lithium ion

Lithium in Arkansas

November 28, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Lithium is the critical raw material in the batteries that power electric cars as well as cell phones, computers, and other gadgets. The stuff has been nicknamed “white gold” for good reason. Chile and Australia are the world’s largest producers of the metal, which is mostly extracted from brine in evaporation ponds. The majority of it is then processed in China. The energy industry has been increasingly working to produce the raw materials needed to produce lithium-ion batteries in the United States and process those materials domestically. There are multiple projects at various stages across the country.

Researchers at the US Geological Survey and the Arkansas state government recently announced that they have discovered a vast trove of lithium in an underground brine reservoir in Arkansas.

With a combination of water testing and machine learning, the researchers determined that there could be 5 to as much as 19 million tons of lithium in the geological area called the Smackover Formation. This is more than enough to meet all the world’s demand for it.

Several companies – including Exxon Mobil, which is covering its bets on the future of oil as an energy source – are developing projects in Arkansas to produce lithium. If these companies can develop and scale up economical new ways to extract lithium from salty water, the region in Arkansas could become the lithium capital of the world.

Energy and mining companies have produced oil, gas, and other natural resources in the Smackover Formation, which extends from Texas to Florida. The same brines have long been the source of other valuable substances.

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Arkansas May Have Vast Lithium Reserves, Researchers Say

Photo, posted May 22, 2020, courtesy of the European Space Agency via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

EV battery costs continue to drop

January 10, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Electric vehicles have historically been more expensive than their gas-powered counterparts primarily because of the cost of the batteries that power them. Today’s EV battery packs range in size from about 40 kWh to as much as 200 kWh, where kWh measure the amount of energy stored in pack.

The batteries in EVs are lithium-ion batteries, the same technology used to power cell phones, tablets, and computers. A decade ago, the batteries averaged $668 per kilowatt-hour and packs as large as those in some of today’s vehicles were simply unthinkable from a price standpoint.

Over the years, government subsidies, increased competition, higher volume, improvements in battery technology, and reductions in the cost of raw materials such as lithium have combined to drive continuous and dramatic reductions in battery costs. By March 2022, the average price for lithium-ion batteries was $146 per kWh. This past August, battery costs broke the $100 per kilowatt-hour barrier.

Industry analysts have long maintained that once the $100 barrier has been reached, EVs could achieve price parity with their fossil-fuel counterparts. Electric cars would no longer be more expensive to buy than equivalent gas cars.

Projections are that battery prices will continue to fall by something like 10% a year for the rest of this decade. All else being equal, EVs should be cheaper to buy than gas cars. Of course, they have already been cheaper to operate for a long time.

None of this means that car prices will go down in general. That will depend on trends in inflation and those are pretty hard to predict.

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EVs Set to Match Gas Guzzlers in Price as Battery Costs Plummet

Photo, posted May 9, 2018, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Better Zinc Batteries | Earth Wise

May 17, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The rapid growth of wind and solar power continues to drive a global quest for new battery technologies that can be used to store the energy generated by these sources when the sun isn’t shining, and the wind isn’t blowing.

For the most part, current battery energy storage systems use lithium-ion batteries – the same sort of batteries found in cellphones and electric vehicles. There are many other battery chemistries, but they mostly have shortcomings in performance, economy, or longevity.

Batteries store electricity in the form of chemical energy and chemical reactions convert that energy into electrical energy. Every battery has two electrodes: the anode, from which electrons flow into external circuits, and the cathode, which receives electrons from the external circuit. The electrolyte is the chemical medium through which the electrons flow.

One technology that has great potential is zinc-based batteries. Zinc itself is a metal that is safe and abundant. Batteries based on it are energy dense. However, zinc batteries have faced the challenge of having a short cycle life. The batteries end up plating zinc on their anodes and battery performance degrades.

A team of researchers at Oregon State University and three other universities have recently developed a new electrolyte for zinc batteries that raises the efficiency of the zinc metal anode to nearly 100% – actually slightly better than lithium-ion batteries.

Zinc batteries have a number of potential advantages over lithium-ion. The new hybrid electrolyte developed by the researchers is non-flammable, cost-effective, and has low environmental impact. Lithium-ion batteries rely on the supplies of relatively rare metals that are often difficult and environmentally harmful to obtain.

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Researchers develop electrolyte enabling high efficiency of safe, sustainable zinc batteries

Photo, posted May 13, 2017, courtesy of Jeanne Menjoulet via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Solid State Batteries For Cars | Earth Wise

January 7, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Today’s electric cars run on lithium-ion batteries, the same sort that power our phones, computers, and many other consumer electronic devices. These batteries are far superior to the batteries of the past, offering long-life, high-energy density, and recyclable components.

