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Power

New Battery Technologies Are Making Progress (nytimes.com) 77

Posted by EditorDavid from the powering-forward dept.
The New York Times looks at "a wave of new battery technologies that could lead to novel designs in consumer electronics and help accelerate the electrification of cars and airplanes. They may even help store electricity on the power grid, lending a hand to efforts to reduce dependence on fossil fuels..."

And a longer-life battery from Sila finally made it into a consumer product — the Whoop fitness tracker, which straps around your wrist, but which can also take the form of a "sliver of electronics stitched into the fabric of clothes." Sila's chief executive and co-founder, Gene Berdichevsky, was an early Tesla employee who oversaw battery technology as the company built its first electric car. Introduced in 2008, the Tesla Roadster used a battery based on lithium-ion technology, the same battery technology that powers laptops, smartphones and other consumer devices. The popularity of Tesla, coupled with the rapid growth of the consumer electronics market, sparked a new wave of battery companies.... Congress created ARPA-E, for Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, to promote research and development in new energy technologies. The agency nurtured the new battery companies with funding and other support. A decade later, those efforts are beginning to bear fruit...

Sila is not exactly a battery company. It sells a new material — a silicon powder — that can significantly boost the efficiency of batteries, and plans to build them using many of the same factories and other infrastructure that produce lithium-ion batteries... Today, the company produces this silicon powder from its small facility in Alameda [near Oakland, California]. Then it sells the powder to a battery manufacturer — Sila would not identify the other company — which slots the material into its existing process, producing the new battery for the Whoop fitness tracker. "We are just upgrading the factories that are being used today," Mr. Berdichevsky said...

Companies like Sila and QuantumScape already have partnerships with carmakers and expect that their batteries will reach automobiles around the middle of the decade. They hope their technologies significantly reduce the cost of electric cars and extend their driving range... They also hope their batteries lead to new devices and vehicles. Smaller, more efficient batteries could spur the development of "smart glasses" — eyeglasses embedded with tiny computers — by allowing designers to pack a more nimble set of technologies into smaller and lighter frames. The same battery technology could invigorate so-called flying cars, a new type of electric aircraft that could ease commutes across major cities later in the decade.
The Times also notes companies like Enovix and Solid Power have been developing improved batteries "for more than a decade, and some hope to move into mass production around 2025."

And as the batteries progress, the Times got an interesting prediction from Venkat Viswanathan, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in battery technologies. "All aspects of life will become more electrified."
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New Battery Technologies Are Making Progress More

New Battery Technologies Are Making Progress

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  • All aspects of life will become more electrified.

    Especially porn.

    • Re:Trend-setter. (Score:4, Funny)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @05:17PM (#61786415)
      I'm sure some people are still shocked by this.

    • A trend pointed out to me was a shift to "electrified vehicles". This is distinct from an electric vehicle in that an electric vehicle moves under electric power but an electrified vehicle does not. This may or may not be distinct from a "mild hybrid", which may as well be called a "fake hybrid".

      What is an "electrified vehicle"? It would be a car that runs all accessories off electric power, just like an electric car would, as opposed to using mechanical power from a serpentine belt, heat from the engine

  • If I had a dollar for each of these.. Well, I would not be a millionaire, but it would still be a hefty amount.

    • Well we don't have a coal-powered battery, so there's that.

      • Hey, hey, hey ... shhh! Don't give them ideas. The coal and oil guys are pretty innovative on their own peddling green hydrogen, clean coal and all sorts of bullshit to suck government funds. Next thing you know, senators would be saying with straight faces, "we need to give a fair shot to coal battery"....

      • We actually have.
        Most old school batteries we used to have in flash lights etc. where based on coal.

      • But Coal is a battery. What is town gas? It was efficient and cheap. These days you could go green a split off some hydrogen gas at the source and use it to heat a clean green salt battery. In WW2 we drove cars on coal or wood gas. Coal is good.

    • You are on the wrong site.

      If you aren't interested in reading about emerging technology, you should go back to Facebook.

