
A Battery Revolution in Motion - vmarsy
https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/a-battery-revolution-in-motion
======
hbbio
This is great news (and from a trusted source, CNRS is one of the most
prestigious research institute in France, state-owned).

As the article says, it's not about having the most performing batteries (they
announce 90 Wh/kg which is below Li-ion batteries) but _cheaper_ batteries,
made of salt instead of Lithium. And it matters for many use cases.

~~~
AnthonBerg
Re. the Wh/kg figure - If the sodium chemistry has properties comparable to
lithium IRON (LiFePO4) in other respects, such as safety and robustness, then
the 90Wh/kg figure is quite good in that comparison. The LiFePo4 chemistry is
quite interesting and very stable and a drop-in-and-forget-about-it
replacement for lead-acid battires, which is harder to do with the more
sensitive and aggressive high-Wh Li-ion stuff. Afaik Tesla use LiFePo4.

~~~
nine_k
PO, not Po, please. Po is Polonium, the real death metal.

~~~
AnthonBerg
haha! Thanks :)

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datashovel
I think this touches on an important point. According to the article, Earth's
crust contains 0.06% lithium and 2.6% sodium. I think it will be critical for
the future of manufacturing (and especially for things like storage of energy)
to find workable solutions using abundant elements.

Without the most critical infrastructure (for example batteries for storage of
energy) being built using abundant elements there's a strong risk of a lot of
instability in markets in the future. Shortages, etc.

I think if a workable solution exists using abundant materials (regardless if
it's the most perfect solution) it should be used. Otherwise I imagine there
are plenty of hedge funds on Wall Street who will be more than happy to start
stocking up on critical raw materials in short supply.

~~~
olau
One possibility being investigated by Siemens is thermal stone storage.

Basically you dig up a gigantic hole in the ground, line it with insulation,
put the dirt back in and send hot air through it (500-600 C). Then when you
need the power, you connect a turbine to it and can use the heat to drive it.

I'm glossing over some details, but that's the basic operation. Last thing I
heard about it they were going to build a demonstration project in Germany.

~~~
jacquesm
You can use a similar thermal mass trick under a house if you're looking to
balance day/night energy consumption. This can have a very large impact on
your bills, payback times are on the order of about a decade, much shorter
than the projected lifetime of a house.

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mhandley
Seems like these Sodium batteries would be well-suited to grid load-shifting,
rather than anything mobile. They're likely to be cheaper than lithium
batteries and cope with more charge cycles, but heavier. Pretty much exactly
what you'd want for load-shifting for solar/wind power, but not ideal for
vehicles (weight matters) or anything portable unless they were a lot cheaper,
or cope with many more charge cycles.

~~~
oconnore
It's going to be tough to beat pumped water and thermal storage:
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2014/03/electricity-s...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2014/03/electricity-
storage)

80% efficiency and they scale with the size of your water tank or gravel pit.

~~~
marcosdumay
What I don't get is why there's so little work on open flow batteries. Those
should also scale with the size of your tank, but you'll need much smaller
tanks.

But well, last time I looked at plugging anything into the grid, the inverting
hardware was the cost bottleneck, so maybe that's why. I just don't really
know it anymore.

~~~
oconnore
There seems to be plenty of research, but making them economical seems quite
complicated, and they don't have the density for mobile applications.

The baseline for grid scale storage is pumping water up a hill. That's pretty
tough to beat.

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VeejayRampay
For clarification, the CNRS is a French public organisation, whose name stands
for National Center for Scientific Research. Their research and findinds
usually bear weight in the scientific community.

~~~
StavrosK
Ah, yes, the Center National for Research Scientific.