Lithium-ion batteries do have their drawbacks. They may be lighter than older battery technologies, but because the electrolytes in the batteries are liquid, they are still fairly heavy. The huge number of them in an electric car adds up to a considerable amount of weight. In addition, the flammability of the electrolytes can lead to explosions or fires if the batteries are damaged or exposed to extreme temperatures.

Solid-state batteries are an alternative technology that contain a solid electrolyte. Such batteries are lighter, have higher energy density, offer more range, and recharge much more quickly than lithium-ion batteries. They have been used for years in some small devices like cardiac pacemakers, RFIDs, and some wearable devices.

For all these benefits, scaling up production to the level needed to be used in cars is an expensive and challenging endeavor. The hope is that with sufficient effort, the result will be smaller, lighter battery packs for cars that can be charged in minutes and provide extended range.

Nissan Motor Company has recently announced that it is investing $17.6 billion over the next five years towards developing solid-state batteries for cars. No doubt other companies will also be working on the technology.

Lithium-ion batteries have proven to be quite practical for powering vehicles. But if solid-state batteries can meet the challenges of scaled up production, the lithium-ion era might end up being a relatively brief one.

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Nissan to Spend $18 Billion Developing a Cheaper, More Powerful EV Battery

Photo, posted November 13, 2018, courtesy of FirstEnergy Corp via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Energy Storage Boom | Earth Wise

November 25, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Global energy storage deployment is increasing at a very rapid pace. According to recent industry forecasts, there will be 12.4 gigawatts of new energy storage capacity online in 2021 breaking the previous annual record of 4.9 gigawatts set last year.

To understand these numbers, the world only reached 1 gigawatt of new capacity in a year for the first time in 2016. Five years later, 1 gigawatt represents a good month.

Industry projections are that new global storage capacity will increase each year, reaching 70 gigawatts by 2030.

Almost all of this new storage capacity is in the form of batteries and most of that is lithium-ion batteries. The largest battery storage facility in the world – the Manatee Energy Storage Center in Florida – is scheduled to be completed before the end of this year. But there are other battery technologies that offer promise and there are other storage technologies apart from batteries.

Pumped hydroelectric storage is long established technology that still represents the largest amount of storage capacity in the world with more than 181 GW of capacity. There is not much room for expansion of pumped hydro, which is limited to specific locations. But it will be years before battery storage catches up to this total.

The United States and China have a large majority of energy storage capacity and projections are that the two countries will still have nearly three-quarters of the world’s total capacity in 2030.

With the ongoing rapid expansion of wind and solar power, the need for energy storage continues to grow and is the driving force for the energy storage boom. It is not clear how it will all shake out, but energy storage is going to be a big deal from now on.

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Inside Clean Energy: Taking Stock of the Energy Storage Boom Happening Right Now

Photo, posted March 15, 2013, courtesy of Portland General Electric via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Iron Flow Batteries | Earth Wise

November 15, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Lithium-ion batteries power computers, cell phones, and increasingly, automobiles. They started out being rather expensive but have become dramatically cheaper over the last decade, with prices dropping about 90%. Batteries are needed to store clean power from wind and solar generation and lithium-ion batteries are increasingly being used for that purpose as well.

Utility-scale energy storage requires substantial battery installations and battery cost is still very much an inhibiting factor in the widespread adoption of the technology. Lithium-ion battery costs continue to drop but because they require expensive materials like lithium and cobalt, there are limits to how low their prices are likely to get.

As a result, researchers have continued to seek ways to produce batteries made out of cheaper materials. Among the more promising technologies are flow batteries, which are rechargeable batteries in which electrolyte flows through electrochemical cells from tanks.

Flow batteries are much larger than lithium-ion batteries and include physical pumps to move electrolytes. They typically are sold inside shipping containers. Clearly, such batteries are not suitable for use in vehicles, much less in consumer electronics. Nevertheless, they represent a practical option for grid storage.

A company called ESS has developed an iron flow battery suitable for utility energy storage. Clean energy firm CSB Energy plans to install iron flow batteries at several solar projects across the U.S. that will store enough energy to provide power 50,000 homes for a day. According to ESS, the iron-based batteries should sell for about half the price of lithium-ion batteries by 2025 and be able to store energy for longer periods.

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New Iron-Based Batteries Offer an Alternative to Lithium

Photo, posted March 21, 2021, courtesy of Nenad Stojkovic via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Better Batteries For The Grid | Earth Wise

September 14, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

As more and more solar and wind power is added to the electric grid, the need for ways to store the energy produced increases. Using batteries for this purpose is increasingly popular, mostly driven by the improving economics of the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles as well as consumer electronics.