    • Captain obvious here. Electric will continue to substitute for other energy mainly oil but hopefully the corn ethanol too. Oil still has its merits until the new tech improves. But less use also unfortunately until we as a species can figure out how to manage with less harmful energy. Better batteries of course will help and once viability probable can begin transition. Like moving from LPs to CDs and now digital. All progress in good time. Greed helps spur innovation but can also stifle cooperation.

      • Electricity will not substitute for fossil fuels, ethanol, or any other energy source. That's because electricity is not an energy source, it is a medium by which energy is transmitted. As is often pointed out to Tesla fanbois is that in much of the USA a Tesla is a coal powered car. A retort to this often goes, "but a coal powered Tesla is still better for the environment than a gasoline powered car!" That may be true but a Tesla is not getting us any close to our "addiction" to fossil fuels. What we

    • This article provides the perfect antidote to your complaint, by giving an insight into what comes between a discovery and large-scale production of a new battery technology. This is what progress looks like:
      1. discovery
      2. research to see if the discovery is viable
      3. long-term testing
      4. research into production methods
      5. development of production method
      6. low-rate initial production
      7. scaling up to full-scale production

      A new technology can fail at any of these stages, so you need a bunch of discoveries to g

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tchdab1 ( 164848 )

        Competitive secrecy, or failure of journalism? I'm sure people funding/researching/producing steps 2 - 6 don't want you to learn what they've learned before they get a chance to sell it.

  • As a pilot I have trouble visualizing rush hour when "The same battery technology could invigorate so-called flying cars, a new type of electric aircraft that could ease commutes across major cities later in the decade."

    • For aviation I see a lot of the battery technology going into drones. [youtu.be]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      As a pilot I have trouble visualizing rush hour when "The same battery technology could invigorate so-called flying cars, a new type of electric aircraft that could ease commutes across major cities later in the decade."

      If you imagine it as 50,000 Homer Simpsons all trying to get home from work by manually controlling their flying car, then of course it will seem unworkable.

      Imagine instead 50,000 flying elevators, with input from the user consisting of pressing the "home" or the "work" button, and the rest controlled by a computer system that schedules, routes, and controls all flights in a co-ordinated manner.

    • The problem with flying cars is not the problems of crowded air space over cities, fuel costs, vehicle costs, or the need for greater training to fly than drive. The problem is noise. I can sleep through my neighbor getting up before dawn to drive to work, but I'm not sleeping through that same neighbor firing up a quad-copter to fly to work. Restrictions on time of day use to manage the noise means fewer people willing to buy them.

      Elon Musk gets "triggered" by two things, space based solar power and fly

  • It's talk like this that ensures that we will see this kind of tech in a consumer product when pigs fly.

    What I want them to bray about is how this will deliver the power of a Li-Ion battery but won't go boom near your ding-a-ling.

    • It's talk like this that ensures that we will see this kind of tech in a consumer product when pigs fly.

      RTFS. It is already in a consumer product.

  • BEV vs ICEV, SSD vs Magnetic, Ga vs Si (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @05:02PM (#61786379) Journal
    When the Solid State Drive vs magnetic disk comparisons started, the disks proved to be surprisingly resilient. SSDs never won the price/GB war. SSDs are winning because of features that make the higher $/GB cost worthwhile. GaAs never won the fight with silicon.

    Will ICEV prove to be resilient, by the time, BEVs catches up to them, they have made more progress? nah... That does not seem to be happening. Indications are ICEV is pretty much tapped out. And batteries, even the Lithium-ion ones allegedly "plateaued" according to the article, still have two or three more halvings of cost and doublings of energy density left. So in this fight, BEVs are going to win. Probably sooner than 2030.

    Actually the gasoline infrastructure is expensive, fragile and would not survive if it is not grand fathered out of haz-mat regulations. We are driving tankers filled with 2000 gallons of gasoline in dense urban concrete jungles to fill the gas stations storage tanks. A privilege no other hazardous material gets.

    Many urban gas stations are sitting very great street corner locations, but barely make profits in selling gasoline. Their profit is in the convenience store. If the market share of EVs reach 10% and they lose 10% of the gasoline sales, they might seriously re-evaluate their options. Savings on haz-mat insurance, compliance cost, re-purpose the corner lot for two to five stories of development, some will decide to stop selling gasoline.

