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Nickel Hydrogen Batteries by NASA
- scott_h 3y ago[dead]
- jillesvangurp 3y agoFor grid bases storage, energy density does not really matter. What matters is cost and longevity. There are a few emerging battery chemistries that promise to be cheaper and more durable than lithium ion and less vulnerable to hot/cold temperatures as well. The energy density for these is not good enough for things like cars or trucks. But that doesn't matter if the primary application is setting up stationary storage in some field in the middle of nowhere. You literally can just plonk down some containers and wire them up. What matters is being able to deploy these things quickly and cheaply and not having to expend a lot of energy on heating/cooling or worrying about these things catching fire. For cars and trucks, current batteries are actually fine. Higher energy densities are mainly nice for things like high end sports cars where the form factor prevents cramming in more battery. But less so in freight trucks. Saving a few hundred kilos of mass on a truck that pulls 80 tonne is just not that valuable. It's nice but only if it doesn't raise the price too much. So what if you need a two tonne battery? The main constraint here is cost, not weight. The aviation market on the other hand has an insatiable demand for high energy density storage. Hence companies like CATL announcing 500wh/kg batteries recently. That's double what you'd find in a high end car these days. And apparently they are working on even higher energy density batteries already. Probably these are really expensive and hard to get. But it's going to add quite a bit of range to things like VTOL planes, drones, and other flying things that run on batteries. So, a NASA battery with high energy density and a few other nice properties (like needing no cooling/heating) could be worth the extra cost in this market. And better longevity means more time in between expensive overhauls as well.
- VBprogrammer 3y ago> Saving a few hundred kilos of mass on a truck that pulls 80 tonne is just not that valuable. From my understanding of the trucking industry, in many sectors, this isn't true at all. For example, in tipper trucks where you are carrying literal dirt and rocks from one place to another every kg counts and tare weight of the truck is very much a consideration, even in the relatively minor variations between diesel trucks. In the US weight restrictions are even lower than in Europe in many states.
- atoav 3y ago> In the US weight restrictions are even lower than in Europe in many states. Given that road wear grows to the fourth power (!) with vehicle weight, I hope you guys feel well with the fact that your tax dollar subsidizes those ultra heavy trucks.
- VBprogrammer 3y agoSeems reasonable given, you know, they are also delivering our food, fuel and basically anything else you need or want. They also pay a considerable amount of road tax and taxes on fuel which would make most people in the US plot a coup.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoAh, yes, because trains clearly could not do this and never did in the past. There is no alternative.
- VBprogrammer 3y agoTrains have never delivered to individual retail stores, half finished housing estates or petrol stations. Perhaps reserve your sarcasm for when you aren't saying something stupid.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
- jojobas 3y agoCurrent electric semis are only good for hauling potato chips (i.e. mostly air) for any distance over 100km. Weight is very very valuable on both passenger cars and commercial trucks. Hauling those extra 300-500kg vs a comparable size sedan comes at a steep cost too, as increasing weight requires stronger/wheels body, wheels, brakes, even engines. There is a huge demand for higher energy density, preferably of a non-explosive kind.
- gameoverhumans 3y agoAs I understand it, electric cars are actually surprisingly polluting, which is a consequence of their battery weight and particulates from tires: https://dynomight.net/tires/ https://dynomight.net/tires/
- jakobnissen 3y agoThe blog in your link seems to conclude that electric cars pollute less than petrol cars overall. Still, if the blog is true, it's still surprising that such a large amount of air pollution comes from tyres and brakes. A little Googling does support this claim.
- jojobas 3y agoIt could have something to do with the fact that in order to regen-brake a 1800kg car at your typical 0.5g at 100 km/h you need some 270kW of motor/generator power. This is the main reason your Teslas and Polestars have these otherwise outlandish engines, and if you already have it, why not accelerate at traction limit, creating all these aerosols and what not.
- goodcanadian 3y agoIt is extremely atypical to be braking at 0.5g. That is an emergency braking situation, in which case, it is perfectly reasonable to be engaging the mechanical braking.
