I’ve been hearing about these for a few years now. Huge if they work out at a large scale.

  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
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    29 days ago

    I’ve been doing some looking into sodium ion batteries for the last couple of months and it sounds like it’s going to drastically reduce the price of batteries and sodium ion is more thermally stable and can handle cold temperatures of negative 40 and can handle hot temperatures.

    I’m also hearing charge cycle counts around 10,000, which would be something like 20 years worth of battery usage.

    The current downside is power density and even that is not terrible as it’s pretty close to what LFP does now and They think they can improve it more in the future.

    Sodium ion is already being used in some mass market cars that don’t need an incredible range, but need to be economical.

    • AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml
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      29 days ago

      If it’s cheap and abundant enough you can have overcapacity and it easily lasts 30 years - which apparently is an important breakpoint for infrastructure project funding.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        It’s the maintenance period on lots of infrastructure.

        What it means isnthe private investors are more likely to bid to build power storage infrastructure for governments because it’s less likely they’ll ever have to change out the cells during the contract.

        On the flip side, governments would kinda like them to work for 25 years so they’ll go 50 years without having to buy new cells.

    • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      Heck, if energy density is an issue the use this initially for grid storage, home solar, etc. where a larger size isn’t a huge deal. That would increase existing lithium ion supplies for EVs.

    • Zron@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      Either AI slop, someone fucked up the math for the capacity, or they’ve broken thermodynamics and are pulling power out of the ether.

      First is most likely, 3rd is the coolest.

    • Quatlicopatlix@feddit.org
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      29 days ago

      Badly written, i suspect the cells are speecified to have about 210ah and a real test showed 218ah capacity. That would be pretty normal since you always have manufacturing tolerances. But i think in a good article they would have worded it better if thats the case since not all of these batterys will do 218ah.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      Yeah batteries have been one of the main areas where the real technological advances have been happening in the past decade. That and photovoltaics

    • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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      30 days ago

      Its already way past its “real” point. Just hasnt really made it to Europe fully. China is already mass producing them for everything.

  • AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml
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    29 days ago

    Archive link: https://archive.ph/Xe3BU

    https://interestingengineering.com/energy/unigrid-sodium-ion-battery-tech

    This page couldn’t load

    Reload to try again, or go back.

    What is this shit? The page loads perfectly, then goes blank. They just fucking pretend to be broken because of some ad blocker or something. Why is the internet getting worse all the time. I don’t want you fucking layout, share buttons and other garbage.

      • AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml
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        29 days ago

        Sorry for ranting lol. But it pisses me off especially when it comes from science news. Elsevier and sciencedirect is another service that blocks me, and I’m not even using a VPN or super secure browser.

        Soon more and more webpages will only work with “authentic Chrome” or some shit, and block all VPNs. And then soon you’ll have to log into chrome. And that will create a permanent link with your government ID. I’m just tired of this predictable evil trajectory of technology. The internet was supposed to destroy tyranny, not join it!

    • AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml
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      29 days ago

      Afaik they are mostly intended for large scale grid storage where weight doesn’t matter. Or even efficiency, you can just add more super cheap solar panels. Their biggest advantage is longer lifespan though that makes them viable as a infrastructure project. Price and longevity is really all that matters for grid storage.

      So they are a bit heavier than lithium ion batteries but could still work for many applications. Could be great for a solar powered catamaran for example. They are I think safer too.

      PS: Actually I was thinking off the “sodium iron pyrophosphate (NFPP)” battery from CATL (see this video), but I think they are comparable.