Rechargeable Zinc-Air Battery Nears Commercial Release (phys.org) 64
Long-time Slashdot reader necro81 writes: Reported in the NYTimes and in Phys.org: NantEnergy, a company backed by California billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, announced Wednesday that it has developed a rechargeable zinc-air battery that can store energy at far less cost than lithium-ion. The technology avoids some of the downsides of li-ion, like flammability and the use of cobalt.
Unlike many battery-related announcements, this one is backed by real-world use. Over the past several years, NantEnergy has deployed their batteries for stationary, micro-grid and cell-tower use in nine countries — about 55 MWh of capacity so far. They claim they can now take commercial orders, for delivery next year, at less than $100/kWh of capacity, which is one-half to one-fifth the cost of available lithium-ion grid storage.
Unlike many battery-related announcements, this one is backed by real-world use. Over the past several years, NantEnergy has deployed their batteries for stationary, micro-grid and cell-tower use in nine countries — about 55 MWh of capacity so far. They claim they can now take commercial orders, for delivery next year, at less than $100/kWh of capacity, which is one-half to one-fifth the cost of available lithium-ion grid storage.
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I hope they succeed (Score:5, Interesting)
More economical energy choices are always welcome and I hope they succeed. I'll be eagerly awaiting the day I can 'add to cart' and have one delivered.
Zinc-bromine flow batteries are also making inroads, and offer better economics and scalability than Lithium Ion:
https://redflow.com/ [redflow.com]
However, it will be curious to see if mass production for the electric auto industry makes Lithium Ion even more economical over time. Zinc-bromine or Zinc-air are likely never going to be practical for portable transportation, but Lithium Ion has demonstrated both suitability and workable economics for both transportation and fixed energy storage.
Re: I hope they succeed (Score:2)
Why would anyone choose zinc bromide over zinc air? Bromine is toxic, like chlorine. Air isn't (supposed to be) toxic.
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I wasn't advocating for zinc-bromine over zinc-air or any other technology. I was only pointing out how it, along with zinc-air, is also a possible alternative to lithium-ion.
And I agree that bromine is rather nasty. Unfortunately, brominated foods [wikipedia.org] continue to be produced and sold in the United States.
I wouldn't be too worried about bromine in a battery as it is arguably less of an issue than lead, which is under the hood of every vehicle - including Tesla - and presents an ongoing recycling and environme
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Lithium-ion batteries are inherently rather tricky to build. And lithium itself isn't all that widely available, though it's not exactly rare. Zinc, though, is so cheap they make pennies out of it. Lithium has higher density, but for stationary use, who cares? The competition might be sulfur-based batteries. But those run at very high temperatures, and don't scale down well.
Re:I hope they succeed (Score:4, Interesting)
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They won't because the world's supply of zinc will be exhausted within a few decades even without the use for battery. Zinc is used as a coating material, and as such it is impossible to recycle. And there are only a few mines and potential mines on the planet... It's one of those base elements whose supply is already critical, I don't think they'll be able to ramp it up for mass production of batteries.
Link below claims 4 million tonnes were produced through recycling in 2010.
Global production last year was 13 million tonnes.
Question is how much zinc is required. A Li-on battery weighing 1000 lbs may only contain 10-20 lbs lithium
http://www.egga.com/wp-content... [egga.com]
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You are wrong in your thinking, because "zinc reserves" mean ores that are currently found and considered economical to mine.
As wikipedia article notes, this is demonstrated in the fact that while refined zinc production went up 80% during 1990-2010 period, the "reserve lifetime" for zinc remained unchanged.
Re:I hope they succeed (Score:4, Informative)
Wikipedia of all places has a very good explanation on why you're wrong:
Identified world zinc resources total about 1.9–2.8 billion tonnes. Large deposits are in Australia, Canada and the United States, with the largest reserves in Iran. The most recent estimate of reserve base for zinc (meets specified minimum physical criteria related to current mining and production practices) was made in 2009 and calculated to be roughly 480 Mt. Zinc reserves, on the other hand, are geologically identified ore bodies whose suitability for recovery is economically based (location, grade, quality, and quantity) at the time of determination. Since exploration and mine development is an ongoing process, the amount of zinc reserves is not a fixed number and sustainability of zinc ore supplies cannot be judged by simply extrapolating the combined mine life of today's zinc mines. This concept is well supported by data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), which illustrates that although refined zinc production increased 80% between 1990 and 2010, the reserve lifetime for zinc has remained unchanged. About 346 million tonnes have been extracted throughout history to 2002, and scholars have estimated that about 109–305 million tonnes are in use.