- dabeeeenster 3y agoEVs do 100% need to get lighter. They are still quite a bit heavier than their ICE equivalents and tyre wear is (IMO) underappreciated as a toxin/pollutant.
- jillesvangurp 3y agoThere are quite a few lighter EVs. Including some classic car conversions that actually manage to be faster and lighter than their originals. Those cute little EVs that are mass produced in China are far lighter than the super sized trucks people in the US drive. And of course any muscle car burns out its tires, brakes, and has terrible fuel economy.
- ilyt 3y agoMost people buy neither small EVs (they have family) nor musclecars (they, again, have family)
- littlestymaar 3y agoYou definitely don't need a 3t truck to carry your family, especially when you know how small modern families are… The average household size in the US is 2.53. And 63% of households are only made of one or two person (that is, the majority actually doesn't “have a family”), which fits in 482 kg Citroën Ami. Also the most common car in Europe (Dacia Sandero), which is a 5-seater only weights 1 036kg. Gigantic American cars are a cultural phenomenon (which is mostly ad-driven by the way), it doesn't relate to an actual need.
- bumby 3y agoI’m not discounting the cultural part because it’s a big factor, but you’re also missing that the US has more stringent safety standards that significantly drive up weight. There’s more reasons that those little Opals and Citroëns aren’t sold in the US beyond cultural norms.
- 3y ago
- panick21_ 3y ago> Higher energy densities are mainly nice for things like high end sports cars where the form factor prevents cramming in more battery. But less so in freight trucks. Saving a few hundred kilos of mass on a truck that pulls 80 tonne is just not that valuable. Disagree. Car and truck makers try to optimize for grams and saving a kg of production vehicle is considered a huge engineering victory. Saving 100s of kg is a gigantic deal.
- bumby 3y agoThis is true. Just look at Fords decision to go with an aluminum bed on their F150. Going with a material that is more expensive and less durable on their best selling vehicle that’s also a work truck is a big deal, but worth it given the weight savings.
- AtlasBarfed 3y agoCATL's sodium ion batteries are slated to soon (1-2 years, mostly just mundane factory construction and logistics) to hit $40/kwhr. No nickel / cobalt / etc. I think LFP is basically already under that as well (I think they are in the 60-70/kwhr range). For grid storage, that is probably the only metric that matters: cost per kwhr of storage (and sufficient cycle endurance).
- thfuran 3y agoAnd aren’t those batteries meant to be comparable in density to current lipo, to exceed that handily in their next generation?
- CyberDildonics 3y agoHow can LFP be both under $40/kwhr and in the 60-70/kwhr range?
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y agoSodium ion was the $40/kwh and LFP is $70/kwh
- justsomeadvice0 3y agoI think GP intended to convey "under the price in the article" ($83/kwhr).
- selimthegrim 3y agoFactory might not be a done deal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37677943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37677943
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fransje26 3y ago> the battery catalyst is a Nickel-Molybdenum-Cobalt alloy, which seems like a pretty rare, expensive component. So you didn't read the article? The piece states: "Yi Cui’s team found an inexpensive nickel-molybdenum-cobalt alloy catalyst for the battery that costs $20/kg." For a catalyst, that doesn't sound too expensive. > Their published research cites a $~83/kWh cost for just the materials (that's not very cheap) That's all very nice, but that number is from a paper from 2018. And they state that it is the battery cost: "The estimated cost of the nickel-hydrogen battery reaches as low as ∼$83 per kilowatt-hour". And pulling up 2018 data for LiIon, we get $~198/kWh.. (For instance, from here: https://about.bnef.com/blog/lithium-ion-battery-pack-prices-rise-for-first-time-to-an-average-of-151-kwh https://about.bnef.com/blog/lithium-ion-battery-pack-prices-...)
- RhodesianHunter 3y agoNot the mention the comparative differences in economies of scale, given that one of these has been scaled while the other has not.
- pfdietz 3y agoThe Li-ion number is assuming a current mix of chemistries, not the cheaper one (LFP).
