"Home Batteries" Power Houses For a Week 325
tjansen writes "Panasonic has announced plans to create 'home batteries.' They are lithium-ion batteries large enough to power a house for a week, making energy sources such as solar and wind power more feasible. Also, you can buy energy when it is cheapest, and don't need to worry about power outages anymore."
Boom. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a thousand watt-hour battery that runs my sump pum during a power failure, but it's lead-acid. They've been around for a loooong time and are pretty damn stable (even so, this one is in a concrete-walled sump room.) Lithium-ions have a ways to go before they can be considered as trustworthy, and their higher energy density just makes them that much more dangerous during a catastrophic failure. Yet another reason why I'd never buy a hybrid vehicle. The idea of sitting atop a massive lithium-ion battery pack makes me far more nervous than I've ever been about a tank of gasoline.
Re:Boom. (Score:5, Informative)
Dude, most hybrids out there use NiMH batteries. Sorry to give you cognitive dissonance.
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Dude, most hybrids out there use NiMH batteries. Sorry to give you cognitive dissonance.
And why would that be? Hybrid makers would like to use the lightest, most energy-dense batteries they can to increase range, and if they're not using lithium-ions I'm sure there's a pretty good reason. Stability is probably one of them. In any event, if you crush a large battery (say, in an accident) what do you think is going to happen, regardless of the chemical system?
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I used to work in the automotive industry and I can answer you that. Car manufacturers and their suppliers never use the newest technologies. It takes years to switch technologies, both because older technologies are tested and approved and because of financial reasons (tools for older tech have to be paid off).
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Re:Boom. (Score:4, Interesting)
[citation needed] /morbid curiosity
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The Official BMW Rescue Manual (Score:5, Informative)
[citation needed] /morbid curiosityZ
Stories like this always have the flavor of a urban legend.
The automated roll bar deployment is a feature of some BMW covertibles only.
It uses springs. Not explosives.
Emergency services guidelines [oss.bmw.de] September 2009.
For a full description with handsome cutaway illustrations in color click to pages 22 and 23 of the PDF.
Re:Boom. (Score:5, Informative)
I was doing contract programming at one of the auto companies, in a plant that made "bumper shocks" along with other parts, when a defective weld caused one to fire its piston through an assembly line worker in another plant and killed him. The whole plant was in mourning. (And thank goodness I was in a different product line...)
Gently stopping a 5mph car in a matter of inches, without incurring driving-safety-imparing damage, requires very large and very-well-controlled forces. Bumper shock absorbers (at least that model) are (extremely) pressurized with nitrogen, to keep the fluids in the correct place and act as an initial "spring" during the first part of the travel in a crash, before the fluid friction is ramped up. If the weld holding the piston in fails you have a good approximation to a high-powered pistol firing a large slug.
Of course the manufacturers try REALLY HARD to make sure the welds and the cylinders are solid, given the possible damages if one fails. So getting one to fail in the field is tough. But any manufacturing process (short of single-atom-placement-and-check nanotech and maybe even that) can be expected to have a few defective parts slip through inspection.
[citation provided] (Score:3, Informative)
That one was tested by Mythbusters. IIRC, they concluded that it was almost impossible to launch the bumper accidentally.
And here's a link to mythbustersresults.com [mythbustersresults.com] so you can check it yourself. Assuming they don't just make up the results on that site, of course.
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Re:Boom. (Score:4, Interesting)
How do you stop a battery fire? Put water on it (AFFF is mostly water)? A dry chemical fire extinguisher? More likely, just let it burn out...
With regards to lithium batteries, just let it burn out and evacuate the area is what we do. HF is kind of dangerous and water doesn't put out lithium. It's interesting working down the hall from a battery testing lab.
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The 80's called, they want their prejudices back.. (Score:5, Interesting)
As for efficiency, the TDI is currently averaging 49 miles/gallon for the sportwagen, that's real honest-to-goodness driving on both freeway and city streets, and is ~7mpg higher than the official rating of the car.
I didn't quite believe it, so I did the calculation myself based on mileage and purchased fuel, and my figures came to 52 miles/gallon. If anything, the car is under-reporting the fuel economy. Not to mention that diesel is actually cheaper per gallon than unleaded.
Note that the jetta sportwagen is the identical size to the normal jetta (it's just a different top), and that the engine is only a 2.0 litre engine, smaller than the 2.5 litre base jetta engine.