~~~
jloughry
French is little-endian. English is big-endian.

~~~
StavrosK
Haha, the French would claim it's the other way around.

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cconcepts
In terms of mass energy storage from intermittent renewable sources, this
seems like a winner - less cost means increased competitiveness for renewable
energy.

However, it seems like energy density will be the winning factor in consumer
battery tech which, as far as I can tell, appears to be a significant chunk of
the EXISTING market. This is something that Na ion doesn't yet seem
competitive at - which is not to say that it won't get better with
time/investment/research.

Unless lithium gets crazy expensive, I don't see the battery being a big
enough expense in a laptop or mobile phone for people to be willing to put up
with more weight for an incremental price saving.

This is definitely great news for renewable energy though.

~~~
static_noise
Sodium atoms have a much higher molecular weight (22.99 u) than Lithium atoms
(6.94 u). This alone makes Lithium more competitive by weight in the long run.

The ideal battery consists of two electrodes where one consists purely of the
alkali metal in the charged state and the other one is weightless at the
charged state but then collects the metal oxide when discharging. The oxygen
is ideally taken from the air.

Currently we are far from that ideal since the electrodes contain additional
matrix materials, between the electrodes an electrolyte is present, the
oxidizing agent is stored inside the battery requiring yet other chemicals to
keep it stable. Then the battery needs a casing which adds more weight.

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Gladdyu
There seems to be a 'revolution' in battery tech every so often or so out of
R&D labs. So far, the promised improvements have not yet made their way into
mainstream, commercial batteries: higher production costs, lower capacity or
lesser lifespan.

I hope this one sticks, although I would not bet on it.

~~~
audunw
It seems they're closer than the "breakthroughs" you usually hear about. My
impression is that the prototype is a product prototype, i.e. something
they're actually testing and trying to design products around, rather than
just a lab prototype.

------
unicornporn
> Lithium's only disadvantage is its (relative) rareness, and the fact that it
> is only found in a few specific locations (Columbia, Chile, China, etc.).

So no revolutionary performance advancements (except for no. of recharges),
but mostly a way to address rare earths scarcity.

~~~
mnw21cam
Just to note that Lithium is not a rare earth metal. It is a metal that is
rare on earth. Hope that clarifies everything.

Rare earths are the much heavier lanthanides, as well as scandium and yttrium.

Also, doesn't it feel a little discordant for a French web site to be using
the left-pondian spelling of centimetre?

~~~
kwhitefoot
0.06% of the Earth's crust is hardly rare. What is rare is deposits having a
significantly higher local concentration.

~~~
jloughry
Dilbert: Rocket boosters will move an asteroid into the moon's orbit so we can
mine its precious metals.

Dilbert's Boss: Why don't we mine for precious metals in Afghanistan? They
have lots of them.

Dilbert: That only happens in science fiction.

[1] Edited to add:

[http://dilbert.com/strip/2012-06-20](http://dilbert.com/strip/2012-06-20)

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afarrell
> For the moment, its creators have not disclosed the composition of the
> materials wrapped around the two electrodes of their sodium-ion battery—a
> trade secret.

I wonder if it might make sense for Gates and the Breakthrough Energy
Coalition to just outright buy certain proprietary technologies and put them
in the public domain. If so, I wonder how they should best evaluate if this
might be one such technology.

~~~
legulere
They don't keep it proprietary because they want money, but because they want
the companies producing the batteries to be local ones.

~~~
afarrell
Which I understand from a nationalist perspective, but it also harms
deployment because manufacturing costs are probably higher in France than
Japan or Korea

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legulere
> Its format, called "18650," indicates that it is presented in the form of a
> cylinder, with a diameter of 1.8 centimeters and a height of 6.5
> centimeters.

What a strange way to say express it. Why not say 18 millimeters and 65
millimeters?

~~~
tyho
Never let it be said that HN nitpicks minor issues in articles.

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forrestthewoods
The advantages over lithium-ion are not clear to me. Is it just cost?

