6 ms·

If someone managed to improve on it in every metric then yes, absolutely. The thing is though that you don't have to beat it on every metric to be useful, you

If someone managed to improve on it in every metric then yes, absolutely. The thing is though that you don't have to beat it on every metric to be useful, you have to be _good enough_ on every metric and then really good on one or two. For example, it's absolutely fine for a battery to weight five times as much if it doesn't need to be portable. Five times as heavy but half the cost per MWh? That's great for grid storage! Twice as expensive and non rechargeable but 4 times the capacity (per unit volume)? Great for pacemakers! It's all about finding the right niche.

HPsquared 3y ago
I suppose so. Looking at the list, a lot of them can be relaxed for grid storage. They can be run at absolutely any temperature, for instance. On the other hand an electric aircraft battery needs 10/10 on pretty much all of them (except perhaps cost - up to a point).
- simondotau 3y ago
  Grid batteries are exposed to the full range of temperature swings of whatever climate they're installed in. Protecting a battery from the local climate is expensive and power intensive. Not a deal-breaker, but this cost needs to be factored into the cost of the battery, and any active cooling/heating needs to be deducted from its efficiency.
- Qwertious 3y ago
  Temperature tolerance means the battery is more flexible and has lower installation costs - lithium batteries should generally be stored in somewhere fireproof, for example.
javajosh 3y ago
>Twice as expensive and non rechargeable but 4 times the capacity (per unit volume)? Great for pacemakers! And bombs. When it comes to energy density, be careful what you wish for.
- Turskarama 3y ago
  Well if someone manages to make a battery with the energy density and cost of TNT you let me know.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    It doesn't have to be that powerful. An incredibly energy dense, single use battery would be a boon for suicide drones. The explosives can be separate.
    - Turskarama 3y ago
      My point is that you can already make suicide drones with existing technology, explosives aren't expensive or even particularly hard to make and the batteries are already good enough to get you out of transmitter range. A more powerful battery isn't going to enable something like this, it can already be done.
aidenn0 3y ago
> Five times as heavy but half the cost per MWh? That's great for grid storage! Your point stands in general, but this is possibly worst example of winning in a single metric. New technologies are almost always more expensive than old technologies to begin with, so they need to provide some non-cost advantage at the outset. At least for chemical batteriers, cost and weight are going to be correlated once the technology is mature. At sufficient scale and maturity of process, the material inputs become a significant fraction of the cost. Note also that less mature processes are likely to be much more expensive than their inputs. This means that for such a theoretical battery to exist, the inputs would need to be 5x cheaper and it would need to rely on an a pre-existing manufacturing process. Lithium-Ion became dominant not by being the cheapest, but by having an incredible energy density. Since there was built-in demand, there was a lot of interest in making them cheaper.
- margalabargala 3y ago
  The parent is probably thinking of Sodium Ion batteries, which indeed are cheaper, but less energy dense, than li-ion.
- Turskarama 3y ago
  Even if a technology is _nearly_ as cheap, a company selling them might be willing to eat the initial higher prices and make a loss for a time until the learning curve puts them at a bigger advantage. The examples I was thinking of with this particular metric were Ambris liquid metal cells: https://ambri.com/solution/ https://ambri.com/solution/ and iron-air batteries: https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/ https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/ Both of these technologies have additional advantages on top of cost that I didn't bother going into: namely they degrade less with use and both have no risk of thermal runaway.
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    Degrading less with use is a big advantage, and effectively is like making it cheaper.
- DropInIn 3y ago

HPsquared 3y ago

I suppose so. Looking at the list, a lot of them can be relaxed for grid storage. They can be run at absolutely any temperature, for instance. On the other hand an electric aircraft battery needs 10/10 on pretty much all of them (except perhaps cost - up to a point).

simondotau 3y ago
Grid batteries are exposed to the full range of temperature swings of whatever climate they're installed in. Protecting a battery from the local climate is expensive and power intensive. Not a deal-breaker, but this cost needs to be factored into the cost of the battery, and any active cooling/heating needs to be deducted from its efficiency.
Qwertious 3y ago
Temperature tolerance means the battery is more flexible and has lower installation costs - lithium batteries should generally be stored in somewhere fireproof, for example.

javajosh 3y ago

>Twice as expensive and non rechargeable but 4 times the capacity (per unit volume)? Great for pacemakers! And bombs. When it comes to energy density, be careful what you wish for.

Turskarama 3y ago
Well if someone manages to make a battery with the energy density and cost of TNT you let me know.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  It doesn't have to be that powerful. An incredibly energy dense, single use battery would be a boon for suicide drones. The explosives can be separate.
  - Turskarama 3y ago
    My point is that you can already make suicide drones with existing technology, explosives aren't expensive or even particularly hard to make and the batteries are already good enough to get you out of transmitter range. A more powerful battery isn't going to enable something like this, it can already be done.

aidenn0 3y ago

> Five times as heavy but half the cost per MWh? That's great for grid storage! Your point stands in general, but this is possibly worst example of winning in a single metric. New technologies are almost always more expensive than old technologies to begin with, so they need to provide some non-cost advantage at the outset. At least for chemical batteriers, cost and weight are going to be correlated once the technology is mature. At sufficient scale and maturity of process, the material inputs become a significant fraction of the cost. Note also that less mature processes are likely to be much more expensive than their inputs. This means that for such a theoretical battery to exist, the inputs would need to be 5x cheaper and it would need to rely on an a pre-existing manufacturing process. Lithium-Ion became dominant not by being the cheapest, but by having an incredible energy density. Since there was built-in demand, there was a lot of interest in making them cheaper.

margalabargala 3y ago
The parent is probably thinking of Sodium Ion batteries, which indeed are cheaper, but less energy dense, than li-ion.
Turskarama 3y ago
Even if a technology is _nearly_ as cheap, a company selling them might be willing to eat the initial higher prices and make a loss for a time until the learning curve puts them at a bigger advantage. The examples I was thinking of with this particular metric were Ambris liquid metal cells: https://ambri.com/solution/ https://ambri.com/solution/ and iron-air batteries: https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/ https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/ Both of these technologies have additional advantages on top of cost that I didn't bother going into: namely they degrade less with use and both have no risk of thermal runaway.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  Degrading less with use is a big advantage, and effectively is like making it cheaper.
DropInIn 3y ago