In short, I don't think you could actually be any more wrong about diesel engines.
Simon.
Re:The 80's called, they want their prejudices bac (Score:3, Interesting)
If we all drove diesel cars, gasoline would get very very cheap....there's not too much flexibility to the ratio of diesel/gasoline that comes from a given barrel of crude.
Latest energy mining trends in the US suggest that we should be looking for LNG (methane) burning cars in the not too distant future.
Re:Boom. (Score:4, Funny)
What happens when you drive it over a cliff in a movie? Your typical gas powered movie car will explode in a giant fireball before it ever hits anythin on the way down (cue tire rolling out of burning wreckage). How would an all electric vehicle fare? There should be, at the least, a giant lightning bolt, St. Elmo's fire, and a Jacobs Ladder effect on the antenna. Flashes of blue light in the passengers mouths would also be appropriate, like in Star Wars.
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Actually, next-gen hybrids are and will be using various types of lithium-ion batteries and several companies, including Panasonic, Sanyo, Hitachi, and Toyota are manufacturing them. Tesla Motors already uses lithium-ion batteries in their cars.
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Tesla motors started from scratch and that is the difference. Existing automobile makers producing hybrids right now won't switch to lithium-ion before 2012.
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Probably also has to do with cost, the Tesla battery cost to Tesla is estimated to be $30k, and last 100k miles, so $.30/mile in battery cost alone as a upfront cost. Allowable for a "luxary" but not very feasible for "economy"
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Dude, most hybrids out there use NiMH batteries. Sorry to give you cognitive dissonance.
Well, most regular cars out there are filled up with gasoline. However, very few people would recommend storing enough gasoline in your basement to run your household for a week.
Re:Boom. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, very many households have massive oil or propane tanks in their basements. Gasoline just doesn't happen to be all that great for heating your house.
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Oil isn't as dangerous to store indoors as gasoline (just like less high-string battery technologies might be safer in a house).
If people have propane tanks in basements, that's news to me. I've always seen them outside a good distance away from any buildings. A quick Google search didn't change my impression.
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very few people would recommend storing enough gasoline in your basement to run your household for a week.
FYI, That's about 26 gallons, so people who have attached 2 car garages do that every day. With propane it would be even easier, I wouldn't hesitate to store 2 * 15 gallon propane tanks under my bed (even if I was a smoker.)
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I am interested in your sump pump backup. I am looking for a solution. How long does it last? Where did you get the battery? Any info appreciated.
I got the battery itself (a Hawker 6FV11) off of EBay. Got lucky too, it was brand new in-the-box. I also picked up a 2.4Kw inverter from EBay, and a 30 amp continuous charger. I actually have two separate pumps in my sump. One of them runs from the mains, the other (with a separate float switch set a few inches higher) from the inverter. Works well, and while I've never had to run the battery all the way down, in my installation I think it would run for several days to a week, depending of course upon how
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Is the separate float switch for a second pump? I seem to remember the pumps themselves are not so expensive (compared to the batteries and rest of the setup). If the second float for the battery activation is on a second pump then it also helps if A) water is comming in fast enough to overwhelm the first pump (shouldn't happen generally anyway) and B) if the first pump fails
Of course, if you lose a pump AND have more water comming in than one can handle, then, your pretty screwed anyway.
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Is the separate float switch for a second pump? I seem to remember the pumps themselves are not so expensive (compared to the batteries and rest of the setup). If the second float for the battery activation is on a second pump then it also helps if A) water is comming in fast enough to overwhelm the first pump (shouldn't happen generally anyway) and B) if the first pump fails
Of course, if you lose a pump AND have more water comming in than one can handle, then, your pretty screwed anyway.
Yes, a second pump. It's an independent backup system in case either line power or the primary pump fails. Not infallible, but a lot better than depending upon a single pump. I did this after a power failure a few years ago almost left me with a basement full of water. Naturally, after spending all that time and energy I've never had to use it. Still, every so often I test it, and occasionally swap the power cables to the pumps to even out the wear and tear.
I looked into those 12-volt "Ace in the Hole" t
Re:Boom. (Score:4, Informative)
Been there, done sorta that with the sump pump backup battery. You may want to consider something even more different. I have a city-water siphon pump backup. No battery needed. As long as my water supply is working, I have sump pump backup. Sure, it's not terrifically efficient, and wastes city water if it gets used - but that's cheap compared to the cleanup effort and property loss potential if my basement flooded again.