- scott_h 3y ago> So you didn't read the article? Part of my critique is that the numbers cited in the article don't relate to their meaning. Measuring catalyst by kg instead of kWh is stupid, so $20/kg means jack when you look at what that actually means for a battery. Sounds hard to believe that there is an inexpensive anything made of only things like nickel-molybdenum-cobalt. > That's all very nice, but that number is from a paper from 2018. Hey I agree with you, but that's what the article cited. Maybe they shouldn't be citing a 2018 article. And I bet that $83/kWh was absolutely a best case estimate without manufacturing costs, nor accounting for scaling costs. Thats why I added the link for context.
- derriz 3y agoRegarding affordability, if this battery can achieve 30,000 recharge cycles vs 500 for li-ion, then relatively small differences in materials cost will be irrelevant, no? Particularly if used for grid storage.
- danw1979 3y agoThis sounds great on paper but there’s a couple of questions left hanging: > We take the battery, put it in an open fire, and watch it continue to heat up. What ends up happening is that the pressure above top charge will force the hydrogen back into water. And then we have a release valve designed into the unit so at a predesigned pressure and temperature that will release, and you’ll get a steam vent.” But what about the hydrogen ? doesn’t that risk getting vented out with the steam ? into the barbecue ? What’s the self discharge characteristics ?
- sheepshear 3y agoA hydrogen fuel cell also vents and you can ignite the concentrated stream like a blow torch. At 5% the pressure of a H fuel cell, the battery probably vents less hydrogen.
- soco 3y agoHow are today's batteries doing when put in the barbecue fire? The new ones only need to not do (much) worse.
- thfuran 3y agoHow batteries do when placed in a barbecue is, for most applications, much less important than how often they spontaneously initiate a barbecue.
- liftm 3y agoI laughed, but is that really true? You're going to have a lot of batteries/cells in one place, and one will inevitably start barbecue. Isn't the question whether the rest joins?
- thfuran 3y agoI suppose it is probably hard to engineer a battery that is prone to spontaneous barbecues but resistant to the influence of outside barbecues. But I'm not sure I agree that it's just a numbers game that if you put enough of something in one spot, some of them are bound to suddenly catch fire without outside intervention.
- jsmcgd 3y agoCan anyone comment on the design of the cell, specifically why it is long and thin, which would work against the square cube law. Is a large surface to volume chosen for thermal reasons?
- HWR_14 3y agoAs I understand it, something like a lead-acid battery using volumes of acid and volumes of reactants so a cube gives them more power with the same surface area. NiMH batteries use boundaries between states instead of acid. Therefore, you want long thin batteries of alternating materials to make them more efficient. Or, to put it a different way, NiMH batteries require a large interior surface area, and so the square/cube law forces them to look longer and thinner as they get larger.
- h0l0cube 3y agoAs per the article, these Nickel Hydrogen batteries are very different to NiMH > Nickel-hydrogen batteries look and work unlike any other battery. They consist of a stack of electrodes inside a pressurized gas tank. The cathode is nickel hydroxide while the anode is hydrogen. When the battery is charging, a catalytic reaction generates hydrogen gas. During discharge, the hydrogen oxidizes and converts back to water.
- HWR_14 3y agoSorry, yes. I was, however, describing my understanding of Nickel Hydrogen batteries' relationship with the square-cube law. Not NiMH. See this diagram: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nickel-hydrogen_battery_NASA.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nickel-hydrogen_battery_N...
- schiffern 3y agoThe cells are pressure vessels, so normal cube-square scaling laws don't apply. Instead you need to use pressure vessel scaling laws, which also account for the needed wall thickness. Pressure vessel scaling laws say that all cylinders have the same mass efficiency, and making long thin cylinders is easier than making short squat cylinders.
- p1mrx 3y agoThe edited headline (Nickel Hydrogen Batteries by NASA) is incorrect; the technology is from NASA, but the batteries are from EnerVenue.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jbeard4 3y agoI enjoyed this video about this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zG-ZrC4BO0&t=189s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zG-ZrC4BO0&t=189s
- ralfd 3y ago30 years lifetime sounds great. But doesn't hydrogen diffuse through metal? Can it be contained such a long time?
