4 ms·
> 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
by 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 agoThe parent is probably thinking of Sodium Ion batteries, which indeed are cheaper, but less energy dense, than li-ion.
- Turskarama 3y agoEven 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 agoDegrading less with use is a big advantage, and effectively is like making it cheaper.
- DropInIn 3y agoSo you're saying that capitalism leads us to inevitable stagnation with the least desirable of the acceptable options? Because that sure how that reads....