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Obviously. Which would cause rapid scale up of mining activities and technological development of extraction and refinement techniques to meet the demand.
Which is exactly what quote I made above references. Attempts of direct extrapolation from current capacity to determine "when we'll run out" are as smart as the infamous "how many weddings cakes you'll need" extrapolation based on having your marriage day tomorrow. No, you're not going to need 365 cakes in the next year, and no, you're not going to run ou
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Zinc is used as a coating material, and as such it is impossible to recycle.
How retarded is that?
Zinc is a metal.
It is as easy to recycle as any other metal.
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"Zinc is used as a coating material, and as such it is impossible to recycle."
I guess you have no clue how electroplating/stripping works, do you?
Can they build battery walls (Score:2)
and bundle solar/wind powered charging, with AC inverters?
Of course I'm paying something like $.14 a KwH from the electric company. $100 a KwH with my (non winter) electrical needs would take a long time to pay off...
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Typically solar power is dumped onto the wires, for use by factories during the day...... and then returned to homeowners by the Electric company at night when the solar panel is dark. Few solar users store the energy locally.
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Few solar users store the energy locally.
But *ALL* of them store it remotely.
Re:Can they build battery walls (Score:5, Informative)
Typically solar power is dumped onto the wires, for use by factories during the day...... and then returned to homeowners by the Electric company at night
The problem is that netting to grid doesn't scale. Power consumption is higher during the day, but actually peaks between 4-7pm, when many businesses are still operating, but many people are also arriving at home and kicking on the AC. So power demand peaks just as the sun is setting.
There are several solutions:
1. Storage.
2. HVDC long distance transmission, so Arizona sun can power ACs in Florida.
3. Flexible pricing. People will conserve if they save enough. They don't need to run the dryer at 5pm.
We will likely need all of the above.
Power company time-of-day plans (Score:2)
Do I need to run the dryer at 5 PM? No, but what if I run it at 7 PM?
The time-of-day plans I have seen offered by the local power company would require you to run it after 11 PM. I have seen no cost benefit to switching to a time-of-day plan without radical, not minor, lifestyle changes.
Is my power company not sincere of wanting people to switch? Do they think some customers will switch because they cannot do simple calculations? Or are the lifestyle changes to make a meaningful difference with re
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Its the fact that their power bill does not end up changing(other than up), and now they are inconvenienced(to say the least).
Lets say you change things, so you're using only 1/3 the power you normally use during prime, but get charged 3x as much, now in non prime you are using 2/3 of your power at 1/2 cost.
Those are pretty close to what I remember from using it years ago. My power bill went up dispute the fact I did everything after 5(and really did less, because it wasn't enough time to do everything need
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There is also 4. Diversification of sources.
In reality though, things work best with a mix of all of the strategies.
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Or..you know..we could continue to build out nuclear energy.
Nukes are base load, not peakers, so they don't mesh well with renewables.
The demand at 5pm can be three times the demand at 3am. Nukes don't produce that kind of variable output.
a generating station the size of a small office building can power an entire city.
Bullcrap. There is a lot more to a power station than just the reactor.
We have to stop (Score:4, Funny)
"powered by oxidizing zinc with oxygen from the air"
Before the ecologists find out.
Re:We have to stop (Score:5, Funny)
Combustion, no one knows how it works!
The release of phlogiston.
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Combustion, no one knows how it works!
The release of phlogiston.
That's what she said.
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And sex in October causes cancer in babies [wikipedia.org].
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Re:We have to stop (Score:5, Interesting)
"powered by oxidizing zinc with oxygen from the air" Before the ecologists find out.
Zinc-air batteries are already in common use for devices like hearing aids. They put out a pretty good amount of power, but not for a long time. . And they are really cheap.
What I am interested in is how a zinc-air battery becomes rechargeable. Zinc generally gets the proverbial crap beat out of it in a battery.
I wish there was a little more detail in the press release.
How long to charge? (Score:2)
Completely missing from the press release - any mention of how fast these can be charged, and how fast they can discharge.
The former is of some interest (!!!) to anyone thinking of using these batteries in a vehicle or portable computing device; the latter matters in some instances where peak power output is needed.
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I don't know about charging, but zinc-air discharge rates are pretty poor. One proposed solution for electric vehicles is to have a small lithium-ion battery pack (or maybe even a supercapacitor bank) being kept charged by the larger zinc-air battery. This can provide the extra current for peak acceleration demands.