~~~
hrvbr
The main point is that lithium is hard to get for European companies. Sodium
is abundant in saltwater, which is good for European companies and good for a
more massive use of batteries (electric cars and home storage).

~~~
patrickk
If they can demonstrate that this battery technology is viable for large grid
storage uses, there is a potentially enormous market for it in Germany. The
problem is that solar pv makes most sense in Southern Germany, where it's
sunnier, but a lot of the power is required further north, so there is a
requirement for major new powerlines to be built[1]. Also, there is wind power
generated in the North Sea that is needed further south.

Providing massive, (relatively) cheap battery backup to these intermittent
power sources could allow Germany to accelerate the transition away from coal,
which they've been forced to use more of due to decommissioning nuclear
plants. If the power companies are willing to invest heavily in infrastructure
for renewables, it bodes well for them investing further in batteries to
improve grid stability and prices.

[1] [http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/electrical-
resis...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/electrical-resistance-
nimby-protests-threaten-germany-s-energy-revolution-a-757658.html)

~~~
ju-st
The problem in Germany is transporting power from wind to the south, and not
transporting power from PV. And Germany didn't use more energy from coal since
the shut down of nuclear. (renewables replaced nuclear)

Cheap batteries would allow every country to move to renewables.

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doczoidberg
> Being three times lighter than sodium ions, lithium ions also make it
> possible to produce very lightweight batteries, an undeniable asset when it
> comes to portable electronics.

So what is the article about? It doesn't mention any real advantages of sodium
ion batteries? Lithium is more rare than Sodium but that should be a minor
disadvantage?

~~~
masklinn
> It doesn't mention any real advantages of sodium ion batteries?

Price, ubiquity (no need to rely on a limited number of lithium providers) and
lifecycle length (number of discharge cycles).

> Lithium is more rare than Sodium but that should be a minor disadvantage?

Rarer means more expensive.

------
mironathetin
I see the point that it is smarter to use Sodium instead of Lithium. But where
is the revolution, as the capacity is comparable? Lets see, if the number of
recharging cycles will really be twice as large (2000 instead of 1000). That
would eat into the revenue, unless the new batteries were sold for a higher
price (which in turn would give them trouble to compete against Lithium).

The main revolution is not a technical one, it is the fact that a big market
may move from Asia to Europe.

If a capacity increase or a weight decrease could be realised, I'd accept the
term 'revolution'.

~~~
scriptproof
Sodium is cheaper, so the battery should be too. This and the technology will
allow solar to replace fuel, here is the revolution.

~~~
mironathetin
Lithium allows solar already to replace fuel. Does it? Sodium is cheaper so
the battery will be cheaper is certainly naive. The prices are not made from
the costs of the components but from the market. Sodium batteries will have
trouble to compete price wise in the beginning, because the production
industry must be build in Europe and compete against an established industry
in Asia. On the long run, you may be right. But for introduction, I have
strong doubts. Needs a good marketing, as they have the same capacity, but are
heavier.

------
steaminghacker
here we go again with another amazing battery breakthrough! remember fuel
cells and how they were going to power your cellphone _real_ soon now.
exactly.

I can tell you now why there will never be a battery with a significantly
greater energy density than we have now. It's because such a thing is also
known as a "bomb".

There are solutions, of course, nature solves this problem with, for example,
sugar. But what you need is a metabolic process for the release of energy.

Anything that's a solid lump of something won't work. don't invest in this.

~~~
jakobegger
Did you even take time to read the article? Using sodium instead of lithium
isn't about making higher density batteries; it's about making cheaper
batteries since sodium is much more abundant than lithium.

~~~
igravious
I thought I read somewhere that in terms of the percentage cost of a battery
the raw materials are fairly insignificant. Don't remember off the top of my
head, I'll have a hunt for some sources and edit this comment. Maybe we'll get
a multi-material battery market, that'd be cool.

~~~
nugga
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTIH6ncIXYc&t=32m20s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTIH6ncIXYc&t=32m20s)
(or 30m0s for the whole story)

According to Elon Musk currently lithium ion battery production steps are
scattered all over the world and this creates enormous overheads and
transportation costs. His plan is to consolidate everything to one place and
get raw materials from the mines and produce batteries on site at his
gigafactory.

