I was at the Everything Electric Vancouver in Canada a few months back… it was amazing! I’m a municipal councillor and was able to take some of what I learned there back to my community and hopefully, we’ll be able to electrify some of our municipal fleet this coming year. Wish us luck, there’s a little pushback as of yet.
The potential for savings is tremendous. I think fiscal justifications may be sufficient. But it's important to include all relevant factors. The community benefits like quiet trucks, cleaner air and lower stress for workers, those are the icing on the cake.
Hopefully they talk to other municipalities in Canada who have already electrified some of their fleet and learn what has or hasn't worked before diving head first into it based on what some sales rep promised
It’s amazing to see how rapidly the utility-scale battery storage systems are progressing. I have been following flow batteries for a long while. These zinc and vanadium reflux batteries are in commercial use already. This salt based battery is a welcome addition to the mix.
The company where I work is perfecting a reverse osmosis membrane that filters salt water from the ocean and purifies it. We have found that the filtered out salt, when used in a long duration salt-flow battery extends the battery charge from 41 to around 48% We think it is the case that the filter, during osmosis, strips half of the electron, creating a "fish hook' that gets caught in the membrane, sort of like Velcro.. Relying on the flowing solute and since osmosis is the movement of a solvent across a semi-permeable membrane from an area of lower solute concentration to an area of higher solute concentration. The water (the solvent) can move across the membrane but the dissolved solutes (the sodium and chloride ions that form salt) cannot.
Thank you for another informative video. You are doing a great job keeping us up-to-date on the interconnected energy technologies that are our best hope for a peaceful and prosperous future on the home planet. Blessings to you for the important work you are doing here. And blessings for your beautiful family. ❤
I live in CA. Next week the sun will barely be out. I can be like this any time during the winter. We need batteries that can output for weeks, far more than 12 hours.
And most importantly, doesn't require the extensive mining of things like lithium and phosphorus. That's why I have interest in scaling up liquefied air power storage, since liquefied air technology is pretty mature (liquefied air refrigeration has been around for many years for industrial grade refrigeration).
There is windpower, plus there is still solar when it’s cloudy - the other thing is the need to design the system to handle the worst weeks - you can do this because solar installations are incredibly competitive (right now about 2 cents/kwh and dropping)
They're already cheaper than most LFP batteries. That scale both in storage or power generation by adding either storage tanks for more storage or adding more junctions for the power generation part. The down side is that they take a little time to start up though - meaning you still need some batteries to offset the warmup phase. Na + Na Flow = maybe one of the best methods for grid storage for the future. The only other one that can compete is some type of air storage batteries that converts the power into pressure instead. There are water base ones (like hydro) that are better, but are very limited in where they can go so I normally dont even consider them unless they just work some place.
They're going to have to massively solve the power storage problem for renewables to work, especially when the wind doesn't blow or the Sun is not up. That's why there's a lot of recent interest in liquefied air power storage, especially since it doesn't need complex battery chemistry (liquefied air storage is a pretty mature technology, since it has been used for special refrigerators to store frozen food or temperature sensitive medicine on a very large scale).
That sounds like something that will be part of the solution too. There are going to be a bunch of different technologies, it isn't just going to be solar, and wind, with batteries.
True, it's interesting and there will be interest from classical chemical company as they can repurpose much of their knowhow here - think LNG eg. Drawback is that you loose 40-50% during per storage cycle, depending ao on how well you insulate the plant. If those heat and cold losses could be further upgraded with a heat pump - who knows.
The battery technology just keeps adancing , faster than anything else out there. Maybe the Universe discoveries by the *"James Webb Space Telescope"* , is the only thing that is advancing faster. 😳
Another great show, yeah, clearly batteries are key to making solar & wind work without other sources of energy like fossil, tidal, geothermal or nuclear. I wonder if we should be putting big flow batteries in every home to distribute the grid. But that depends on what the "maintenance" story is on these flow batteries?