    Once BEVs reach price parity with ICEV it is game over for gasoline. Even if crude oil is priced at 0 $/barrel, cost of refining and distributing still remains, and the gas price will only reduce by 50%. BEVs running cost ate 33% to 25% of the gas prices. No way gasoline can compete in that scenario.

    • And batteries, even the Lithium-ion ones allegedly "plateaued" according to the article, still have two or three more halvings of cost and doublings of energy density left.

      If they do, then they will win.

      • Fair enough. We agree if they do, BEVs win. There is no dispute about it.

        The current dispute is, BEV fans say it is a question of when, not if. But other side says the jury is still out.

        The Y-Axis is logarithmic. [ieee.org] It shows no sign of flattening out. IEEE is predicting a trend line hitting incredible 20 $/kWh (at cell level) in 2030. Tesla battery day touted 56 $/kWh at pack level, but they were including saving due to mounting the cells directly on to the car body.

        Lots of reasons to think batteries are

        • The Y-Axis is logarithmic. It shows no sign of flattening out.

          A noisy asymptotic curve is not going to look like it will flatten out on a logarithmic scale. Plot that on a linear scale and the flattening out will be quite apparent.
          Like this: https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]

          Lots of reasons to think batteries are following the expected curve.

          One big reason to think it will not. The batteries cannot get lower in cost than the materials used to make them. This defines a floor in the $/kWh curve. Given that there's market forces that define the cost of materials based on supply and demand that means there's a kind of floor on the cos

          • A noisy asymptotic curve is not going to look like it will flatten out on a logarithmic scale. Plot that on a linear scale and the flattening out will be quite apparent.

            There is a reason why professionals use logarithmic scale. In linear scale everything flattens out. You can't tell the difference between 3 year half life, 7 year half life and 14 year half life in linear scale. We look for slope change in logarithmic plot. Notice IEEE is using a slope half the slope of the trend line? That shows how conservative their estimate it. They have given themselves a lot of wiggle room and escape hatches, in using a slope that is half the trend line. Still the prediction is so opt

            • This is not the conventional wisdom. Demand induced price rises create extra profits. That will attract more competition, more investments, that will bring the price down.

              Then what happens to the prices as people go digging for raw materials as the demand increases? It means going digging in places where the materials are not as abundant, where it takes more work and energy to get out, and so it costs more to produce at these volumes than it did at lower volumes. Sure, there will be some economy of scale to lower costs but that doesn't guarantee lower costs in the end.

              Take oil and gas production as an example. We dig for more fuel and as demand rises so does prices. Econ

    • Re:BEV vs ICEV, SSD vs Magnetic, Ga vs Si (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @06:09PM (#61786515) Journal
      Citation: https://www.eia.gov/energyexpl... [eia.gov]

      I claimed even if the crude oil price goes to zero, gasoline price will only drop by just 50%.

      BEV running cost is 1/3 to 1/4 of gas vehicle. 25 mpg BMW SUV at 3 $/gal costs 12 cents a mile. Tesla model 3 is giving 4 miles per kWh. In Western PA electricity is 12 cents/kWh ( 6 cents distribution, 6 cents generation). That is 3 cents a mile.

      If gas goes from 3 $/gal to 1.5$/gal, the BMW would still cost 6 cents a mile.

      We are not including engine oil change, radiator fluid change, transmission oil change, timing belt change, emissions testing every year .... Having a car with full tank every morning, ....

      Once (or if) BEVs achieve price parity with ICEV, its game over for ICEV. It will not happen to all car segments at the same time. First 80K + segment, then 60K+ segment, then 40K+ segment, then 25K+ segment.... when/if this segment is attacked, the ICEV sector will collapse.

      • Except electricity prices are bound to shoot up as more people switch to BEV and more power generation will come from heavily fluctuating sources like wind and photovoltaÃcs, requiring on-demand generation for windless/overcloud days and nights and large investment in the electricity network to deal with the increased load.

        • You act as if nobody had considered this ahead of time.

