World's largest sodium-ion battery goes into operation - Energy Storage

It's not just base load, turbines also provide grid stability. All the quick fluctuations as people turn things on and off are hard to load balance with solar, wind, or battery. A big spinning turbine has a lot of inertia. That helps keep thr grid at a constant frequency. As solar gets bigger and bigger we might need big solar powdered flywheel generators just to stabilize the grid.

The LNP doesn't have a legitimate interest in transitioning to nuclear power or they would've begun over the last decade or so that they were in power.

Instead they've proposed - now that they're in opposition - a technology which is banned at the Federal level and individually at the state level, because they know that gives them years of lead time before they ever have to begin the project.

On top of that, all of the proposed sites are owned by companies who've already begun transitioning to renewable generation or renewable storage, and most of them are in states in which the state Premiers have publicly stated that they will not consider overturning their bans on nuclear power.

Sounds like a way to waste loads of money and keep people on fossil fuels.

Must be way cheaper to build more batteries and build out inertia. (Would still need backup power at this point though).

Nuclear power should be expanded, but a lot, it is the only realistic way to replace fossil plats for base demand.

And before anyone starts whining about "radiation scary", nuclear waste is a solved problem.

You dig a hole deep into the bedrock, put the waste in dry casks, put the full drycasks in the hole, and backfill it with clay.

Done, solved!

A bigger radiation hazard is coal ash, from cosl power stations, they produce insane ammounts of ash which is radioactive.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/

Storing coal ash is also a big problem:

http://www.southeastcoalash.org/about-coal-ash/coal-ash-storage/

Here is an interesting documentary about our fear of radiation, it is called Nuclear Nightmares, and was made by Horizon on BBC:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7pqwo8

The ceiling is going to be lower than with lithium. Sodium ions themselves weigh about 3 times more than lithium, for the same +1 charge. So it's not just that sodium is a certain number of years behind lithium. It's that it'll likely plateau at a point permanently behind where lithium will likely be.

That's assuming you don't have issues charging at where you live, which is a pretty big if for a lot of people. A 300 Mi charge would mean if you can't charge daily, you would be able to go a couple of days without having to do so.

EV owner here. 50 miles is not practical, beacuse then I need another for the other 2% of trips that are longer than that. This also ignores detours or traffic jams, when google will try to reroute me over a longer, but faster route. Plus, the "50 miles" readout you get is always just an estimate and the real range depends on temperature, driving speed, start-stops and how much elevation you need to cover. Some 30km trips here cost me 50+ EV km because its all uphill in one direction. I usually add 30km to my trip as required charge, because when the battery reaches 25km the car starts to complain with a nervously blinking battery readout and a "Charge now!" message on the dashboard.

"But then you just charge during the trip!" - Well this only work if i go somewhere where i know where to find RELIABLE chargers. I am well aware that there are good apps that show me charging locations, but getting a charging spot I can actually use is a different story:

• charging station can be used by someone else, or there is queue and each car will most likely charge for 30+ mins. Of course, sometimes some inconsiderate pricks will hog a spot untill their car is fully charged, even if it takes his frikkin tesla 2h
• charging stations close for repairs, sometimes for weeks
• some charging stations need an account or RFID-tag before you can use their (but not other) charging network
• other charging stations require you to bring your own cable
• some charging stations dont have the connector you need for your car
• some stations on the map are bogus, for example that one at my local volvo dealership that only exists to charge the showroom and customer cars, but is not accessible to the public.

Not saying EVs are bad, but the charging infrastructure still needs some work to be reliable and accessible. Petrol stations always have some large, obnoxious signs on the side of the road that you cant miss; Charging stations are sometimes just a tiny grey box on a wall and a 5-space parking lot, or behind a building and you never notice it when driving by.

Price per kw and price per kwh stored. And price per kwh over the expected lifetime of the battery itself (longevity and reliability and safety and disposal will have to be factored into total cost of ownership).

They are dirt cheap, don't have the fire safety issues as some lithium chemistries (not all lithium chemistries do that), and sodium is abundant.

Article says operating temperature range. -20 to 60 C

I’m talking about putting a sodium ion backup battery in every neighborhood. They don’t make loud noises. And they are great for storing energy produced by rooftop solar panels, easing grid stress, and backing up power when the lines go down.

Well, shit. Better not build sodium ion batteries then.

What's that got to do with the price of fish?

People live on top of mountains?

Were are this wind turbines being placed? I hiked to a farm once and had one at work.

Now, I'm not saying they are silent but unless you put one in my back garden I never thought of them as loud.

Sodium batteries are already in electric cars many months ago

https://www.engadget.com/the-first-ev-with-a-lithium-free-sodium-battery-hits-the-road-in-january-214828536.html

Also you could buy individual cells on AliExpress

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6zcI1GrkK4

There are some electric vehicles so far, which is promising.

Economy of scale matters, so does practicality. Which one is generally lasting longer per number of charges and what's the long term viability of both given the time they were build and the available tech at that time? I totally understand the greater availability of sodium vs lithium. However, will it last? Last time I read much about it, reliability was weak, charge capacity over time dropped drastically, and failures were high. (It has been a couple of years, so things may be changing. )

Something new and shiney can be nifty, but past that, what is this? It seems like an expensive hood ornament that will rust in the rain. Lithium is expensive and toxic to mine, but so are all metals to some extent, and this has plenty.

It seems like it's buying something 25% off on a $100 thing that won't last well. Sure, you saved $25 once, but you're buying 3 of them in the same time frame.