Technology
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Nothing factually wrong with the article, but it has this sound of "this technology will solve all our problems" to it that I find highly problematic. Seven out of nine planetary boundaries are exceeded, climate change just being one of them. And all of them are exceeded because of our wasteful and growth-oriented way of life.
Because of ~~our wasteful and growth-oriented way of life~~ capitalism.
FTFY.
Partially. It's more that people don't click unless the headline is sensational.
We can change our technology to be more sustainable or we can regress to a pre-industrial society with 90% of the population dying in the process. Which do you prefer?
That's a false dichotomy. We can also improve our technology while ditching capitalism.
That's reductive. Seeing capitalism as the root cause of all problems is disingenuous. The particular ideology oligarchies are using to justify their rule is incidental.
But... It is the root of a lot of problems and it helps the oligarchs... And it just sucks and makes no sense in general?
Personally when I say I want to ditch capitalism, the first thing I think of, among many, is simply about democratizing the workplace. Cooperatives have proven themselves to be superior than the current private model in a variety of metrics. If we reduce the defining characteristic of capitalism as needing capital to produce more capital, the current issue is that cooperative enterprises struggle to obtain the initial capital necessary to get started. Even though they have much greater success rates, banks have historically refused to give loans to these endeavers. There exists non profits to try and fill this void but its not enough.
Question: would I have to give up my exploitative companies that fuel my bid to become the first King of Internet? Because that's kind of a dealbreaker for me.
While Sodium-Ion sounds legitimately promising, we’ve all read so many articles about “revolutionary new battery tech” over the years that the default response is “cool, let me know when mass production starts.”
The article literally starts off with a mass produced $800 Sodium Ion battery that you can buy right now.
Because it's an ad..you all know that,right?
It being an ad doesn’t change anything in an of itself. They’re correct in saying that there is a mass-produced, consumer grade product available. Unless that is a lie, or said product is complete trash, this solves the “call me it’s mass-produced” problem the original commentor has.
Did you read the article? This isn't about a research paper that talks about theoretical lab experiments. Sodium batteries are in real world application right now. Mainly in China and South America.
You can buy sodium batteries from AliExpress. It's been available for a while. I was thinking about ordering a few but I ended up spending my hobby budget elsewhere. There's no economies of scale yet for sodium battery tech. You can get the battery but there is zero electronics available for it. Mainly you'd have to design your own charger and battery management modules. That's out of my pay grade. I've been waiting for Chinese engineers to mass produce such things.
i hope isdt releases a firmware update for the q6 nano for that if RC sodium ion packs become available.
although afaik energy density per volume and weight isn't quite there yet
You can buy sodium batteries from AliExpress.
You can buy a lot of bullshit from AliExpress.
The sub is about technology, not industry. Also, look at the advances in battery technology in the last 30 years. There have only been 3 notable technology advances in the last 40 years from a consumer perspective, but there have been significant advances within each of those major technology changes, resulting in Wh/kg increasing by 6 to 10 times and $/Wh dropping about 99%.
If you want to hear about things that could happen or are about to start happening in industry, this is the right community. If you want to know what you can buy tomorrow, try Amazon.
Feels weird to gatekeep that - the des says 'news or articles' so an article about some ancient tech isn't for this community?
I understand it as anything tech related, that explains/talks about technology, manufacturing tech included.
The 'not industry' part as in macroeconomics & geopolitical stuff - I agree on that.
HiNa supplied sodium-ion batteries for JAC Motors in 2023. Early batteries had lower gravimetric energy density (145 Wh/kg) and volumetric energy density (330 Wh/liter) than LFP, but sodium-ion batteries have already improved since then. They have outstanding temperature range, yielding 88% retention at -20°C. For reference, the discharge capacity of NMC at 0°C, −10°C and −20°C is only 80%, 53%, and 23% of that at 25°C. The HiNa batteries had a cycle life of 4,500 cycles with 83% retention and a 2C charge rate, but even better sodium-ion batteries are on their way.
