thermal storage. We are rapidly running out of building sand, used in concrete and mortar; actually, really rapidly. The good news is, that thermal can use any old sand, like desert sand, which is of no use in construction, and is abundant.
Thanx. Besides the Sodium battery, I'm waiting to the iron-air battery by Form Energy.
Quite well researched! Thank you. Just subscribed!
EOS Energy Enterprises' zinc based batteries look good for long duration storage solutions, worth keeping an eye on
ESS Inc, in Wilsonville Oregon makes iron flow batteries and is in production now. They have I believe several dozen 500 kWh units in place with utilities and commercial users now...
Definitely a lot to be excited about and hopefully more of these come to market soon
Your videos are great! You explain all you topics so well. Thank you for your content.
Sandy Munro's podcast featured the SAKUU printed dry battery that saves up to 25 percent manufacturing cost and material with improved performance and safety on the best lithium battery cells. I missed that in your report.
Excellent overview piece. The only issue I have is in the silicon battery (silicon anode) segment it focuses on three albeit fine companies (Amprius, OneD, Sila) but overlooks the leader in supplying silicon anode material - Group14 Technologies. Group14 is about to commission the first "EV scale" silicon anode plant in the world with its JV with SK in Korea (2,000 MT/yr. or 10 GWh) and has two more of the same scale under constructoin in Moses Lake, WA that will come on line in the next 6 months. No one else is even close to that reality in manufacturing scale-up.
@UndecidedMF12 I sent you an email with more detail than it makes sense to list here. If it did not get through, please let me know here and I'll resend.
What I like about the BatSand is that I can have a matching power source for my BatLight.
The best thing about thermal batterys is that you dont need a battery at all, only a charging system as you can use the dirt sand and rock underneath structuures (like your house) as the thermal medium. Not nearly as efficient without isolation but it will hold enormus amounts of energy. And im sure on new structures insulation can be build in and the batterys themselves can be used as structural elements.
Great video! For some reason the use of the word "salt" instead of Sodium bothered me =D There is no reason to consider Sodium more or less of a salt than Lithium from a chemical perspective.
I would love an update on Aluminum Sulfur batteries. They seemed to have huge potential in a not so long a time frame.
They're still in the lab and wont be out for at least 5 more years from what I last was hearing about them
Old , simple ways are sometimes still viable. Water cisterns in basement for storing rainwater. Pumping through PEX in floors, as heat or cooling.
What about storing energy as compressed gas? There was a concept a few years ago where a company was offering compressed gas powered forklifts. You get an air compressor that would fill up bottles and then you put that bottle onto the truck in the same way you do for LPG powered trucks.
It takes 100 times more power to compress than what you get out... not a good thing
I use PCMs with compute to heat my house. Much higher energy density because it incorporates phase change than Rondo's Bricks (My wife works for Rondo) and the PCMs can be 'tuned' with nano metal particles to hit the right temperature band. Finally, some thermal discussion @undecidedMF. 'bout time.
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I can't wait to upgrade my electric moped to Mr. Fusion!! Thanks Matt!
Thanks for doing the research. Some interesting stuff in there.
Heh, you're keeping an ion batteries for us. Much appreciated.
Do you happen to know what kind of batteries the engineers at the Parallel company are using for their autonomous rail cars? Have you done an episode on autonomous rail cars yet?
Thanks for sharing this Matt. Cheers.
Iron Air seems more energy dense still... glad too see all the science getting done too. Those carbon dioxide compressed air batteries looked good too.
Living off grid I would be very much interested in sand batteries. Both for heating the house, hot water and electricity.
So I have my eyes out for Batsand in Latvia.
Sodium Ion seems like the most achievable but I remember reading a science journal that mentioned an Aluminum batter tech that seems like no one is taking about.
I keep an ion Energiestro who makes VOSS to store energy in flywheels. Looks promising for individual house storage.
You missed another thermal energy storage method, and that is to cover a swimming pool that have been so readily abundant and use that water as the medium. It's been tested in Arizona and Florida.
I wish you would cover the October 28 demonstration of the ECat NGU charging a Twizzy EV for 5 hours while driving on a racetrack and the Twizzy without the ECat ran out of power in 1 hour and the Twizzy with the ECat had a higher charge than that of the start of the demonstration. It’s been said by the inventor the ECat could potentially run for 30,000 hours
Steffes ETS has been making off peak brick heaters starting in the 1960's and I use them to heat my place. There bricks are better than sand.
Really want to see a comparison between Amprius & Graphene Manufacturing Group & a couple other top contenders for future batteries. Thanks!
