this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
60 points (98.4% liked)
Technology
967 readers
55 users here now
A tech news sub for communists
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
link to the paper https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45347-3
So these batteries have Calcium metal anodes and Graphite cathodes. The optimal electrolyte that they tested this with is Calcium Chloride. All of these chemicals are commonly found everywhere and not likely to create conflict minerals, which is awesome! These batteries are rechargable as well! It might be a decade or so to go from science to engineering a means to mass produce these but a great win for humanity! The only downside is that they don't perform well in temperatures less than 0° C. Which means that some outdoor use batteries will likely still require lithium in areas with seasonal temperature drops.
Welp, no batteries for Russia then. Guess we're stuck with fossils
Yeah but all indoors uses are still on (for some reason i don't really belive in the old Polish joke that Russians start fo feel a little chilly and close the window in bathroom at -30 C)
Lots of lithium is being discovered in Mexico, China, and Argintina. With climate change the thawing out polar reigions, perhaps more lithium will be discovered in Canada and Siberia. Also people in temperate climates can have devices not using lithium which means that the lithium can be used for people living in colder climates.
Can't you put a solar panel on top and heat the batteries to keep them above 0°? I guess the problem is that you want the opposite of thermal insulation for batteries when they are working, but insulate them when it's too cold.
Snow and lack of sun in areas where it regularly drops below zero would be an issue with that.
Snow could be melted by heating the solar panel. Unless it's snowing constantly this could still be net positive over multiple days. This would mostly be useful for grid storage / house storage. But I could imagine an EV doing this too - a few solar panels to heat up the batteries each morning to improve efficiency. Or if it's plugged in. It should be relatively easy and cheap to negate the problems of low temperature with 1 kW of PV for 250€, a micro controller and a temperature sensor and some resistance wire.