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Will New Battery Technologies Smash The Old Order? (telegraph.co.uk) 254

"The world's next energy revolution is probably no more than five or ten years away," reports The Telegraph. "Cutting-edge research into cheap and clean forms of electricity storage is moving so fast that we may never again need to build 20th Century power plants in this country..." Slashdot reader mdsolar quotes their article: The US Energy Department is funding 75 projects developing electricity storage, mobilizing teams of scientists at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and the elite Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge labs in a bid for what it calls the "Holy Grail" of energy policy. You can track what they are doing at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). There are plans for hydrogen bromide, or zinc-air batteries, or storage in molten glass, or next-generation flywheels, many claiming "drastic improvements" that can slash storage costs by 80pc to 90pc and reach the magical figure of $100 per kilowatt hour in relatively short order.

"Storage is a huge deal," says Ernest Moniz, the U,S. Energy Secretary and himself a nuclear physicist. He is now confident that the U.S. grid and power system will be completely "decarbonized" by the middle of the century.

One energy consultant predicts the energy storage market will be worth $90 billion in 2025 -- 100 times larger than it is today.
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Will New Battery Technologies Smash The Old Order?

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  • Its a continuation (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @09:37AM (#52699657)
    Research into battery storage has been intense for 20 years. We've had promises of drastic improvements, and we have seen some significant improvements. Yes, R&D has picked up even more but improvements are more likely to be incremental than breakthrough.
    • by fustakrakich ( 1673220 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @10:01AM (#52699737) Journal

      *The world's next energy revolution is always more than five or ten years away.*

      How far "Beyond 2000" was all that stuff supposed to be?

      Tomorrow
      Tomorrow
      I love you, tomorrow
      You're always a day awaaaaaay...

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Powerful, efficient, fast charging, long lasting batteries. ...the NEW Fusion!

    • by dinfinity ( 2300094 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @10:53AM (#52699921)

      I admit to having little knowledge about them, but I think flow batteries [wikipedia.org] have great potential.

      The numbers are probably exaggerated, but these guys [wikipedia.org] claim a range of 1000km in a car with a total of 350 liters of fluid storage. That would mean an energy density of roughly 1/7th of gasoline. That isn't stellar, but it's also far from 'useless crap'-territory. It would be fine for at least industrial energy storage (from renewable sources), it seems.

      Let me reiterate this, though: I'm far from an expert on these things.

      • flow batteries are nothing new , they have been around a long time. They are actually a good example of the incremental progress I was speaking to. They are interesting for certain applications, but are a long way from practical. The recycling part of the process becomes a factor, along with electrolyte recycling. But carrying about 350 litres of liquid doesn't make sense unless we are talking about some sort of large truck for transport. I don't know how well they perform as they discharge more than half t
        • by SuricouRaven ( 1897204 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @11:59AM (#52700157)

          For transport, they are impractical. They may have a role in grid scale energy, storing up excess from renewables to be used on demand.

        • But carrying about 350 litres of liquid doesn't make sense unless we are talking about some sort of large truck for transport.

          Why? I think the Tesla S batteries have a comparable volume and weight and those certainly seem to make sense.

          Also, given that we're talking about liquid 'refueling', range becomes much less of a problem (for cars, at least).

          • 350 liters of liquid is about 6 times the typical gas fuel tank. That is a lot of liquid to carry around. Give it some air space and now you have shifting fluid affecting maneuverability. Just no need to have that much in a car.
            • by pixelpusher220 ( 529617 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @01:35PM (#52700485)
              I can see you are 'baffled' by science...controlling fluid motion in a container isn't exactly a new thing.
              • It can be managed but not eliminated. There is really no good reason to pursue a path that requires so much liquid to begin with. Flow battery technology has not demonstrated the benefits to 'outweigh' the cons. That is why nobody is seriously pursuing it in the auto industry.
                • Tell that to a fuel truck driver

                • Large tanks exist and have existed in various cars/trucks. It isn't a useful tech mostly because of the energy density gas/diesel and it's cheap cost. That last part is changing since the true cost of using it is starting to come due.