There are other battery technologies besides lithium ion that are not suitable for use in automobiles and cell phones but have potential advantages for the grid. One such technology is molten sodium batteries. These batteries have high energy density, a high efficiency of charge and discharge, and a long cycle life. They are fabricated with inexpensive materials and they are especially suitable for large-scale grid energy storage because their economics improves with increasing size.

A drawback of molten sodium batteries is that they operate at 520-660 degrees Fahrenheit, which adds cost and complexity. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have designed a new class of molten sodium batteries that operates at a much cooler 230 degrees Fahrenheit instead.

The battery chemistry that works at 550 degrees doesn’t work at 230 degrees. The Sandia group developed something they call a catholyte, which is a liquid mixture of two salts, in this case sodium iodide and gallium chloride. (Gallium chloride is rather costly, so the researchers hope to replace it in a future version of the battery).

By lowering the operating temperature, there are multiple cost savings including the use of less expensive materials, the requirement for less insulation, and the use of thinner wire.

This work is the first demonstration of long-term, stable cycling of a low-temperature molten-sodium battery. The hope is to have a battery technology that requires fewer cells, fewer connections between cells, and an overall lower cost to store electricity for the grid.

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Sandia designs better batteries for grid-scale energy storage

Photo, posted March 14, 2021, courtesy of Michael Mueller via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Plunging Cost Of Lithium-Ion Batteries | Earth Wise

May 11, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Lithium-ion batteries are the power source for phones, laptops, and electric cars. These rechargeable batteries were first commercially introduced in 1991. Since then, their performance has improved, and their cost has dropped tremendously.

There have been dramatic cost declines in many advanced technologies. The price of big-screen televisions is a prime example. Most people think of solar photovoltaic panels as the most exceptional case. In the 1970s, solar panels cost over $100 per watt. Today, they are 20 cents a watt.

How much lithium-ion batteries have dropped in price has been somewhat unclear. This is because much of the information about battery costs is in the form of closely held corporate data. Most lithium-ion batteries are not sold directly to consumers but rather are built into consumer electronics and cars. Large companies like Apple and Tesla buy batteries by the millions or manufacture them themselves, and the true costs are not publicly disclosed.

Recently, MIT researchers have carried out an extensive analysis of lithium-ion battery costs over the past three decades. The researchers found that the cost of these batteries has dropped by 97% over that period.

It is clear that the decline in battery costs has been an enabler of the recent growth in sales of electric vehicles. It is also clear that further declines in lithium-ion battery costs are likely to increase the batteries’ usage in stationary applications such as storing energy from intermittent green power sources like solar and wind.

The batteries have ever-improving energy density (energy stored within a given volume) and specific energy (energy stored within a given mass.) As lithium-ion batteries continue to get better and cheaper, their role in the world continues to grow.

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Study reveals plunge in lithium-ion battery costs

Photo, posted October 26, 2020, courtesy of Ajay Suresh via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Grid-Scale Battery Storage is on the Rise | Earth Wise

February 4, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Driven by steeply falling prices and improving technology, grid-scale battery storage systems are seeing record growth in the U.S. and around the world. Battery storage is a way to overcome one of the biggest obstacles to renewable energy: the cycling between oversupply when the sun shines or the wind blows, and shortage when the sun sets or the wind drops. Storing excess energy in battery banks can smooth imbalances between supply and demand.

In California, a 300-megawatt lithium-ion battery plant is being readied for operation with another 100 megawatts to come online in 2021. The system will be able to power roughly 300,000 California homes for four-hour periods when energy demand outstrips supply. It will be the world’s largest battery system for a while until even larger systems in Florida and in Saudi Arabia come online.

Nationwide, a record 1.2 gigawatts of storage were installed last year and that number is projected to jump dramatically over the next five years to nearly 7.5 gigawatts in 2025.

The price tag for utility-scale battery storage in the U.S. has plummeted, dropping nearly 70% just between 2015 and 2018. Prices are expected to drop by a further 45% over the next decade. Battery performance has continued to improve dramatically with increased power capacity and the ability to store and discharge energy over ever-longer periods of time.

Favorable energy policies including renewable energy mandates coupled with continued price drops will drive the widespread expansion of battery energy storage.