For domestic use, it's important to consider the MAINTENANCE COST of flow batteries. If an engineer has to come and visit every 6 to 12 months to check these systems, this will probably cost 1 or 2 thousand dollars a year which makes a big hole in your savings, especially when the annual bill for grid supplied power may not be vastly greater. This was the aspect of Zn-Bromide that killed my enthusiasm. Having an on-site techie at a large grid-scale flow battery would be easier to justify. Lithium batteries (the safer LIFEPO4 type) when delivered from China are currently around AU$178 per KWh. (Plus the cost of breakers, wire etc)
Thats why the larger units will be deployed as community or Area grid balancing facilities in most places. Domestic units might need to be small enough for easy swap in swap out ... servicing or possibly leasing akin to a domestic version of Nios battery packs. Go back to the dawn of home radio sets and you apparently could take your Accumulator to the local shop for charging.. 😉🧙♂️🇬🇧 These things will be akin to solar panels or domestic plumbing the most complex maintainance might involve a pump a control board and a couple of sensors. Think simple earlier washing machine levels of tech as long as they use appropriate open tech. Keep the internet IT boys out of it as far as possible thatway lies chaos...and Musk et al.
I saw Sam at the Melbourne EV show. Seriously do yourself a favour and get to Sydney Electify Sydney and see him live if you can. You won't be disappointed.
These are definitely the best way to go. Another version of this is the ultra-high temperature liquid tin flow type batteries that turn heat into a photovoltaic source of energy and will store power for a year with only 1% of loss. There's also a ultra high temperature salt based type too. Judging from what I've heard from COP28, many countries are ready to adapt this tech into their grids in order to eliminate fossil fuels once and for all. All of these systems are created with relatively inexpensive materials like graphite, tin, and salt. It looks like the future is looking good for zero carbon footprints.
I expect that if they use NaCl as a source of additional ions in their reactor one electrolyte is Sodium based. That would definitely make it a Sodium ions flow battery.
Sam, that white wall behind you! Why don’t you have your no1 of the week ! Eg car, battery, solar panel, home turbine ???it would be extremely helpful to me/ others to have recommendations 😉🏴
When eveyone has at least one electric car, that will be a huge amount of stored energy on top of this are powerwalls - these will play a significant role as well
People seem to be overlooking a simple consideration. EV batteries lose their pep after a while. These used EV batteries are perfect for stationary storage. They can be sold down to their recycling value. As the world EV fleet grows these will become available in massive numbers. Eventually the majority will be recycled.
True, EV batteries lose capacity over time, but not nearly as fast as most people think, in fact, most EV batteries will last 20+ years, and come in varying chemistries and Voltages, making it very difficult to pair them for grid-scale storage. Not a great option.
Used EV batteries have been used for stationary energy storage for several years now, and there is a company making a standardized rack precisely for this purpose which can accommodate batteries from several different models of cars. It didn’t seem to be a grid scale solution but more for an individual household or small to medium sized businesses.
Don't be so harsh, this is a company with a real product and pilot plant operating... Of course, not everything is perfect as it looks: roundtrip effficiency is 70% (claimed). A bit on the low side, but much better than other options as hydrogen energy storage.
The more such improvements in battery technologies, the faster we’re going to transition away from non-renewables (coal and gas). Keep the momentum going!
There are thousands of potential pumped hydro sites in the US. Satellite data has already confirmed. Improve the grid to carry the power from remote pumped hydro sites.
That's definitely going to be part of the solution. There isn't one solution that will meet every need. Instead there will be a bunch of different technologies, and pumped hydro IS one of those technologies.
@fredbloggs5902 The satellite data has already been crunched. You just need two different elevations. Something wrong with your brain function? Pumped hydro problem is the power transmission, not the sites.
@blackknight4996 America doesn't invest in infrastructure anymore because it was taken over by a finance Oligarchy some call the deep state. Doing pumped hydro would take state credit channeling into infrastructure like what China does.
Concerned about salt cost? Michigan has:--According to the Salt Institute, Michigan has an estimated 71 trillion tons of salt deposits, including over 30,000 trillion tons in 55 counties of the Lower Peninsula
I normally find these videos wishywashy but this actually sounds promising. Obviously it is going to have far less energy density than lithium and take up more real estate but the lower hazards of fire and toxicity are worth it
This is great news. Now here's a bit of news from the generating technology side of the coin. New geothermal, is starting to ramp up. Added to wind and solar, it can, since it runs 24/7, top up batteries when wind and solar aren't. Google already has a small 2nd generation geothermal plant in Nevada. Their partners are a start up called Fervo Engergy. There's people working on yet a different kind of new geothermal (It is planned to go even deeper.) too. There are probably new technologies coming that could add to both generation and storage of energy that aren't even on the radar yet. Pretty exciting time to be alive!