                  Such changes can make other unworkable solutions into workable solutions.
                  • I am talking about typical vehicles. Yes, there are some with very large tanks for various purposes, but you'll need 6 times the volume for the same range as a tank of gas if you use the info from the OP. The benefits of Flow Batteries aret't so great as to warrant hauling around all that weight.

                    Regarding changes making unworkable solutions into workable solutions, well, there are some big changes still required to make flow batteries practical and economical for cars. Like I said, there are good reasons
            • Give it some air space

              Why would you do that?
              If I'm not mistaken flow batteries are a closed system when in operation: the liquids are not used up (like gasoline).

              Just no need to have that much in a car.

              Unless you want to use a flow battery as a local energy source. Which is kind of the thing we're discussing here.

              • Regarding air space, I believe there is typically some gassing space, but I could be wrong. As far as flow batteries in cars, I don't know what shift you are trying to make, but the discussion was clearly a flow battery in a vehicle.
            • by dbIII ( 701233 )
              To get some perspective I suggest you consider how much fuel is in a large airliner and how there are greater consequences of shifting fluid affecting maneuverability. So while you have perceptively identified a potential problem you are on page one while many others are 500 pages into dealing with the problem.
      • by r0kk3rz ( 825106 )

        I admit to having little knowledge about them, but I think flow batteries [wikipedia.org] have great potential.

        It would be fine for at least industrial energy storage (from renewable sources), it seems.

        I agree, it's a shame that for now the membranes used in flow batteries are rather difficult and expensive to manufacture, which is the main thing limiting their use in industry today, once that is sorted the tech should scale very nicely. Need more capacity? No problem add more tanks, need more throughput? add more pipes and membranes, simple.

        As someone who works on Oil Depot [wikipedia.org] systems, I think that aside from their locations (usually near docks) they would be perfect to convert into flow battery grid stora

    • by rbrander ( 73222 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @11:09AM (#52699979) Homepage

      Something can look incremental but actually be pretty dramatic. We're kind of spoiled by Moore's Law having a doubling time of just a few years.

      Increases in battery life have been "incremental" but also exponential - the increase has been something like 7% per year on the average, a ten-year doubling. And of course, we ate most of it with higher power consumption in most battery-powered devices: the phones, tablets and laptops. But look at how long something simpler like an iPod lasts now compared to 2001 and it's dramatic.

      Electric cars are going get much more serious after one more doubling, and while the car companies would pay billions to have it happen overnight, it's still going to happen in 10 years even with the "incremental" progress.

      • by David_Hart ( 1184661 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @11:42AM (#52700095)

        Something can look incremental but actually be pretty dramatic. We're kind of spoiled by Moore's Law having a doubling time of just a few years.

        Increases in battery life have been "incremental" but also exponential - the increase has been something like 7% per year on the average, a ten-year doubling. And of course, we ate most of it with higher power consumption in most battery-powered devices: the phones, tablets and laptops. But look at how long something simpler like an iPod lasts now compared to 2001 and it's dramatic.

        Electric cars are going get much more serious after one more doubling, and while the car companies would pay billions to have it happen overnight, it's still going to happen in 10 years even with the "incremental" progress.

        The majority of improvement of battery life in electronic devices have been due to energy efficient circuit designs, power management (being able to put components to sleep), and shrinking of electronics (i.e. more room for a bigger battery in the same case).

      • https://www.quora.com/Is-it-tr... [quora.com]

        Leigh Christie's post on this is great.
        After tons of useful graphs and information...

        "Note: I have not actually done a curve fit, so I can not comment on the exact percentage. But given that it's doubling roughly every 9-14 years, I'd say 5-8% sounds about right!"

        Batteries are continuing to improve in dramatic ways. Dropping in price by about 5-8% per year, increasing in capacity about 5-8% per year.