          Those "heavily fluctuating sources" are starting to be battery backed as installations increase. However, the real kicker is that used EV batteries are being used for these batteries. They are no longer considered to be of use for EVs due to their lowered power but density isn't really an issue for the grid. You can go to a junkyard anywhere in the US and you won't see a single EV battery because they are all bought up. There will be a lag but as pe

          • Those "heavily fluctuating sources" are starting to be battery backed as installations increase. However, the real kicker is that used EV batteries are being used for these batteries.

            Let's not forget that the vehicles which can be used as batteries for your house are finally beginning to roll out, starting AFAICT with the extended battery F150 Lightning. Models with the big battery come with a fast charger which fulfills this purpose. It's only a hop and skip (no jump) from there to having the vehicles return power to the grid as well, actually making money on your behalf. Obviously there is a middle zone they won't help with, where the grid is sagging but it's not economically benefici

            • I honestly don't see this happening one a large scale but if it does then it will likely be a temporary feature that will be abandoned within 10 years. Power companies have no interest in getting less money, so they are going to do what is most cost effective. With the cost of lithium battery power storage continually dropping for over two decades, it will be hard to justify not building out battery storage past five years.

              Then again, maybe I'm totally wrong and cars balancing the grid is exactly what wil

        • Says someone who knows nothing about the power industry, but only imagines what he thinks it must be like.

          Except the price of electricity is bound to remain at its current price-point where it has been, adjusted for inflation, for 60 years. Vast changes in power sources, and the grid over that time, a huge increase in electricity use between 1960 and 1980, but the price remained steady.

          The bit about the "large investment in the electricity network" as if this was, like a new thing, fails to appreciate that

      • Once (or if) BEVs achieve price parity with ICEV, its game over for ICEV.

        No, that is not "game over" for the ICEV. BEVs can't refill/recharge quickly like an ICEV and that's important for a lot of people. BEVs suck for towing because of the much greater energy needed to tow a trailer. BEVs also suck for moving cargo. BEVs don't handle cold weather well do to the lowered energy capacity of a cold battery and the greater need for cabin heat.

        I'll have idiots claim that the stopping for a recharge is no big deal because people need to stop anyway for this, that or the other thin

        • BEVs suck for towing because of the much greater energy needed to tow a trailer. BEVs also suck for moving cargo.

          You have it entirely backwards. IC engines, even the high torque diesel engines are very poor in towing and hauling load. That is why they use the 4000 to 6000 HP diesel engine to turn a generator, make electricity and use electric motors to turn the wheels in locomotives. Look closely they are called diesel-electric locomotives. The motor does not care if the juice come from a generator or battery.

          I'll have idiots claim that the stopping for a recharge is no big deal because people need to stop anyway for this, that or the other thing.

          It does not matter how many cannot use BEV. There are enough people who can use a BEV. They will provide the

          • The motor does not care if the juice come from a generator or battery.

            The problem is not in the motor, it is in the battery. I have seen the math and battery powered trucks would be too heavy, too expensive, take too long to charge, and for what? How are you going to convince people to give up a diesel truck that can pull 50 tons of cargo over 1000 miles nonstop, then after 30 minutes to fill the tank and kick the tires do it all over again? Oh, right, you say the BEV is going to be cheaper to buy and run. Okay, you let me know when that happens.

            As it is now there are ver

            • You are very skeptical of the claims of BEV fans. Fine, that's ok. But that skepticism does not extend to the claims of carbon neutral hydrocarbon fans. Please be aware of it and work it out.

              Lets us start with a point of agreement. Diesel electric locos came of age in 1950s and 60s. The tech is 70 years old. Locos of that day were 2000 HP. Today 4000 to 6000 HP. Semi truck diesels are 400 to 600 HP. Just a 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 scaling down needed. But they did not develop diesel-electric semi all these years.

              • Please just think, do not feel pressured into answering or justifying a stand you have taken before.

                His whole mission here is attacking sensible power generation and consumption choices in order to attempt to deprecate renewable energy. Thinking would run contrary to that.

                • The reason why diesel-electric trucks never took off: Semi power to weight ratio is order of magnitude higher than locomotives. 80,000 lb truck has 400 to 600 HP. Locomotives have 10 times the power, so are they pulling 800,000 lb, a million pounds may be? Nah, each locomotive typically hauls 25 million pounds. You would need a reduction ratio of 90 to 1 to get it moving using a transmission. Compare it to 2.3 to 1 or 3 to 1 first gear of a semi. A 90 to 1 transmission transmitting 6000 HP would be so heavy

              • You are very skeptical of the claims of BEV fans.