@@fredbloggs5902 That is definitely the case with Gen 1 Geothermal. However Gen 2 Geothermal, is quite different. This isn't your local heat pump kind of geothermal either. These people use multiple pipes and go several thousand meters down. There is a more experimental type that plans to go down even farther. They can go down virtually anywhere using fracking technology.
In the USA it's pretty difficult to get rid of natural gas in certain areas because it's actually a byproduct of oil drilling. Considering that cars in the United States are only being replaced at a rate of about 1% per year it's going to take many decades to replace all the cars so we will need oil drilling for a very long time in order to make the gas these cars need. With that said we do still have a lot of peeker plants that are run by coal and some that are even run buy oil, and all those will be replaced by batteries.
We in the UK do need fossil fuels Sam because we haven't got enough renewable energy sources. We won't have enough renewable energy for 12 years minimum. The cost of building offshore wind farms has recently almost doubled. The UK doesn't have enough sunshine. NIMBYISM is rife in the UK and sometimes their objections are valid. So I'm in favour of fracking and in favour of extracting the last drop of oil and gas from the North Sea and west of the Shetlands. The transition will occur SAM but nowhere near as quickly as you hope. I have solar panels and an electric car and MG4 so I'm not a Luddite. I'm also in favour of modular nuclear power stations.
For the UK and EU - you can pretty much switch over to smaller modular nuclear power. Add wind farms around. Solar in more remote locations - you pretty much have the answer. 12 sound fast compare to the rest of the world that would need much longer.
Flow batteries last longer but they return less electricity per cycle than Lithium batteries . Flow batteries have their place , just like Gravitational storage , The Question is home storage batteries like power walls which could be 30 KW for less than $5,000. combine that with say large gravitational and flow batteries we are getting closer to a better world . Just imagine a 15-20 Kw solar system on every home and one or two 30kw battery storage systems
We will still need the natural gas plants renewable energy production is speratic due to weather conditions and the grid in the usa is massive and production plants are increasing as well due to the pull out in china as well ev adoption its a good idea and will reduce emissions but the ev adoption alone will require a doubling of the grid on top of manufacturing.
We need affordable, residential and small business-scale batteries. Powerwalls are like the first generation computers, prohibitively expensive and woefully lacking power. To really disrupt the utility monopolies, and to cool homes and charge an EV a bit at night, the average home will need at least a 50 kWh battery.
Two of the questions we should be asking are how much and how fast. How much CO2 do we want to scrub from our atmosphere and how fast do we want to do it? We need fossil fuels now to make the products and machinery that will enable us to get us off fossil fuels in the future. I like what Elon said in Italy recently: environmentalism has gone too far.
Flow batteries seem like a a brilliant idea, but so far I'm not seeing them in the world. They must be somewhere... but where? Are they actually on the grid somewhere? I guess if they aren't cheaper than Li-ion, there's your answer.
Flow batteries seem great idea, but nothing works in practice. This featured tech seems dubious, huge volume required, acid-saline. You don’t want that leaking. Not better than pumped hydro, like a third of storage volume, but not fresh water. Look at the tech before endorsing it.
And? Electricity is also 100 times cheaper than all those items.... and all those items can be used to make electricity as needed that would also have to compete at lower prices. Heating can be done by heat pumps still, and some gas can still be used as needed.
@adr2t The biggest problem is that the grid itself is horrendously expensive. 66% of electricity bills are grid costs. This was OK when all the fossil fuels were used. Economically, if each building generates and stores its own electricity and the existing national grid is not loaded with extra electricity, we will be in the best place for stopping CO2 and climate destabilisation.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 So? Its one system. Do you know how much you spend just on the system for gas for your car? Do you know how much you pay for your gas to your house? All those systems require planning, building, deploying, and update. Let alone the resources along with it. Getting gas to your car requires gas! Like we spend much much more on those other systems than the grid and at 60% cost - that still way way cheaper. Correct, but it doesnt matter if the grid it self takes on some of that as well and this grounds for all countries. The power lines just need to get better in general. Not just for power reasons, but just basic function of how all econs work. Yes you can try and make local grids, but larger grids still can provide better over all scale of power. Either way you slice it, putting money into the grid would be way way better than trying to put it into any other current system we have in place for both travel and econ.