      • Battery-powered devices are not the most important application. The current batteries are good enough to make them usable. It's not the real goal of this research. Just look at the list - can you imagine a flywheel-powered phone?

        The real goal is large-scale energy storage. Cheap per kW solutions with a long life (no, a few thousand charge cycles is not good). That's when "decarbonization" becomes possible. The goal is storage which scales to MWh locally and GWh globally, making unreliable power sources actu

    • ...improvements are more likely to be incremental than breakthrough.

      Practical lithium-air [wikipedia.org] would be breakthrough.

  • Still... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mr_jrt ( 676485 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @09:47AM (#52699681) Homepage

    ...and yet all the gains we get from battery improvements will continue to be squandered on yet more and more layers of JavaScript.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah, those 250-mile range estimates for Tesla are only when you have Javascript turned off.

    • Re:Still... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Alomex ( 148003 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @11:04AM (#52699963) Homepage

      ...or JIT compilation for yet another hare brained programming language based on the JVM***

      The JVM motto: slowing down well written code since 1994.

      *** The Android Run Time (ART) compiles java to native code at download time.

    • ...and yet all the gains we get from battery improvements will continue to be squandered on yet more and more layers of JavaScript.

      But if your laptop could use a pumped storage lake for backup power, it could finally run Javascript efficiently.

  • Umm, no, that's not a magical figure by itself. I want to see below a penny per (kilowatt hour * full discharge cycles).
  • dream on (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If I had a penny for every slashdot article about batteries since the late 90s, I'd...

  • Many of the advanced battery technologies will have toxic chemicals. With huge production volumes, there's going to be a lot of poisonous waste materials. I suspect the environmental damage of new batteries is going to make the claimed damage of carbon seem like happy-fun-day.
    • Re:Waste (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @11:02AM (#52699957)

      Many of the advanced battery technologies will have toxic chemicals. With huge production volumes, there's going to be a lot of poisonous waste materials. I suspect the environmental damage of new batteries is going to make the claimed damage of carbon seem like happy-fun-day.

      No, the current buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere is a slow-motion apocalypse because it leverages the sun's vast energy output to push the entire planet away from the conditions that humans evolved to live within. No amount of run-of-the-mill poisonous chemicals could touch it. (Not that these chemicals would be released into the environment anyway. Utility storage batteries are very easy to track and regulate.)

      • to push the entire planet away from the conditions that humans evolved to live within

        Wow, in fell fell swoop you not only show that you know zero abut the history of the Earth's climate, but also that you actually believe evolution works exactly the opposite of the way it really does!

        Humans evolved over time to work within whatever climate they were given which changed dramatically over time - historically it's already been way warmer than it will be from the latest round of climate change, and vastly colde

        • by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @01:11PM (#52700403)

          It's about as hot as it's been since humans arrived right now, and it's going to get much hotter. Not in evolutionary timescales, but within a couple of generations.

          Evolution would probably work in the long run, but don't forget that sometimes evolution works by wiping out almost every member of a given species leaving only a tiny handful of "fit" survivors. That hardly seems like a better choice than just switching our primary energy sources ASAP.

        • by ultranova ( 717540 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @01:22PM (#52700443)

          So even if it gets warmer humans will do what they always have done - adapt co conditions as the change.

          Actually, quite a few civilizations have simply collapsed when faced with changing climate. What makes you think one that already has trouble keeping infrastructure running isn't going to join them?

  • Haves / Have nots? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @10:26AM (#52699821)
    That's the only thing that worries me. The current system requires lots and lots of public infrastructure. That keeps prices down for the poor (economies of scale and whatnot). That's not gonna last If even the upper middle class doesn't want/need that infrastructure. The folks most able to pay for it aren't going to want to. They won't be using it. But it'll mean going back to the dark ages for the lower class...
    • If rich people start going to local battery storage, it will be because it's cheaper than our current system of utilities. If it's cheaper, then it means poor people will get it cheaper, too (and poor people mostly live in rented places anyway).