- credit_guy 3y agoThe use case for this is to charge the battery during the day and discharge it during the night. It is not for seasonal energy storage. There are no batteries that can be used for seasonal storage, nothing comes within a factor of 100 of being economical. But batteries for seasonal storage requires very few cycles, one per year. This battery here can go through many thousands of cycles. If you don't use it for daily storage, you are paying for something you don't need.
- aidenn0 3y agoWhen they are at full charge, they have H2 at 300PSI. Assuming they spend a significant fraction of a day at full-charge, after 10 years they will have totaled a significant fraction of 10 years at 300PSI. GP's question is "Will the H2 migrate through the pressure tank after such a long time?"
- CyberDildonics 3y agoIt's strange they didn't compare these batteries to lithium titanate, which is the other chemistry that can do 30,000 cycles and is something anyone can buy right now. They have extremely high charging C rates and sit somewhere between normal batteries and full capacitors in what they can do. They end up being about 50% more than LiFePo batteries in cost.
- aidenn0 3y agoThe numbers thrown out for this (~$60/kWh) are comparable in price to what LFP might cost in the next couple of years, the C rates for these are much lower (C/2).
- mcdonje 3y agoSince it's relatively low pressure (5% of a hydrogen fuel cell), couldn't they have larger batteries for grids? The current size would be great for homes.
- pjc50 3y agoThat looks suspiciously similar to a standard gas tank size. Generally you make a battery by combining cells - they have a 1-1.5V terminal voltage. The image lower down shows a rack of them in a warehouse. I suspect you'd stack them up to a few hundred volts and plug them into an inverter. I wonder if they require the same balancing as more delicate chemistries.
- aidenn0 3y agoEnerVenue's website has some claims that imply (but do not state, and remember this is marketing material!) it is much less delicate: 1. No thermal runaway and "phenomenal overcharge, discharge and deep-cycle performance" 2. "Flexible charge and discharge rates" 3. "Vessels can discharge to 100%" 4. Specified charging rate of C/12-C/2 (i.e. can be charged at rates from 1/12 the capacity per hour to 1/2 the capacity per hour) They do require usage of a tiered BMS though: https://enervenue.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Enervenue_BMS_Datasheet.pdf https://enervenue.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/202...
- zucker42 3y agoThis video discusses that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zG-ZrC4BO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zG-ZrC4BO0 But, keep in mind that Undecided is overly optimistic about pretty much every emerging technology.
- toss1 3y agoI'm curious how they solved the hydrogen leakage/seepage problem through the walls. Even though it is designed for many (daily?) cycles and not long-term storage, it seems that H2 is in the tank anytime there's a charge ready or building. Maybe the pressures are low enough that it's insignificant even over 30k cycles? Or does it just require occasional recharging with water or H2, and if so, what is the value of "occasional"?
- hmottestad 3y ago> So far, EnerVenue has been operating a pilot production line that can manufacture 100 megawatt-hours’ worth of batteries per year—and they’ve deployed small-scale test systems. But, says Heinemann, the company already has over 7 GWh, or about 400 million dollars’ worth of purchase orders... We should soon see if this is a viable business then.
- aidenn0 3y ago> 7 GWh, or about 400 million dollars This implies a bulk cost of about $57/kWh which is slightly cheaper than present day LFP (the primary competitor for grid-scale battery storage). IMO, it needs to be no more expensive than LFP, because LFP cells can be spec'd for ~8 years and it's hard to get people to invest on timescales longer than ~10 years.
- panick21_ 3y agoThere are many grid battery technologies common on right now, liquid metal battery, IronAir battery and many more. And all of those have lots of 'orders' that they brag about.
- surfingdino 3y agoSo all these years we've been looking for the anti-gravity chamber and they had this!?
- RulerOf 3y agoI visited the NASA campus in Cleveland, OH many years back and got to talking to one of the engineers who worked on this tech for the ISS. The batteries they use up there run $10k a piece, but he stressed how rock solid the chemistry and design is. Nickel hydrogen has incredible endurance, but the part that really struck home with me: they measure the state of charge with a pressure gauge.