Silicon sounds like it will be 1st to market on a large scale. I'm really interested in the solid state and Sodium Ion myself.
I'd like to hear more about sodium sulphur tech. I understand that they have one of the highest energy densities.
Pointing out the water heater in every home is a thermal energy storage battery blew my mind. I wonder how difficult it would be to concentrate solar into a off the shelf water heater and use it's heat to warm a building through the night? Further if the concentration of the solar was a roof top system it'd cool during the day by diverting energy that otherwise would have gone down into the building.
It's already been around, for decades (centries actually but not in modern form). It's pretty universal as well, in country's with a lot of sunlight for example you'll often see a silver metal canisters on the roofs to heat water than then supports heating and washing needs. In more northern climes your find glass tube or matt panel systems doing similar. Modern versions also use heat pumps to increase the rate of energy extraction from the panels into water based thermal stores.
Cooling is a little more difficult as you have to have a temperature difference to convect the heat away from the roof, often though the outside temperature is higher than the inside temperature so this tends not to work. Although, there are systems that use white panels with a special radiative paint that cools buildings by radiating infrared light off into space.
@@GruffSillyGoat Yea it's also similar to the concept of a boiler room making hot water to distribute to buildings, but that tends to be powered by fossil fuels. But it shows that we have already thought about hot water distribution into radiators to heat buildings. I've just never thought about catching sunlight to skip the nasty fossil fuels for this. I mean, I've also seen people just line up a bunch of black hoses on their roof then connect that to a shower, for a simple solar heated shower..
6:01 Why is a low specific heat good? Wouldn't you want a high specific heat so it can absorb more heat per given unit of mass/volume?
Everything in battery adoption comes down to high quality and high volume manufacturing. Quality to convince buyers and volume to reach economies of scale
Thank you and have a great week.
I was surprised you didn’t mention Enervenue.
Not all solid state batteries are the same. Quantumscape's SSB has lithium metal anode and Solid Power's SSB has silicon anode. According to Solid Power's presentation, they are in an early R&D stage of developing their own lithium metal anode SSB which could be years away. Perhaps this is why Solid Power's market cap is only 1/10th of Quantumscape's. It would be good to see a video that compares different technologies of SSB's.
Using waist heat from industry to heat buildings is a great way to save energy.
New intro song slaps, old one was good, but this one is a nice change.
Another great video as usual 👏
I like the idea of largeish batteries for my 1970s Finnish home. I still have the 3 sqm steel oil storage using one room in my garage. I'm using heatpumps only now so it's just sitting there...
at :58, you meant "conducive", not "conductive."
If you store heat in sand, can we have a sand pit under ground in our yard, store the heat from summer and extract it in the winter via a heatpump?
I'm keeping my eyes on Amprius Tech, Natron Energy, and SES AI.
This is a great video.
I used to listen to Dr Bill Wittenberg on KGO (a SF based talk radio show). I’m pretty sure he mentioned having built some kind of an underground heat storage on his property. Not sure if it was heated with wood or some other means. Probably used the heat to heat his home hydronically. (At least that would be my preference.) Anyway this video reminded me of his comment. It shouldn’t be too hard to build but determining the size needed would require some engineering.
Square footage is fine, but go up or down and then you can stack multiple.
Really good video. Informative. Thx
Would be nice to compare what we have right now in term of energy storage characteristics
Great info. Good level of detail while still understandable by the average educated person.
I have worked in some of the traditional power industry fields and as an amateur tinkerer I’ve played with several power generation technologies like concentrated Solar power and Hydrogen. The biggest problem with hydrogen I have found is that extracting hydrogen takes about as much power as it produces.
Sorry for the long intro. Are there any studies on using hydrogen as a power storage medium instead of a power source? There is very little power loss. When collecting Hydrogen using electrolysis. And then feeding it back through a fuel cell on demand.
one type of battery im interested in is hemp batteries. you take hemp and bake it at 350F for like 24 hours iirc. its basically a regular li-ion battery afaik otherwise. but by baking hemp like that you create carbon sheets that can then be used for the membrane in batteries. and its already being mass produced in wisconsin.
