Beyond Lithium: New Battery Tech Starts to Break Through - Yale E360

[rcjordan]

https://e360.yale.edu/features/energy-storage-sodium-solid-state

[ergophobe]

Nice article. I just heard someone on a pod mention that more and more, China is turning to sodium batteries.

Solid state feels a bit like full self-driving - announced with great hope and lots of handwaving on the tech challenges, then stalling, now slow progress toward batteries that won't short out quickly.

[ergophobe]

I know a video this long is annoying and the first third is who shot Bob blah blah on what is Li and Na.

But the later part about the economics of sodium batteries from an investor's perspective is interesting.

TL;DW - because sodium batteries have a 30year lifespan according to the company deploying them on the Chinese grid va the 10 year lifespan of Li, it means institutional investors can invest, opening a massive pool of money.

Also, Li appears to be bottoming out its price curve, but Na is just starting, so though it is currently more expensive, that should change rapidly as production increases.


https://youtu.be/J091Zl9kXzg

[ergophobe]

BYD's sodium battery could wipe out the last big case against renewables

https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/byds-sodium-battery-could-wipe-032100317.html

"could" is doing a lot of work there. BYD's target is $40/kwh by 2027, but according to the article, $20/kwh is the magic threshold.

The video posted above said that historically every doubling of battery production brought a 19% price decrease. So that means it would only take three doublings for Na batteries to reach that $20 number.

Again, back to the video in the previous post, how fast that happens depends a lot on how much money flows in which depends a lot on whether the longer life and currently higher price of a sodium battery is compelling to institutional investors.