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I saw the other response, but you may be able to source batteries locally. Check places that rebuild batteries. You can frequently find golfcart batteries (6vdc) or RV batteries (group 8D, 12vdc, 1200aH). Watch your charge cycle though. The lead acid batteries don't do so well if they're discharged below 50% frequently. Still, if you're only discharging 25% most of the time, the price is very affordable when they need to be replaced. I spent $65/ea for "rebuilt" group 8D batteries fo
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So how about that natural gas stove, furnace, and water heater then?
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Stove - sure
Furnace - Not gonna work real well without electricity to run the controls and the fan.
Water Heater - Not gonna work real well without electricity to run the controls, and the power outage may result in a lack of water pressure depending on how things are where you live.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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I don't trust lithium-ion technology enough to want something with that much capacity in my basement.
So, you keep it in a shed. What's the problem?
-jcr
I don't have a big enough shed.
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The idea of sitting atop a massive lithium-ion battery pack makes me far more nervous than I've ever been about a tank of gasoline.
Unfamiliarity often makes people nervous. I don't exactly agree with your assessment of old=safe. You might want to look into some sense of scale.
The average US home uses about 30 KW/h of electricity per day site [doe.gov]. A gallon of gasoline has the energy equivalent of 33.4 KW/h site [wikipedia.org]. 7 days is 210 KW/h. 210/33.4 is a little over 6 gallons of gasoline.
That's a decent amount of en
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There was an article a while back about why Lithium Ion batteries are not being used in cars. An oil company in the U.S. has a patent on the technology.
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I don't trust lithium-ion technology enough to want something with that much capacity in my basement.
I'm glad your modded insightful. I'm sure a company that makes millions of Lithium Ion batteries a year, and has partaken in very large, very expensive recalls of bad batteries has not yet fully seen the risk of putting one in a house. I'm sure their corporate Liability Insurance and Crack Legal team just figures a few hundred houses a year burning down would just be a learning experience...
Fortunately, we have ArmChair Chemical and Electrical Engineers here on Slashdot to drum up the risk that is not obv
Nice FUD, hybrids use NimH. Safer than gas. (Score:2)
There are pure electrics (like the Tesla) and home-made plugins (like the California Prius Mods) that use LIon, but the mainstream hybrid cars you see on the street use NimH... fundamentally safer than a gas tank. Gas tanks, much like LIon batteries, are extremely explosive and flammable. Adding LIon batteries to a vehicle with a gas tank makes this even more dangerous, adding NiMH does not.
In a home, weight is not an issue, so deep-cycle lead-acid or similar heavyweight technologies are the obvious way t
Re:Boom. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention the size and cost of such a setup
Well, it seems the only real benefit would be the ability to buy power when it's cheaper, but you know that if this kind of residential load-leveling becomes popular the power companies will adjust pricing to suit. Now, if battery-powered homes did reach significant numbers, it could really help the power companies keep consumption closer to base-load (and avoid lighting up expensive natural gas power plants) during periods of heavy demand. You know, like a hot summer day when everyone has their air-conditioning on. But for the individual homeowner, it really does seem like overkill. If our power becomes so erratic that these things actually start to make sense, I'm going to say we've a lot more serious issues to deal with.
... all of mine take a 9V battery (or a couple of AAs) that will keep the clock chips alive for a day or two if the power goes off. No need for a basement full of lithium batteries! Besides, at least where I live I, I think the last power outage I had was about four years ago. Happened when the temperature was -15 outside and it got pretty damn cold in here before the power came back on, I will say that. Lucky I didn't freeze my pipes.
So far as flashing clocks go
Re:Boom. (Score:4, Interesting)
But for the individual homeowner, it really does seem like overkill. If our power becomes so erratic that these things actually start to make sense, I'm going to say we've a lot more serious issues to deal with.
Now, I actually have a similar set up to this, I have a bank of 10 110Ah lead gelcell batteries connected to a 3500w Xantrex charger/inverter. It's worth every penny.
You see, the thing is, I live in the third world. Around here, we have power outages about once every two weeks. Usually they last less than a couplefew hours, but occasionally they go much longer, the record since I've been here is three days. While I will admit that I reduced my power consumption for the three day one once I found out how long it was going to last, I still kept the important stuff going (fridge, water pump, computer etc).
