New Battery Design. Well, new to me anyway.

[ravingdave]

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/article ... 002e0.html


David

[Skipjack]

A few comments from my side after brievely flying over the article:
1. I want to see a working battery that I can buy before I believe it.
2. If it worked, it would certainly be exciting.
3. I did not see any information about the charging times. If the charging times are longer than the times of the day when you have solar/wind power, then where is the point?
4. I assume the temperatures and the materials used are prohibitive for a use in cars?
5. The article is overly optimistic in regards to the price of solar power and wind power. Even with the ability to store it, it would still not be cost effective unless the government provides financial help.

[jormungandr]

A few comments from my side after brievely flying over the article:
1. I want to see a working battery that I can buy before I believe it.
2. If it worked, it would certainly be exciting.
3. I did not see any information about the charging times. If the charging times are longer than the times of the day when you have solar/wind power, then where is the point?
4. I assume the temperatures and the materials used are prohibitive for a use in cars?
5. The article is overly optimistic in regards to the price of solar power and wind power. Even with the ability to store it, it would still not be cost effective unless the government provides financial help.

1. No argument there!
2. If it works that would rock.
3. I recall something about Sodium Sulphur batteries being able to charge in 8 hours, but be able to discharge for 8 hours at rated load.
4. Well there are cars that have liquid sodium batteries, they run around 600 degrees F so that wouldn't be a barrier to use in cars, fragile ceramics?
5. What would be really nice is if those numbers presented were pessimistic estimates, but you're most likely right. Though even 50% less performance would still be cool for some applications.

[chrismb]

4. See point 1 comments. I still don't understand how the Lithium Ion batteries manufacturers haven't been sued when a hybrid car fire has burned a hole in a metal bridge or tunnel. I am going to look for web articles on that safety aspect.

You're under-exaggerating the issue. The favoured high capacity batteries for vehicle traction are liquid salt batteries. E.g., Zebra batteries, which are in actual use in some specialised road going vehicles, use a liquid sodium electrode and the whole battery has to operate continuously in excess of 250C.

I've only just read the article. Made me laugh out loud - so an improvement in battery technology "since Socrates first noted solar heating 2,400 years ago"! What annoying flannel! How about the improvement that came about with the discovery of electricity? Maybe we don't need electricity with this new battery.... so immediately the article ran my rag the wrong way.

The issue isn't about how deep the battery can charge - what a complete red-herring! If it was seriously that important to get capacity, then just dig a slightly bigger basement and fill it with lead-acid batteries. 'Several' RV batteries could keep a house going for a day. That is all that is needed. Say 12kWh worth to keep the house ticking over, over night, would be a high consumption house = 12V x 1000Ah = 10 big batteries.

Make the battery too high in capacity and, like the Zebras, what you've actually built is a small bomb rather than a battery...

[MSimon]

The deep charge is an issue because it represents a capital investment and has an influence on size and battery costs.

Have you priced a 24 KWh (12 KWh useful capacity) lead acid battery these days? About $5,500 ea.

http://www.solaronebatteries.com/

If you could get that kind of capacity for $2,000 it would be a great help.

[chrismb]

The deep charge is an issue because it represents a capital investment and has an influence on size and battery costs.

Have you priced a 24 KWh (12 KWh useful capacity) lead acid battery these days? About $5,500 ea.

http://www.solaronebatteries.com/

If you could get that kind of capacity for $2,000 it would be a great help.

"Type 017 Delphi Car Battery 12V 90Ah (Delphi S90AL) £87.95 inc. VAT"

http://www.tayna.co.uk/Type-017-Delphi- ... P4157.html

90Ah x 11 = 1000Ah = 12kWh = GBP88 x 11 = GBP898 = $1436

If you can't get better, bigger, cheaper batteries than this in the US, at commercial wholesale prices without tax, then I'll eat one.

[MSimon]

The deep charge is an issue because it represents a capital investment and has an influence on size and battery costs.

Have you priced a 24 KWh (12 KWh useful capacity) lead acid battery these days? About $5,500 ea.

http://www.solaronebatteries.com/

If you could get that kind of capacity for $2,000 it would be a great help.

"Type 017 Delphi Car Battery 12V 90Ah (Delphi S90AL) £87.95 inc. VAT"

http://www.tayna.co.uk/Type-017-Delphi- ... P4157.html

90Ah x 11 = 1000Ah = 12kWh = GBP88 x 11 = GBP898 = $1436

If you can't get better, bigger, cheaper batteries than this in the US, at commercial wholesale prices without tax, then I'll eat one.

A car battery is designed for light cycling (10% to 20%) at high discharge rates with a useful lifetime of about 3 to 5 years.

What I am looking at is a deep discharge battery (50% for 4,000 cycles - 10+ years) at moderate rates (24 hours to 50% i.e. 500 watts average).

Compare apples to apples.

[chrismb]

The deep charge is an issue because it represents a capital investment and has an influence on size and battery costs.

Have you priced a 24 KWh (12 KWh useful capacity) lead acid battery these days? About $5,500 ea.

http://www.solaronebatteries.com/

If you could get that kind of capacity for $2,000 it would be a great help.

"Type 017 Delphi Car Battery 12V 90Ah (Delphi S90AL) £87.95 inc. VAT"

http://www.tayna.co.uk/Type-017-Delphi- ... P4157.html

90Ah x 11 = 1000Ah = 12kWh = GBP88 x 11 = GBP898 = $1436

If you can't get better, bigger, cheaper batteries than this in the US, at commercial wholesale prices without tax, then I'll eat one.

A car battery is designed for light cycling (10% to 20%) at high discharge rates with a useful lifetime of about 3 to 5 years.

What I am looking at is a deep discharge battery (50% for 4,000 cycles - 10+ years) at moderate rates (24 hours to 50% i.e. 500 watts average).

Compare apples to apples.

Sure, but if you multiply up the battery quantity (and my nightly 12kWh is, I am pretty sure, a very comfortable over-estimate) then I think you're still in your $5k budget. And so what if it is $5k - is this fantastical battery going to be that much cheaper? More significantly (if it is) is whether it can be downsized for smaller applications to replace lead-acid.

I'd think nothing of equipping my house with lead-acid if that is what I wanted to do.

How about running NiMH in deep discharge - say $1 per 2000mAh AA battery so you'd need 12kWh/2.4Wh = 5000 of them. Again, I'm sure commerical wholesale costs would be smaller. So I don't think a higher capacity battery is an answer to any problem that cannot be addressed currently. I'm not sure why it's the most important thing for 2400 years!

[MSimon]

Let us say regular discharge of 12 KWh. At 20% discharge you need 60 KWh of batteries vs 24 KWh of deep discharge (50%) batteries. You do the math. Did I mention that car batteries are not designed for 10 year lives?

So the question is: do you want a battery set up capable of handling regular deep cycling or are you just interested in getting by the occasional emergency? The capital reqmts are different. If they weren't telco central offices wouldn't pay so much for batteries.

==

At 1/2 the capital costs a $2,000 battery is a big deal. Will it be that good in production? All we can do is wait.