Post · bonfire.cafe

I've posted a few times in the last year or two suggesting sodium ion batteries as an alternative to lithium ion. Cheaper, safer, longer-lived, and easier to manufacture, and to recyclable at EoL. Mainly for fixed installations at this point (eg storage for rooftop solar), because the tech is new and still somewhat bulky.

I recently visited the friends who introduced me to them, as storage in their off-grid systems. They can't praise them enough.

(1/2)

#RenewableEnergy #BatteryTech
#SodiumIon

I've posted a few times about sodium ion batteries, and one of the things I've consistently said is that they're much cheaper than lithium ion;

https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/115358816283772693

Well apparently not at the moment. Demand has outstripped supply, pushing the price up, and as demand for lithium ion drops off relative to the well established supply, prices have dropped.

(1/2)

#batteries #SodiumIon

deutrino

@deutrino@mstdn.io replied · 5 days ago

@strypey ugh. that's annoying, I want to see sodium-ion take over in the consumer UPS space.

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 5 days ago

@deutrino
> I want to see sodium-ion take over in the consumer UPS space

See the second post. The bottleneck is production capacity for sodium ion and other newer storage tech (eg grid scale vanadium flow batteries). But as long as people - and particularly organisations - who can afford it keep making the long term investment in the newer tech during the current price spike, I can't see why production won't ramp up. Soaking up current and future demand and dropping prices again.

deutrino

@deutrino@mstdn.io replied · 5 days ago

@strypey didn't CATL ramp up sodium ion to volume production? I thought I heard that, and that there are a few electric vehicles in China using the tech...

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 5 days ago

@deutrino
> didn't CATL ramp up sodium ion to volume production?

AFAICT production has successfully ramped up from prototype and experimental scale to early adopter scale. But there's still a lot of work to be done to get from there to mainstream scale.

There are a *huge* number of potential applications for sodium ion, both industrial and consumer. Think UPS for cell towers, whose numbers are ballooning because of the way 5G works. Or battery banks as storage for rooftop solar.

deutrino

@deutrino@mstdn.io replied · 5 days ago

@strypey yeah ... I suppose even "volume production" for sodium ion would be nowhere near the current economies of scale for lithium ion.

I just want UPS batteries with lower risk of fire than LFP.

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 5 days ago

@deutrino
> I just want UPS batteries with lower risk of fire than LFP

*No* risk of fire. Yeah, that could also make a big difference to the safety of battery-powered devices people take on planes. EVs that aren't carrying a potential bomb as a battery would be pretty good too : P

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 5 days ago

@deutrino
> I just want UPS batteries with lower risk of fire than LFP

1 more replies (not shown)

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 5 days ago

But sodium ion batteries are made from simpler, more widely available materials than lithium ion. So it won't be too hard for manufacturers around the world to respond to the rising and likely sustained demand for sodium ion, by ramping up production. Ideally in a much wider range of places.

I'd love to see sodium ions being made in Aotearoa for the local market, Ideally in factories owned and run as worker-owned cooperatives.

(2/2)

bonfire.cafe

A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate

bonfire.cafe: About · Code of conduct · Privacy · Users · Instances

Bonfire social · 1.0.0 no JS en

Automatic federation enabled