Most gringos around here have some sort of generator, be it gasoline, diesel or LPG, and while the initial investment is lower, I think the battery system is far superior. For one thing, it's almost completely silent (the cooling fans kick in on the inverter, and the ceiling fans start to hum because of the modified sine power the inverter provides), and for another it's got an instant transfer of power (Even with a automatic transfer switch on a generator, there's a slight delay while the generator warms up, not to mention that the humid, salty air around here tends to do bad things to ATSes, an dyou really don't want to see what happens when they fail so as to leave the generator on when the line power comes on.).
While those are nice, what's really superior is the fact that even when the line power is flowing, the battery system serves to condition it, brown outs and surges both.
Oh, and even with the efficiency losses, it's cheaper to recharge the batteries than it would be to buy the gas/diesel/LPG.
While I will admit that my case is not typical, I think it's foolish of you to dismiss this technology out of hand.
Re:Boom. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I've looked at doing this in a home, with group 8D batteries. The price starts going up, when you start looking at inverters/charge controllers that can be grid tied.
I laid out plans for using cheaper inverters (one per 15A circuit), and an independent charging system, but even still, the price is pretty high. That idea was to convert homes one circuit at a time, until they were fully "green".
The idea of charging the batteries when the rate is cheaper will unfor
Re:Boom. (Score:5, Informative)
It's not the average times that get you. It's the outlier numbers that collapse into the averages. We've seen eight hours without power in -20 degreee F weather here in Montana. It's why I own a generator and can switch power to the (gas) furnace any time I want to. When you're talking about protection from power outages, what you want to know is does the power EVER go out for long enough intervals to do you damage: And everywhere I've lived - Pennsylvania, NYC, Florida, California, Montana - the answer is an unqualified yes. Right now, there's no sense going without UPSs for computer systems and backups for heating and critical power systems like fishtanks, refrigerators, etc.
The power grid is subject to people running into telephone poles, ice on the lines, old transformers bursting into flames, lightning and geomagnetic storms, human error, and a bunch more things. That's the nature of it - it's out there in the real world. You can protect a power system within your own walls such that it is much more reliable, and that's no slam on the power company - you simply don't have as much to contend with.
Now, if you have no pipes to freeze, no data to lose, no fish to watch float to the top, no freezers full of food to see turn into biohazard... sure, I can see depending on the average. After all... what could go wrong?
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One important factor:
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So, this battery is supposed to be able to power an entire one-family home for a week. By a conservative estimate that would be around 100 kWh of capacity.
Modern Lithium-Ion batteries have specific capacity of 100-160 Wh/kg, but let's say Panasonic manages to extend this and will deliver 200 Wh/kg. Let's assume the half of this weight is Lithium, which puts the total Lithium weight for such battery at ~1000kg.
With a total world's estimated Lithium reserves of ~11000000 tonnes we can outfit around 11 million
Re:Boom. (Score:5, Interesting)
"Reserves", for anything (Lithium, oil, whatever), are calculated according to what is predicted to be economically feasible to extract within the near future. If something suddenly spikes demand, resulting in a higher price, then new sources "magically" become available. That's why Malthusian disasters haven't happened.
But broadly speaking, yes, there's probably not enough Lithium in the Earth's crust to run all the cars and houses like this.
Re:Boom. (Score:4, Informative)
http://safetravel.dot.gov/definitions.html
The lithium equivalent calculator on this site suggests
That your calculations are a few orders of magnitude
Off.
So, 80 kg for a battery that holds 1000kWh.
Also, we have practically limitless lithium reserves in seawater.
Re:Boom. (Score:5, Informative)
The mass of lithium in a Li ion battery is no where near 1/2. For example, a LiMn2O4 Cathode is only 1/20 lithium by mass. Also, the 'recoverable' reserves of Lithium are at least three time higher than that 11 Megatonnes estimate. See http://lithiumabundance.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com].
The earth's crust is nearly 20 ppm lithium by mass, so lithium is faily abundant. However, there are very few economically recoverable sources of lithium. If prices rise, more sources become available. We simple cannot 'run out' of lithium.
World production of lithium is another matter, it is only about 40,000 tonnes a year.
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A week does initially seem odd but I'm guessing it's marketing. Like Tesla Motors, you sell to the McMansion crowd first where it might be good for distinctly less than a week. They can always downsize a unit when production costs are getting recouped.