                I feel justified in my skepticism because you answered none of my questions. Why choose a less capable BEV to replace a diesel vehicle? CO2 emissions? There's more than one way to address than the BEV.

        • I'll have idiots claim that the stopping for a recharge is no big deal because people need to stop anyway for this, that or the other thing.

          Calling people idiots for saying true things only costs you credibility, not that you've got any to speak of.

          If you have to get cattle to market you aren't going to use a Tesla to pull a stock trailer, you are burning diesel.

          It depends on how far you have to pull it. Around here there are actually processors so they don't have to move the cattle very far. And in fact more, smaller-scale meat processors are needed already, because the distances that some ranchers have to take their cattle to be processed are already abusive in terms of cost and time. Diesel isn't free.

          Given the developments in hybrids that are lowering costs to build and improving fuel efficiency I expect the death of the ICEV to be the hybrid.

          Hybrids have had opportunities to kill the ICEV for de

          • Hybrids have had opportunities to kill the ICEV for decades now and haven't done. They are fully mature technology that almost nobody wants.

            The same can be said of BEVs.

            There are very real obstacles to adoption of BEVs and hybrids that are not technological. There is an infrastructure problem.

            You're always talking about how EVs don't have enough range to do their job, now you're claiming that PHEVs can do the same job with even less range. That is hypocritical in the extreme.

            There's two kinds of driving people do, and for a vehicle to be viable it needs to meet both needs. There's the short daily commute and the longer rarer driving. A PHEV needs only enough battery capacity to meet that daily commute to bring TCO very low, making up for the higher costs on longer trips. When on longer trips people need to know they can po

    • Oh the ignorance in weak minds. There is no new technology. The law of physics or chemistry remain today, as they were in 1940. When you say electric, just remember the energy used to make copper wire, the steel, and the rare earth magnets. and refine the lithium. Then add in the energy in creating the powerlines running the grid. Oh, but EV's will be charged with solar. No they wont - most people charge overnight when the sun is not shining. Plus most of the daytime 'green' energy has already been bought b
      • Funny you think laws of physics favors ICE. Second law of thermodynamics is way older than the 1948 you are talking about. And it created the Carnot's efficiency limits for all heat engines. Absolute theoretical maximum efficiency of a heat engine is 60%. That is assuming an infinite sink reservoir and perfect efficiency everywhere. In automotive engines it is 25%. That expensive gasoline you are buying, you are throwing away 75% of the energy!

        Oh, yes, some diesel engines with super duper efficiency cycle

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shilly ( 142940 )

        "Looking at energy density charts there will be no, repeat no breakthroughs in energy density."

        So confidently wrong! There have already been energy density breakthroughs in the past few years. And by breakthrough, I mean improvements on the order of improvements in say RAM or clock speed for tech. What do they look like?

        I bought my first Renault Zoe in December 2015. It had a range of 90 miles.
        I traded it in for my next in December 2018. That had a range of 186 miles. Exact same form factor and battery volu

  • I'm rolling up a Franklin right now.

  • That can reliably power a Phased Plasma Rifle in the 40 wat range.

  • A short selling scheme drove the stock price into the dump. In a few years there will be quite a few millionaires who bought into the company this year.

  • So it doesn't exist.

  • There is just about zero new or interesting information here. If you've never heard of batteries before, it might be worth a few seconds of your time. If your time wasn't worth much.

  • I hope they have this all sorted out by the time I'm ready to upgrade my current ICE vehicle to an EV. I'm thinking about 7 years or so I'll be ready to trade up, unless they offer some outstanding incentive plans between now and then, or my current one starts costing me too much in maintenance, I won't be able to afford a new vehicle.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shilly ( 142940 )

      In 7 years, you will have a pretty extensive choice of great EVs, and lots and lots of good value 2nd hand options, for sure.

      The amount of investment that's gone into EVs is really huge and nowhere near finished, and it's going to be paying dividends to consumers for years to come.

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