
New Cobalt-free Li-ion battery reduces costs with similar design and performance - scythe
https://news.utexas.edu/2020/07/14/new-cobalt-free-lithium-ion-battery-reduces-costs-without-sacrificing-performance/
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epistasis
People seriously underestimate both the current economic efficacy of existing
lithium ion batteries, as well as the continuous and seemingly inexorable
improvement in costs. This sort of improvement often doesn't get much news,
but they have been happening at a very consistent rate across manufacturers.

I just hope that other technologies that are better for longer duration
storage don't get overlooked for investment and development on industrial
scales.

~~~
laurencerowe
Longer duration battery storage is going to be very hard to make work
financially since the capital costs are spread across far fewer
charge/discharge cycles. At this point I feel it's more likely that it'll be
cheaper to massively overbuild solar generation capacity to provide enough
power in the winter than build seasonal battery storage.

~~~
SEJeff
Why do you say that? Researcher Jeff Dahn, who is a co-inventor of the lithium
ion battery, has released what he termed a "million mile" electric vehicle
battery. That is a pretty high level of charge / discharge cycles and seems
like it would make stationary storage batteries, such as Tesla Energy's 3MWh
Megapack.

[https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/09/jeff-dahn-claims-new-
po...](https://cleantechnica.com/2019/09/09/jeff-dahn-claims-new-pouch-cells-
could-be-good-for-1-million-miles/)

~~~
laurencerowe
I read 'duration' as the charge/discharge cycle time rather than the battery's
lifetime in number of cycles. Clearly the more cycles a battery can handle the
more cost effective it will be (more cycles over which to amortize the capital
cost) but you still have to pay interest so even if the battery can handle
infinite cycles if you only cycle it once a year (to balance seasonal
differences in generation capacity) it will probably not be cost effective.

I think stationary storage batteries are great, but only for short duration
storage (1 day) rather than long duration storage (months).

~~~
epistasis
Yes, that's precisely what I meant for the term; storage that is economical
even with few discharges cycles per month or maybe even per year.

I am somewhat skeptical that it can work, but flow batteries are still in
their industrial infancy, and with the right sort of cheap stuff to add to
water this could potentially scale very well for some sources.

I also strongly agree that we will likely build renewable sources to match
their output to the seasonal minimum needs, rather than have many TWh of
storage, it I have been so wrong in the past that I no longer want to cut off
potentially promising avenues.

I see our future as being one of electrical energy abundance at nearly all
times, and only a few times a year will there be a crunch to limit
consumption; however as we get used to that abundance, conservation could get
more difficult, and also people will get far more clever with time arbitrage
of energy demand. And once there's a huge market for arbitrage, people will
get more clever to serve that economic need, in ways that we have not yet
anticipated.

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scythe
The approach, detailed in the paper here:

[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adma.2020027...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adma.202002718)

attempts to mimic the performance of the leading lithium-ion battery cathodes,
nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) and nickel-cobalt-aluminium (NCA) by carefully
synthesizing the cobalt-free hybrid nickel-manganese-aluminium (NMA) to mimic
the crystal structure of NMC and NCA. In all cases, the largest fraction of
the cathode is nickel, and cobalt/manganese/aluminium are essentially dopants.
The authors note that manganese and aluminium produce opposing effects on the
crystal structure of lithium-nickel-cobalt oxides, and go on to say:

> _Strikingly, a natural combination of Mn and Al in high-Ni layered oxides,
> i.e., LiNi 1−x−y Mn x Al y O 2 (NMA; suggested by us earlier [8] ), has not
> been reported to our knowledge._

It is definitely surprising that the missing "third leg" between NMC and NCA
has not received more serious attention, if that is true. Manganese and
aluminium are both far more common than cobalt.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
That about half of the world's production comes from the Congo(DRC) also makes
it undesirable. Both because the Congo is unstable but also because it
destabilizes the country. It's like a spiral of chaos for them, which is too
bad because in theory it should be good for them to have an export that brings
in money. The resource curse is unfortunately real.

~~~
d33lio
I'm surprised a few HNW individuals with the help of the UN haven't just
mediated and purchased the land that represents the DRC? It's clear these
people have no clue how to control the land, feed their people or prevent war-
lords from exploiting their own people for slave labor. Why not setup a
situation where the people of the DRC are housed, fed and provided healthcare
from the proceeds of their rare-earths while allowing the western
beneficiaries to use their military to oust violent barbaric war-lords?

~~~
shaggyfrog
This is an incredibly racist and supremely ignorant comment, displaying the
same justifications that fuelled the colonialism in Africa hundreds of years
ago that is still at the root of deeply systemic problems in that continent.

~~~
perl4ever
It could be that it was intended to be ironic. The point could be to equate
paternalistic concerns about human rights with colonialism.

~~~
shaggyfrog
As you can see by the reply, and the downvotes, it was a genuine statement.

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woodandsteel
One of the many mistaken arguments of the fossil fuels forever crowd is that
if there is anything wrong today with ff replacements, we can be absolutely
certain technology will never in the future correct it.

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hammock
Not to mention some of the reportedly horrific conditions around cobalt mining
(child labor etc)

~~~
aaron695
What do you honestly think happens to these labourers, children and adults,
and their communities if cobalt mining is stopped where they live because of
lack of demand?

Can you articulate how their lives get better?

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
The only thing worse than being exploited by foreign capitalists, is not being
exploited by foreign capitalists

~~~
bilbo0s
Depends. Are those foreign capitalists Rwandan warlords?

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
No. The rwandan warlords are also being exploited by foreign capitalists.

~~~
hwillis
There are no rwandan warlords... By far the most influential force among
Congolese miners are Chinese companies

~~~
bilbo0s
Who buy from Rwandan warlords.

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calvinmorrison
I know it's stupid but

Doubling the size of a AA battery seems cheaper than improving the efficiency?

~~~
icedistilled
weight weight weight size size size. It's that important.

Phone batteries, car batteries, drone batteries. Maybe commercial airline
batteries one day.

~~~
azernik
And if you don't care about weight and size, there are better and cheaper
options than lithium anyway.

~~~
sudosysgen
I've been designing and building an ebike, and were at the point where even if
I threw out weight and size off the equation there's not really anything
better than Li-ion for capacity at significant C-rates versus price.