On the McMansion front, think grounds security without worrying about watching and feeding a generator.
Uhh....lithium ion? (Score:2)
At room temperature and a full charge LI lasts like a whole 2 years before battery life starts to seriously degrade, unless there has been some breakthrough in LI technology that I was unaware of. Keeping it 75% charged or so maximizes battery life, but who would want a partially charged battery when the power goes out for 3 days in the dead of winter? Also what about cost? I don't really see this as a cost saving measure, but I do understand the importance of having a battery solution when you are generati
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You don't see it as a cost saving measure? If you can charge the thing during off-peak hours, then run your house off the battery during peek hours, that's a fairly obvious "cost saving measure".
Of course, if you can save $1000 over two years but the battery runs you over $10000, it's not ready for prime time.
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If you can charge the thing during off-peak hours, then run your house off the battery during peek hours, that's a fairly obvious "cost saving measure".
You're right, of course, but the power companies will find a way to take those savings away from you if this becomes popular, you know that. Well, at least the one in my State certainly would, that is, if they didn't get a law passed to make home power storage flat-out illegal. Wouldn't put that past them either. They're bloodsuckers: for example, manufacturers that try to set up self-generating facilities to save money generally find themselves in court. Power companies are like record companies: they don'
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obviously if everyone was using them then "off-peak" would no longer exist as power draw would be nearly constant 24x7
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Power companies are like record companies: they don't want anything to interfere with the way they distribute their wares, even if those changes might prove highly beneficial and profitable.
Really? All power companies?
http://www.aps.com/main/green/choice/solar/default.html?source=hme [aps.com]
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Power companies are like record companies: they don't want anything to interfere with the way they distribute their wares, even if those changes might prove highly beneficial and profitable.
Really? All power companies?
http://www.aps.com/main/green/choice/solar/default.html?source=hme [aps.com]
All? No ... I suppose not. But then again not all record companies are dicks.
Just most of them.
Re:Uhh....lithium ion? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would, since the status quo is no battery at all.
Re:Uhh....lithium ion? (Score:5, Informative)
I would, since the status quo is no battery at all.
The cool kids on the block already have natural gas generators hooked up to their houses in the case of power outage, and I would guess that a natural gas generator would last significantly longer at a significantly lower TCO than any currently available battery technology (when at the scale of powering a house).
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if its for home use i dont see why the form facto is so big of a deal. i understand space constraints in JP but in the US anyway, a battery the size of a trashcan could probably be stored in a suburban garage with no concern whatsoever. i would think that even in Japan you could get away with a battery the size of a microwave oven without too much hassle. in these instances we would be talking about kWh rates that would be sufficiently large to make a significant impact on global warming. yes you heard me r
Tense (Score:4, Insightful)
We go from the future:
"Panasonic has announced plans to create 'home batteries."
That is, the batteries don't exist yet.
BUT:
Also, you can buy energy when it is cheapest [only there's nowhere to store it at the moment], and don't need to worry about power outages anymore [well actually you still have to worry, because they haven't actually invented the battery yet].
Who wrote this? I see a brilliant future for you writing prospectuses for investment bank companies. This is just hype. I for one will not be buying the $150k batteries that need special zoning permissions and need to be replaced every 3 years.
Re:Tense (Score:4, Informative)
Who wrote this?
Some Guy In A Blog, apparently. It's attributed to Fumio Ohtsubo, President of Panasonic (under a different, less common spelling) but links to no press releases or speeches.
Ohtsubo did an interview about Panasonic working on a kind of fuel cell/LiIon hybrid battery and making a $1B investment (in 2012!) in home power systems, including solar. Here is a link to an actual reputable news source rather than a blogger with poor reading comprehension skills:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=ajhto3eO4fpM [bloomberg.com]
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Batteries seem to be but a pa
Re:Tense (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just hype. I for one will not be buying the $150k batteries that need special zoning permissions and need to be replaced every 3 years.
Cost is around $50K a year? That wouldn't make economical sense for anyone. Is there anyone here who shells out $50k a year to their electric company? Didn't think so.