@adr2t Capture electricity where it is used with rooftop solar pv and a big battery in V2G EVs. Selfplug-in EVs is the killer feature. Most vehicles are parked 23hrs every day. Big EV batteries are free with the vehicle. Rooftop solar PV is cheaper than windows $/m2 Grids need massive amounts of minerals and fossil fueled mining and refining and smelting and rolling and galvanising and fabrication and construction labour and finance and decades and decades and decades and decades Most people live in their dream and only see reality if it hits them or they learn and do the Maths.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 Again, that helps local, but you still have business that take on much much more power. What about the people that cant afford your fancy EVs as well? What about the people that still want to stay on the grid? What about the fact that solar requires upkeep/upfront cost? I think you are dreaming in your small world because people wont be able to do everything you want to do at a small scall when the grid is still going to be used no matter how local you want to become. The thing is, you are not wrong, its takes both the local and wide to make this all happen, but you have to understand no matter how much of local you want to think is possible, it doesnt jiggle with reality either. So unless you plan to up your taxes by and extra 1000 to help pay for the people that can't afford it, I think you might need to rethink what you consider is grid or not lol.
Energy transmission is the bottleneck now. If anyone can come up with a way to send energy wirelessly. and continuously it could be a game changer, even if the losses are not ideal while the physical grid gets built out.
1stly! How is the wife? 2ndly! With battery technology as well as human knowledge doubling now at a rate of about 4 months! Tesla has a recall of about 2 Million cars in America! I haven't heard anything from Australia! Are Australian Teslas safe?
@@fredbloggs5902 well if it's not life threatening? Why recall them at all? With Insurance Costs going through the roof, particularly E.V.'s How long do you think Insurance companies will basically ban E.V.s from houses, flats, motels, high rise buildings? May not exactly ban them, but the Insurance costs will be so prohibitive , the E.V. market will fail as the buildings and houses burn down. If I'm parked first? I won't park close to any E.V. . If I realise I have an unwanted E.V. next to me? Easy as! I remove myself from an argument or Danger.
@@bruceblunderfield5431 LFP and canned Li-ion batteries aren’t a fire risk. All the incidents have been ‘pouch’ Li-ion cells. Elon Musk publicly stated they shouldn’t be used. The ‘recall’ was a VOLUNTARY OTA that simply warms people who disengage FSD if they’ve accidentally (through user error) remained in AutoPilot. You really are utterly clueless.
Flow batteries are being installed on wind/solar farms so they can power electrolysis and continue making green hydrogen whilst in their periods of curtailment. Good solution 👍
New AI tech will turbo charge the search for better battery materials, letting researchers filter through thousands of compounds in a short time to reveal the best candidates to make toxic and expensive chemicals unnecessary. This will bear fruit in 2024.
But we still have to deal with the environmental costs of mining out the materials for these advanced batteries. Lithium and phosphorus mining can be very energy and water user intensive, and what to do with the mine tailings?
Agreed but sadly there is no free lunch. Mining for materials adds a lot of CO2. It’s more than one time fossil fuel extraction. The good news is that there is fairly quick payback. For example, the CO2 break even between mining / producing batteries for cars and repeated fossil fuel extraction is between 2 and 3 years.
'Last'? This is a daft word and metric. Do you mean capacity? Batteries 'last' ages, before becoming non functional. If I want to store power I want much more than I need to use in one day! Renewables are intermittent and weeks can go by for a 'good' day recharging. If a lithium battery 'lasts' only 4hrs then cars need recharging every 4hrs or the battery is flat.
The price of gas this week has dropped off a cliff. It’s just about at record lows. The U.S. ships liquified natural gas to Europe due to the war in Ukraine. The US is also still building new gas plants. Gas is very cheap and plentiful in the U.S. Plus there are people that thing natural gas is a clean energy! All I’m saying in the U.S. until there is a clear replacement for natural gas that is cheaper, gas plants still rule the day! Sad but true…
America has over 900 gas fired power stations, if they could dramatically reduce their need for gas, I think this could hugely reduce energy poverty, both domestically and in other countries as well.