Love these videos.. request!.. can you look more into upcoming and next Gen at home purchase & or project availabilities.. like the solid state off grid battery you did recently.. keep going man thanks
Just be warned, that solid state battery is fake. it’s just a standard lithium battery like any other power bank
hey about heat capture in ice piston engines, why not use wax based steam type engine, wax has high heat capacity and higher boiling temp than water. for a steam engine. point is, it can store all the heat that is produced by the engine and convert it to motion. 350C boiling point to liquefy the gas wax, and transfer final heat cycle out of the engine
One thing that has to be considered when moving energy from solar or wind to a thermal source is the requirement for water. To convert heat to electricity requires a steam driven turbine. A 240MW combined cycle power plant in my area uses 1.25 million gallons of water per day to generate power. It affects where this type of storage should go: only where water is plentiful.
Thank so much
Check out Nano One Materials too.. might be a stop gap to help in Lithium migration.
Great video as always Matt. There is so much going on in the battery world it must be hard to keep track of it. Samsung just announced this week their SSB for mass production in 2027 with several big car OEMs on board to use them.
at 08:04 you mention the dimension of the smaller unit of batsand as 40m3. Their website indicates Size L x W x D 140 cm x 72 cm x 55 cm (0.55m3), Weight 142 Kgs.
Very slightly seasoned, WAS what I was thinking when you mentioned doping. ;-)
love the new intro!
I'm keeping an Ion on Graphene Aluminum-Ion Batteries. I think Graphene and other nano technologies are going to be big in the future. The batteries charge fast, don't get as hot when doing so, and are recyclable.
For what it's worth the R/C hobby power Lipoly batteries with Graphene cathodes are proving to have some larger capacity and have high discharge rates, and they don't get as hot when working close to their C limits
What interests me is the sand batteries. They can be heated in various ways, such as solar, gas, or geothermal. The output is electricity at 90% efficiency.
What was not mentioned was the optimum temperature ranges for getting electricity out. Is the temperature metal melting, or could it be something closer to boiling water?
They're mostly not used for electricity. They're mostly used for storing heat. Which is actually quite useful because heating is one of the biggest loads in many applications (like buildings). The internal temperature inside most of them is very high because that's good for efficiency, but that doesn't mean the output must be at very high temperatures.
Salt batteries can also use a waste product of water desalination, so win/ win.
Still holding out hope for the aluminum sodium batteries for grid storage.
I'm hearing German audio in this one 😮 awesome.
Concentrating Solar Plants store their energy as heat, it's incredibly efficient because none of the source sunlight is wasted, it all gets used to heat the salt medium.
And Moltex Energy's Safe Salt Reactor does exactly the same thing, melts a vat of salt with the heat from the fission.
This means that even though it's a Small Modular Reactor, it's low GWt output is used to heat a salt vat when power demands are low and when demands get too high, above what the reactor can produce, the output is boosted by combining the heat in the salt vat with the maximum output of the reactor
All of them.
I think each of them have advantages and disadvantages.
The Thermal batteries could also recycle excess heat from industrial processes.
You can rank thermal storage materials by dividing their specific heat by their specific cost, ie kJ/kg / $/kg giving kJ/$.
Personally, I think phase change materials are the way to go, because melting a material requires lots of energy.
Graphene Manufacturing Group (GMG). They seem to have a pretty cool battery that is more sustainable and durable .
Love the channel Matt - Energy Production and Storage are major areas of development and I am glad to see someone actually taking the time to examine these developments and weigh their cost / benefit. Too many others get caught up in political dialectics rather than focus on science and engineering. Energy is too important a topic to leave to pundits and talking heads. Keep up the good work!
I don’t think I would trust him with any technical research, considering he still hasn’t done anything about the scam solid-state battery he promoted a few weeks ago.
I am curious to see how well the semi solid battery will fare in all aspects against conventional lithium-ion batteries. 24M tech looks promising.. could be the next breakthrough!
5:44 The way Americans say "squirrel" as one syllable will never not be funny to me
Sqwerrrrrrrl
@@AGeekTragedy As compared to "squiddle," amirite??😁
Not all of us do! For this American it's skwur-uhl
@@evanstein3011stop it, you’re embarrassing me. -Another American
My foster daughter calls them "Disney Rats"
I've seen quite a few companies claiming they can use second hand EV batteries to create grid level storage options. There must be still a fair bit of life in them once they are no longer suitable for EV use for this to be viable. Could be an option for both reusing EV batteries and also supplying cheaper grid level storage. Solid State batteries could definitely be a way forward for longer life of batteries as well.
I am on the fence with Sodium batteries still, Maybe good for grid level storage, but it may take a while before they can be small enough for EV and electronics use.
I defintely like the idea of heat storage systems, which they are calling "sand batteries" for things like heating, and for some solutions, they could repalce fossil fuel powered stema generators for power plants that may need to be used to hel bolster renewables in the gird