Well, if the things had a decent service life (15-20 years, say) and could be installed as part of the purchase price of a new home, and provided sufficient economic benefits to be worth the investment, I could see it happening. Maybe. But a pack with a 3-5 year lifetime is not going to cut the mustard. As I mentioned above, I have a 105AH Hawker AGM lead-acid gas-recombinant battery that runs my sump pump. Supposedly rated for 15 years service life, and banks of these things are used in load-leveling applications in large buildings. I once figured out how many of them it would take to run my house for a week, and frankly it was too many. So you'd need something more energy-dense for a whole-house application, but that's still a lot of energy to be packing away in an uncontrolled environment like a home.
source? (Score:2, Insightful)
Saving money (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, I can save pennies off my electricity! Now, how many centuries does it take for the battery to pay itself off?
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How much energy/cost is used to manufacture it?
How much energy/cost is used to mine the components?
Is the government planning on subsidizing and creating and artificial market?
It is like the idiot "liberal" on TV I saw who was asked where the electricity came from for the electric car.
His Answer: "The Wall", I damn near had a brain aneurysm explode from the stupidity.
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It is like the idiot "liberal" on TV I saw who was asked where the electricity came from for the electric car. His Answer: "The Wall", I damn near had a brain aneurysm explode from the stupidity.
Was this a pop-news show where the normal audience would be wondering if they needed a "special" circuit run or a more technical audience? Either way, the question of where the electricity comes from is rather silly. We're all pretty much on the same grid in the US. So even if the power I'm using is generated with one thing, I always consider it as a percentage of each type generated in the US. We all share our sources. I say: Build more nuclear plants and reprocess the current waste. Hell, build one
Look out Sony! (Score:2)
Panasonic is going to create one of the hottest batteries available to date.
Wow, after all the exploding battery stories, I can't wait to have this model in my house. Does anyone actually proofread these articles?
I'm not interested in storing energy for a week, but if I can have one of these hooked to a smart meter, and get a rate reduction for allowing this battery to reduce demand from the grid during peak hours, I' d be very interested. That battery could even be a lot smaller (and cheaper) then the whole-week version.
What a horrible article (Score:2)
The page linked to is an ad laden (carefully selected related items, yeah right) mess that has this third or fourth hand. Even physorg just has a press release that mentions the battery and focuses on Panasonic acquiring Sharp and how harsh the corporate environment is.
How big is this thing? What is it's capacity? Is that a Japanese house, or a North American one?
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Panasonic acquired Sanyo, not Sharp, dont repeat facts unless you're gonna get them right
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Hey, I could be a blogger!
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true true, sorry if i sounded harsh.
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No, I should have checked. I originally thought "Samsung" but knew that couldn't be right. But I just couldn't face that page again.
A lot of crimes have been committed against/with the web, but setting words in articles to automatically pop up windows with definitions/advertising/random spam has got to be one of the worst. Even supposedly reputable organizations (is it the NY Times?) seem to feel their readership need every second word wired with an in your face definition.
Re:What a horrible articlen - better source (Score:2)
The page linked to is an ad laden (carefully selected related items, yeah right) mess that has this third or fourth hand.
True. The source is a badly written Bloomberg story [businessweek.com] which says the new battery has a capacity of "3.4 amperes per hour". I wrote to the reporter pointing out the meaninglessness of that number. The useful numbers for battery technologies are $/KwH and Kg/KwH, and they don't have those. The only useful piece of information in the story is that Panasonic will make a real announcement
The advantage of lithium is energy density. (Score:2)
The disadvantage is cost. There are many battery technologies more suitable for this application than lithium.
Vaporware (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, but if they have only just "announced plans", then, for the foreseeable future, I still can not power a house for a week, and I still need to worry about power outages.
Wake me up, when I can pick these up at Lowe's... Or, at least, order them online somewhere...
Indeed, TFA [nexus404.com] itself uses the proper tenses and gives the ETA for what currently can only be called "vaporware":
CmdrTaco, WTF?..
Excellent! But... (Score:2)
I'm going to need a 16,000Ah rating at 48V, plus a 100kW inverter to power my 1600SF, 1960s ranch. Granted, it's not the most efficient home ever built, but it's all electric (yes, it's been upgraded to 400A/240V service, and I really do run through 800kWH a week during cold winter periods...which is when the electricity is most likely to fail).
Other considerations (Score:4, Informative)
Some of these technologies are of no use to those of us that live in areas where the cost of energy is consistent all day and night and year round.
Part of that maybe the problem (no intelligence in the infrastructure). But in the meantime if I were to have solar or any other resource put up that would benefit from stored energy for later use, it'll throw the payback vs normal utility curve way off to where I'd have to live here for decades to get my money back in anything but smugness.