...
These developments point the way to much more. The cost of sodium battery materials is much lower than for any lithium battery. There are no resource bottleneck materials like cobalt or lithium to contend with. In addition, aluminum can be used for electrodes, whereas lithium requires copper for one of the electrodes. Carbon or graphite and separator materials will be similar, but in all other respects, sodium has much lower material costs. Compared to LFP, sodium does not require phosphorous, a substance that is almost exclusively sourced from one state in north Africa, nor lithium, a relatively abundant but more expensive substance than sodium. LFP cannot compete on material costs or temperature range, and both BYD and CATL expect to phase it out first in energy storage.
Early batteries had lower gravimetric energy density (145 Wh/kg) and volumetric energy density (330 Wh/liter) than LFP, but sodium-ion batteries have already improved since then.
OK, and where are the new numbers? 1% better, but still much worse than lfp?
Edit:a bit later they mention 175 Wh/kg and 10,000 lifetime cycles for some catl cells, that is not too bad, but still not great with lfp at about 200 Wh/kg which still is less than ~~Lithium Ion~~ NMC.
with lfp at about 200 Wh/kg which still is less than Lithium Ion.
LFP is a lithium-ion technology. You probably meant "worse than NMC", which is another, older, higher density but less safe lithium-ion technology.
Right, thanks. did not remember that name and searching yielded articles writing it like that so I went with it.
As bullish as I am on Sodium-ion batteries, only very recently did researchers figure out how to boost the charge capacity, making any attempted commercial models in use so far nice, but not the final form where normies are buying them from Home Depot.
The Sehol car mentioned is a niche configuration of a common model, because the Li-ion model goes farther between charges. Other than the launch in 2023, and articles recycling the same info, find me 1 article that doesn't use words like "could" or "will" or "might" about sales of this model? Same thing for the BYD Seagull with Na-ion batteries. It's all greenwashing news where if you dig at it even slightly, you see how not real any of it is.
It's closer than it was 5 years ago, but it's still not a "revolution" by any means.
The article has so many acronyms in it, I had to give up reading it. I assume this isn't just cat like typing?
I got a LIPO4 battery to run my tiny plastic boat or canoe with a trolling motor, most amazing performance I've ever seen. Hours of full thrust, never dropped below 20% power. So what's up with that tech?
No, it actually hasn't. It's also not any better than any other battery tech out there right now. Longer term but less volume storage is a trade off.
What happened to these Graphene batteries and capacitors we were supposed to have by now?
sodium-ion is better than acid-lead in every use case (theoretically, when the tech reaches maturity), unlikely to beat lithium ion and others for the high-capacity/low weight type stuff but far as cheap/environmentally safe batteries goes sodium-ion should quickly dominate the field.
Yeah, this kind of tech can actually be groundbreaking.
10.000 charge cycles? You can imagine lot's of new things with that. Maybe not a capitalistic quick buck but something bettering society.
Also for what I have understood it's wildly better than lipo etc when it comes to resource use, especially "rare" earth.
10k charge cycles isn't revolutionary. LFP do 8k and even then they just drop down to 80% of original capacity.
More durable, cheaper, can be operated at a wider temperature range and much safer, but at a cost of lower energy density.
They look like a big step forward for uses where density matters little, like grid energy storage or small scale home backups.
The thing currently costs at least 50% more than the closest equivalent LiFePo4 from the same brand. The only real advantage seems to be it's ability to handle sub freezing temperatures, but usability still drops dramatically (both capacity and available power delivery). Everything else is straight up worse in this one in direct comparison.
It's only the first product, so it'll most certainly get better. Also as numbers of products sold rise, costs fall. Once these are cheaper, that are a real choice.
CATL wholesale pricing per kWh is already almost 50% below lifepo with a goal of sub $20/kWh pricing in coming years.