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In Boost for Renewables, Grid-Scale Battery Storage Is on the Rise

Photo, posted November 17, 2016, courtesy of Steve Ryan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Lighting Up Batteries

December 24, 2019 By EarthWise 2 Comments

One of the things that hampers the adoption of electric vehicles is range anxiety. Drivers worry that they will run out of charge before they get to the closest charging station. Range anxiety has lessened considerably in recent years as electric cars have incorporated larger and larger battery packs yielding driving ranges well over two hundred and even over three hundred miles.

With these extended driving ranges, drivers then turn their attention to how long it takes to charge. Tesla’s Superchargers have gotten to the point where a car can add 75 miles of charge in 5 minutes and 200 miles in less than half an hour. Fast charging systems are improving the charge times for other electric models as well.

Nevertheless, drivers would ideally like to reduce charging times to as little as possible in order to provide the convenience experienced in gasoline cars.

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have reported a mechanism for speeding up the charging of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. By exposing the battery cathode to a beam of concentrated light, the charging time can be reduced by a factor of two or more. If this could be commercialized, it could be a real game changer for electric vehicles.

The research used specially crafted lithium-ion cells with transparent quartz windows. Shining white light into the windows caused a semiconductor material known as LMO to change its charge state and drive the charging reaction more quickly in the lithium ions of the battery.

Using this photo-assisted technology in vehicle batteries would require substantial redesign that would allow concentrated light to illuminate battery electrodes during charging. How practical that is remains to be seen, but the payoff would be substantial.

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Shedding new light on the charging of lithium-ion batteries

Photo, posted June 30, 2018, courtesy of Open Grid Scheduler via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The World’s Largest Storage Battery

May 24, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Many homeowners are installing solar energy systems with battery backup. Energy stored in the battery can be used when the sun isn’t shining. As battery prices come down, utility-scale solar installations are also turning to battery-based energy storage.

Florida Power & Light has announced plans to build the world’s largest solar-storage combination facility in Manatee County. The 409-MW Manatee Energy Storage Center will be the largest solar-battery system by a factor of four. The specifics of the technology and source of the battery system components have yet to be announced.

The system, which is scheduled to be completed in late 2021, will be charged by a nearby FPL solar power plant. The plan is to discharge batteries during times of higher demand, thereby offsetting the need to run other power plants. As a result, there will be reduced emissions and customers will save as much as $100 million through avoided fuel costs.

Installing the mega-sized battery system will accelerate the retirements of two nearby 1970’s-era gas-fired generation units. At peak efficiency, the Manatee energy storage system will be able to power 390,000 homes for up to two hours.

FPL has already been pursuing the use of battery storage technology. Last year, they added a 10 MW battery storage system to its 74.5 MW Babcock Ranch Solar Energy Center in Charlotte County.

These large battery systems are increasingly practical because of dramatic reductions in lithium-ion battery costs. The levelized cost of electricity from lithium-ion batteries has declined a remarkable 38% just since the beginning of 2018. The economics of clean energy continue to get better and better.

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FP&L Plans World’s Largest Energy Storage Battery To Support Its Renewable Energy Goals

Photo, posted April 21, 2010, courtesy of Frank Starmer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Water-Based Battery

January 3, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The transition from fossil fuel-based power plants to clean, renewable energy sources is accelerating as both wind and solar power get cheaper and increasingly become cost-competitive with traditional power sources. The biggest stumbling block both energy sources face is that they cannot always supply power on demand but require the sun to shine and the wind to blow.

Big Success From A Big Battery

January 1, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In the fall of 2017, Tesla took on the challenge of installing a 100-megawatt battery storage system in South Australia in under 100 days, promising that the system would be free if it was not built in time. The project was actually completed in 54 days.

The system is located at the Hornsdale Wind Farm, which consists of 99 wind turbines with a generation capacity of 315 MW. The Hornsdale Power Reserve installation is the world’s largest lithium-ion battery system and, after a year of operation,has proven to be a smashing success. Estimates are that the project has reduced costs associated with stabilizing the energy grid by about $29 million. The cost of the system was about $87 million, so it is paying for itself quite rapidly. The wind farm and battery systems are owned and operated by a French renewable energy company.

The battery storage system provides a variety of different services to the electric grid. The primary motivation for it was to achieve system security and reduce the risk of blackouts and load shedding. Having the battery system in place protects the regional interconnection from tripping,which reduces the risk of separation of South Australia from the National Electricity market. The system also provides so-called ancillary services such as frequency control and other forms of electricity supply regulation.

The most significant contribution of the Hornsdale Power Reserve is that it has raised the profile of energy storage technology and demonstrated its unique capabilities. Based on the success of the system, there are now about 2,500 MWh of new storage projects announced by the public and private sectors in Australia.

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