As far as LI battery technology, it seems that the Prius used NMhd batteries because the number of charge discharge cycles was greater, since the batteries in the story were expected to have a cycle per day, the owner would have to replace them realistically every 3-4 years.
As far as the greater energy content of LI batteries, that is a risk that is always present with batteries. As long as the controller / charger is smart and has a layer or two of fault checking, the risk of runaway thermal events is pretty low. (The problem people had with Lithium Ion AA cell batteries where they are available was when people put them into standard NiCad or NiMh chargers, which apply too much current too quickly and make them pop to start fires. Since this is an integrated system by Panasonic with no capacity to mix and match technology evident, I'd say the risks is low.)
It would be possible with standard deep cycle lead acid batteries, but than you have to have climate control for your batteries above and beyond that proposed, and than your dedicating a good chunk of floorspace to batteries (You can't stack them because of heat buildup when discharging). I know the Central Offices I've been in have had a good chunk of their floorspace dedicated to just power, and even than only for the few minutes it takes for the diesel to kick over .. and you don't want to know what happens to expensive telephone equipment when it starts getting fed progressive amounts lower than 48VDC.)
Battery maintenance (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong technology (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would suggest sodium-sulfur for a static installation. Cheap, with high energy density. Keep it well insulated though, because it needs to stay above 300C.
For anyone worried about sodium fires: compared to lithium batteries? Seriously? Or any battery that can power a house for a week, for that matter?
There's other things besides Lithium Ion (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd prefer an EESU from EESTOR (if that ever happens), since it would be cheaper on a buck-per-Joule level and it would last for a very, very long time. Second to that, nickel-iron batteries, which are heavy and inefficient, but survive much abuse and have working lifetimes far longer than that of most other batteries. Pity they are no longer made in the United States; much of their price is presumably in just shipping them here.
Video of actual Lithium Ion battery fire (staged) (Score:2)
While this was staged for demonstration purposes, it demonstrates the power Lithium Ion batteries can expel when they fail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeWq6rWzChw
Pretty sure I don't want a huge one of these in my basement...
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Makes more sense for utility to use these (Score:3, Insightful)
For the purpose of storing intermittent wind and solar power,
the electric utility companies could use mass installations of
these batteries. Assuming they don't have hydro dams to
run in reverse using the wind and solar, that is.
Just like it doesn't actually make sense for everyone on your block
to own a lawnmower or circular saw or carpet steam cleaning machine,
it doesn't really make economic sense for everyone to have their own
batteries either. A central utility could buy and maintain batteries
with economies of scale.
Doesn't help you buy cheap power (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, you can buy energy when it is cheapest
You can charge them at night if your power company has lower rates at night. It's pointless though as any savings in the cost disappear in the inefficiencies of the ac->dc for charging, the heat losses during charging, and the dc->ac conversion to use that power again. A 10% savings in the power cost is stupid when you give up %15 of the energy trying to save it.
Re:But what about the massive environmental damage (Score:2)
LIthium is the second most common element in nature. And while there is a problem with air contact with Lithium, you are not going to kill all the earthworms with this.
Re: (Score:2)
Third most common. H He LI.
Re:But what about the massive environmental damage (Score:5, Informative)
both wrong. the periodic table has nothing to do with commonness.
From: http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/periodic/faq/what-element-is-most-abundant.shtml [frostburg.edu] :
"On earth, oxygen is the most common element, making up about 47% of the earth's mass. Silicon is second, making up 28%, followed by aluminum (8%), iron (5%), magnesium (2%), calcium (4%), sodium (3%), and potassium (3%). All of the remaining elements together make up less than 1% of the earth's mass."
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Sitting bull (Score:2)
Preferentially, the one, in a fireplace, the other, in a stream. Next question?
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What place does fire and water sit?
Water is a combination of H and O, and fire is Li [google.com]. The latter might pose "interesting" engineering challenges for this product.
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LIthium is the second most common element in nature.
Um... your post makes me think that there's more stupidity in the universe than just about anything, inlcuding Hydrogen and Helium (and certainly Lithium).
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The lack of lithium in the universe is one of the great unsolved mysteries in astronomy.
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This is why science is bad for children and humans and we need to go back to nature and live in harmony with the worms and other creatures.
No, but it does show that some children are bad at science.
Re: (Score:2)
I would like to see the Statistics on this and what data they used. got sources?