I've been getting further into solarpunk as an alternative future for out world. One thing that come sup very often, and in my research I struggle to find a coherent answer to is what are the alternatives to Lithium/Nickle/Cobalt batteries. These are the batteries almost everything we use require, but are really harmful to the environment and the mining of these resources cause a lot of heart issues to the miners. Are there any alternatives, I've heard of sodium batteries but they seem to have their downsides also?
salt water batteries. gravity batteries. thermal storage batteries. hydrogen fuel cells.
compressed air too.
recycled batteries. you can give a second life to bateries of elektric wheelchairs, fork lifts, electric cars etc. i know people do this, but it could be done on a bigger scale.
This is almost always the answer. Our entire economy needs to become circular. Every manufacturer should be responsible for everything they create for it's entire lifecycle.
There's nothing inherently wrong with lithium/cobalt/nickel as elements in batteries, the real flaw is using those elements only 1 time.
Batteries, like everything else, should be part of a circular lifecycle where we open up old batteries, chemically refresh the electrolytes, and repackage into a new battery.
It's totally possible to do, but in today's economic system, it's 'cheaper' to go get virgin minerals. We can change that.
I would say the flaw is using the elements one time AND the conditions they are often mined under.
Of course the only reason it's so cost effective to be wasteful with them is because of the exploitation of those doing the mining so they're closely related issues.
There are quite a few new developments in the world of batteries being made almost daily. Pure sodium batteries have quite low energy density and are not a great option, Sodium-ion hybrid batteries (Li and Na) tend to mitigate most of those problems and are pretty cutting edge(high energy density and charge/discharge rates).There’s also some work being done on replacing cobalt or nickel as the primary cathode with iron or organic material in lithium ion batteries. Not to mention the advent of solid state batteries where the electrolyte is a physical substrate and not a liquid, which can increase the resilience of the batteries to wear and tear. Plus there’s work being done to improve lithium sourcing since lithium can be sourced from brackish water in some regions it’s just a quite complex process. But “trash mining” and recycling is also a great option for sourcing materials for these batteries. Not to mention other forms of storage that are mechanically based like other commenters mentioned. Suffice to say there’s a bunch of research being done on alternate formulations of batteries with potentially higher energy density, charging rates, and longevity. The issue is a willingness to fund research as well as experiment with less conventional forms of energy storage. This knowledge comes from discussions with some professors in the material science department of my old university where I got my electrical engineering degree as well as from some utility scale battery engineers I had the pleasure of working with during site commissioning for utility scale PV/Battery and pure AC coupled battery systems.
LFP batteries have Lithium but not cobalt or nickel.
Iron-Air batteries look promising but I don't know if they have application outside of grid scale applications:https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/ - this company have a proof of concept grid battery planned for 2025 in Minnesota. I think these really just need iron which is the most common metal and pretty readily available and recyclable. Any metal/mineral/etc is going to be mined or extracted in some way that is bound to cause some local environmental damage though.
Gravity storage is definitely interesting but afaik only pumped hydro has been shown to work on a technical level and that has plenty of environmental issues surrounding the creation of reservoirs. I'm definitely a layman but I'm not sure this type of storage would work on a small scale or if it's only really for grid level storage.
LFP also has a long lifespan, which is pretty great . Something like 5,000 cycles or so.
I'm in no way an engineering or chemistry expert, but I've thought about biofuels as batteries and also gravity batteries (water pumped into a tank). Wouldn't get rid of all the need for chemical batteries, but could replace in some usages.
Unfortunately biofuels are typically much more trouble than they're worth (unless you want them for super high energy density applications like airplanes).
Fortunately there are also things like thermal batteries and liquid air batteries that are really quite efficient at storage!
yeah I think these could work on a more civic level in infrastructure, which is important. I am also interested (and researching) smaller portable alternatives for devices. Solarpunk as an aesthetic relies highly on futuristic tech, but often neglects to tackle the idea of smaller energy storage. Though I know real solarpunk wouldn't immediately look like Dear Alice and other works it's still an interesting thought
Batteries are highly recyclable, with >99% of material being salvaged. They're not that bad, as long as they're recycled.
Honestly, if any of us knew the answer to that, we'd be rich and famous. There's a lot of work going on right now with batteries, because of all the issues they have currently, especially with the rare minerals they need that are so dangerous to mine. As the demand for batteries is only going to go up and up in the future, whoever cracks this problem, making batteries safer to create, longer lasting, lighter, cheap to mass produce, all the holy grail stuff, will be a hero.
Graphene supercapacitors, liquid metal batteries (can be produced by cheap and abundant materials that can be found almost everywhere), liquid air batteries and rust batteries.
Biomass gasification in a small scale biomass gasifier generator isn't exactly a battery but it can provide renewable energy on demand like a battery can. But it is important that the feedstock must be sustainably harvested, or its use won't be sustainable. Biomass is basically solar energy stored in the chemicals that make up wood.
Advanced Battery technology is being held up by the oil fossil fuel cartels (read Wall Street) because it threatens the Petro dollar which the whole world's economy is based on
One thing you can do is you can forego batteries and use the power directly. For centuries this is what humans did effectively when using hydro, wind, solar without electrification.
For example, power tools that you use only during the day or hot water heater that warns only during the day (very popular, already in use in many countries).
It is also possible to use the power to pump water uphill or to compress air.
Sodium batteries are very new, and so far they are promising. I don't know what the downsides are but I hope they can be resolved in the near future.
As for the other batteries, maybe we can better do recycling so we don't need to keep mining the minerals? I have no idea about how far we could go with that though, but like anything probably technologically there are more possibilities and society/capitalism is the bottleneck.
It's actually very old battery tech. The energy density is just very low, making them unattractive for what has been the main use case; portable energy storage.
But we're now moving towards a power grid that needs mass storage, and cheap energy storage is becoming a major use case, which means the 1 m3 salt batteries are now viable again.
There are now sodium batteries with energy density high enough to use in EVs. They have lower energy density than LFP batteries, but they charge very rapidly. They definitely have a future in stationary storage. The raw material is 90% cheaper than LFP, but the final cost is only 20% cheaper. That may not be compelling for vehicles, but in stationary storage, small increase of weight and size don’t matter.
I heard an interview with a scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Eric thinks that sodium batteries can match lithium in energy density with more research.
There is research on making more technology be powered by ambient energy
There are also projects to store energy as potential via gravity, but that ultimately just becomes hydroelectric dams. In the same way solutions to vehicle transport ultimately just becomes trains.
Beyond that, there's the diamond batteries, which use radioactive waste graphite in a form similar to a betavoltaic device...that provide low but long lasting charge.
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