      In general, fear of inequality is not a reason to oppose improved technology.
      • For the rich, if it is cheaper in the long run, they will spend the money. The poor don't have that lump sum to spend.
        • There are plenty of people willing to loan money at low interest rates, just like now for cars.
          Again though, my apartment complex has a better water heater system than most private houses, so it's really only an issue if you own a house. Apartments are already required by law to have electricity in most states.
          • UMM, most people who are poor do not qualify for low interest car loans.
            • If they don't, then they won't be able to buy their own house, either.
  • by Khyber ( 864651 ) <techkitsune@gmail.com> on Sunday August 14, 2016 @10:34AM (#52699861) Homepage Journal

    Good luck with that until you solve Zinc's whiskering problem. Powergenix thought they had it solved with Nickel-Zinc batteries. Nope. 1.6V 2300 mAh is nice but not when you get less than 150 charge cycles due to whiskering.

  • by Bearhouse ( 1034238 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @11:12AM (#52699987)

    As many have posted here, his lack of objectivity is annoying and unhelpful.
    Thanks.

  • ...and wait for technology to catch up. At some point cost efficient storage has the capability, as TFA notes, to dramatically alter the utility and (especially) the cost-efficiency of intermittent renewable sources. The other critical point is energy transportation -- moving e.g. PV solar energy from Arizona or Texas to Maine without dropping half of it along the way. In the meantime, can we stop panicking and wasting huge amounts of money IMPLEMENTING immature technologies while they are -- immature?

    rg

  • by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @11:32AM (#52700061)
    Why is it never or rarely mentioned how long the batteries will last, and how they can be properly disposed of and/or recycled?

    .
    I remember when nuclear power was touted as being "too cheap to meter." No one ever talked about its by-products.

    • well, because the only way for these to be economical, is to have either extreme cheapness, OR extreme long life.
      As it is, companies like EOS Energy have a flow battery that will last 30+ Years.
      Then we have Tesla which will provide Li-ion batteries for homes/small businesses that will last ~10 years.
      The question becomes, how economical are they? Both appear to have their place used in the right area. EOS Energy is great for large businesses, and utility scale. Tesla for small situations.
  • That's the same place we were 5-10 years ago. Any improvement in battery technology is far more likely to be incremental than revolutionary. Even when lithium based batteries became mainstream about 12-14 years ago it was an incremental improvement and nothing anywhere close to an order of magnitude or more which would place thier energy density more on par with chemical fuel sources.
  • by EmperorOfCanada ( 1332175 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @12:06PM (#52700185)
    I live in a medium density urban area, I want to go off grid. Not out of some prepper issue, nor are my present rates particularly abusive. I just hate utilities. I hate the people who run them. I hate the regulators who regulate them. I hate that they look at my house and see a guaranteed revenue stream. I want to cut them off and I will pay extra to do so.

    I will even inconvenience myself to do so. I would happily rewire my house so that the LED lighting isn't converting from 110 but from something the batteries were happier providing. I would coat the roof in solar cells, and I would buy a little generator to fill in any gaps. The same with things like my fridge or other power grabbers, they could be 24v or even 12v if needed.

    Here is my dream day. The utility goes to the government and demands that regardless of my being hooked up or not that I still have to pay them for the lines that run past my house, and the regulator says, "NOPE".

    To me it boils down to the utilities should be a public good like roads, and schools. Not for profit should be the rule. Yet I see board members at these utilities making huge multiples of the average person's salary, let alone the heads of the companies, or the investors.
    • actually, we need to have storage for homes, businesses AND MICRO GRIDS.
      One the of the things that we did right in North America was build multiple federated grids between America and Canada.
      THe problem is that we stopped improving it long ago. We need to move towards SMALL grids with batteries right at the doorway between the smaller grid and the bigger grids.
    • You will hate utilities until you actually sit down and figure out the costs, construction and maintenance of running your own power source, whatever it may be. I live in one of the sunniest places in the world, and I know three people, all of them well-off and having taken full advantage of the state, federal and utility company subsidies for solar. In each case they were able to zero out their average residential utility bill for two people (though one of them is single) for about $40,000 US in capital co

