
Calcium could replace lithium in batteries that store solar and wind power - elorant
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02634-0
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powerset
The tricky part to finding the formula for a good calcium battery (as it was
with lithium batteries) is getting the interface reaction to work. It's a
complicated reaction that is hard to understand or predict. Brute forcing
different combinations will take a long time because the search space is
large. There is some work going on to make better simulations to speed up the
brute force search. I'm not a battery expert; this is all second-hand from a
friend who is working on calcium battery simulation.

~~~
pkaye
Maybe add AI into solving this problem. Battery technology and AI. Should
attract the VC money.

~~~
olliej
And a blockchain to track usage. That will get the slightly behind the times
VC funds :)

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NikolaeVarius
Article doesn't say much, nor does the abstract I found.

[https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/EE/C9EE0...](https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/EE/C9EE01699F#!divAbstract)

Literally just "something is possible" with no other discussion about
capabilities

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Animats
Seeing a battery article in Nature has become a bad sign. They consistently
blow up a minor result in chemistry into "world-changing event Real Soon Now".

It would be amusing to have an feature on, say, Elektrik, that shows battery
articles from 1, 2, and 5 years ago.

~~~
amelius
[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534866/why-we-dont-
have-b...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534866/why-we-dont-have-battery-
breakthroughs/)

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newsreview1
Interesting article. Though the new reaction with flourine was better than
"any other calcium based electrolyte" how did it compare to lithium based
models?

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dwheeler
> Though the new reaction with flourine was better than "any other calcium
> based electrolyte" how did it compare to lithium based models?

I noticed that omission right away.

I'm assuming that it's nowhere near as good as lithium, or it'd say so.

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xutopia
"could" count of 11

"might" count of 4

I'll believe it when I see it.

~~~
hinkley
I really hope they aren't making them in mice.

~~~
Forbo
For anyone who might not get the reference:
[https://medium.com/@jamesheathers/in-mice-
explained-77b61b59...](https://medium.com/@jamesheathers/in-mice-
explained-77b61b598218)

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pbalau
This "article" is idiotic. These batteries wont be able to store electricity
generated from nuclear power?

~~~
duckerude
Solar and wind power are variable. They can't deliver power at night or when
there's no wind. So to make them viable as the main source of energy they need
batteries, to store a surplus during peak hours that can be used up when
production is low.

Nuclear energy doesn't have that problem, so it doesn't have such a need for
batteries.