      • I was actually thinking that 100k was my initial high water mark. Building a cottage soon, and it will be an end to end experiment in off grid. The idea is that it is to be something that largely doesn't tick off my wife. Thus with few exceptions it just has to appear to be completely normal and not need endless fiddling. My thinking is that by proper power flow management, it should be pretty good. For instance, pumping water out of the well into the attic during peak sun is the sort of thing that prevents
        • I should have added that for all 3 households in my sample, zeroing out net residential power cost was NOT the same as going off grid. These families sold net usage to the grid during sunny middays while drawing from the grid at night. To go off grid, they would have had to install ore collectors and run Powerwalls (or other equivalent) to save their daytime excess.

  • Seriously, the idea that storage will solve the need for base-load energy is just amazing to me. The reason is that MOST of the AE that is being pushed is from the sun and easily blocked. Many will claim no, but any number of the major volcanos on the west coast, can block 5-20% of our sunlight. That will bring solar AND WIND down quickly. This issue does not include the coming ability to control weather and then force clouds to block the sun elsewhere.
    As such, we NEED clean base-load power. Geo-thermal i
  • by xtronics ( 259660 ) on Sunday August 14, 2016 @02:50PM (#52700865) Homepage

    As someone that has worked in the battery industry my whole life -- no - it is just the usual corporate welfare. The improvements are very small 1% and expensive.

    Lithium was a big deal - moving from 2 electrons to 3 - the other stuff is not really important - mostly noise - venture vulture stuff to get investors money.

    What is always missing is the real cost of battery power. A battery has a cycle life - take that number times the capacity of the battery and you get the total amount of power the batter will deliver. With that you can get a cost per kWh .. assuming the electricity to charge is free (it is not) - it is still very very expensive power.

    Now - in a electric hand drill - I am quite willing to pay the high price for that power - but not for running air-conditioners or powering a car.

    • by fnj ( 64210 )

      A battery has a cycle life - take that number times the capacity of the battery and you get the total amount of power the batter will deliver.

      Incorrect. The units of capacity are ENERGY, not power. Energy times a constant is still energy. The cycle life of a battery is analogous to how many times you can fill a fuel tank. If you could only fill a car's fuel tank a few hundred times before you had to replace it, and if your fuel tank cost $8000-16,000 instead of $100, THEN you would have a situation analogou

  • ... for the time being. It's cost that's currently the main hindrance. And that is being squished big time as we speak, or so a notable amount of credible experts say.

    An modern IC engine has north of 200 moving Parts, required gearbox not counted. A modern electric Car engine has 18 moving Parts and needs no gearbox.
    Once battery prices have dropped beyond a certain threshhold the entire global Auto industry will Flip so fast it will make our heads spin. This is bound to happen in the next 5 years, probably in the next 3, once battery prices are low enough.

    Gasoline in Personal Transport is on the way out, that's pretty much a given. And the advancements in cars will feel like the transition from steam to oil back in the day.
    Or even more significant.

    • by fnj ( 64210 )

      Almost all electric cars have a gearbox. ALL those of which I am aware and which are serious transportation do. The difference is that usually, one or two gear ratios are enough for electric. The norm for internal combustion cars is 4 to 6, occasionally more (plus reverse).

      Now, I readily admit that it is POSSIBLE to make a practical electric car which has no gearbox. It can be done using low speed individual wheel motors.

  • The new technology is wonderful. And some changes are painful. But we still completely fail to deal with consequences of the rapid changes we are seeing. For example we know coal will be shut down. That means that big coal will have no money to repair damaged areas that are unsafe due to pollution. So is anyone doing anything to force big coal to have cash reserves for future clean-ups? Then we have the displaced workers in the coal industry who often live in areas where no other employment options

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