https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/12/heavy-metal-free-battery/

Impressive in all respects. I wonder what any downsides are. It does seem too good to be true, but it is IBM

tdgeek:

 

Impressive in all respects. I wonder what any downsides are. It does seem too good to be true, but it is IBM

 

If it is true on what they say and comes to life in prod that would be awesome. But again as you said IBM and Merc and AI - i doubt we will see anything prod for the next 5 years until they make some money. 

maxeon:

 

tdgeek:

 

Impressive in all respects. I wonder what any downsides are. It does seem too good to be true, but it is IBM

 

 

If it is true on what they say and comes to life in prod that would be awesome. But again as you said IBM and Merc and AI - i doubt we will see anything prod for the next 5 years until they make some money. 

 

:-)  I meant IBM as an old, well established large company, as compared to a startup. If its as good as what they say, they can make money and sell at an affordable price I imagine. Cheaper batteries, more EV's, more demand.

It appears to be an order of magnitude better than Li-ion in both energy density and power density. :)

Not much detail in the article (understandable, I guess) about what the chemistry is, and a lot of fluff e.g.

 

The materials for this battery are able to be extracted from seawater

 

Almost any element can be extracted from seawater. Just not economically, except for sodium chloride. e.g. cobalt 0.0001 ppm and gold 0.000008 ppm.

NB: Whilst it suggests lower cost, it doesn't necessarily mean cheaper batteries for you and me.

There's no shortage of improved battery technologies that are on the verge of making it big. e.g.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200203114323.htm

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200131114739.htm

https://www.saftbatteries.com/media-resources/our-stories/three-battery-technologies-could-power-future

Here is the catch

Some technical concerns still are associated with this technology — such as whether it can hold enough charge for heavy-duty applications such as trucks or backup alternatives that last days, not minutes, without becoming too big and bulky. But aside from them, one common objection to the increased reliance on lithium-ion batteries of all sizes has been the long-term availability of the materials used to build them and the oft-questionable methods by which they are extracted.

tdgeek:

 

whether it can hold enough charge ... without becoming too big and bulky.

 

This is termed energy density, which IBM claims as "800 Wh/L, comparable to the state-of-art lithium-ion battery", which is comparable to fuel cells, maybe twice as good as currently available Li-ion batteries, and a fifth of petrol or diesel (but offset by electric motors being much smaller and lighter than ICE, and regen braking).

frankv:

 

Almost any element can be extracted from seawater. Just not economically,

 

That's the kicker, 

You can get lithium from seawater, but its orders of magnitude more efficient (and therefore cheaper) to use salt brines

Also hydrogen, you can make it purely from electricity and water, but for large scale production,  steam reformation of natural gas is the current go to option.....

wellygary:

 

frankv:

 

Almost any element can be extracted from seawater. Just not economically,

 

 

That's the kicker, 

 

You can get lithium from seawater, but its orders of magnitude more efficient (and therefore cheaper) to use salt brines

 

Also hydrogen, you can make it purely from electricity and water, but for large scale production,  steam reformation of natural gas is the current go to option.....

 

 

 

Yes, but they say its cheaper and they aren't extracting heavy metals

Got to love MMP...not. Also I think lobbyists should be banned in NZ.

I would have thought this type of policy would benefit the elderly who want a cheap efficient car to run, but EVs are still too expensive when compared to gas. Plus it is self funding. 

wellygary: And the feebate scheme bites the dust ...,



https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/119713361/nz-first-axe-governments-electric-vehicle-subsidy-plan-while-greens-vow-to-take-the-policy-to-the-election

Winston's going to Winston I guess. 

How embarrassing for New Zealand.

I haven't caught up on this, but while I do favour the tax, I dont favour the tax when some vehicles dont yet have an EV equivalent. There may be an EV equiavalent technically, but we dont want buy a 60k farm type vehicle vs an EV 160k farm type vehicle. Any case, its 2021, plenty of time to refine it. 

Plus, apparently people in NZ hate new taxes, so on that note, it should be canned???  Lets see what Nationals green policies come out at.

mattwnz:

 

 

 

Got to love MMP...not. Also I think lobbyists should be banned in NZ.

 

I would have thought this type of policy would benefit the elderly who want a cheap efficient car to run, but EVs are still too expensive when compared to gas. Plus it is self funding. 

 

The subsidy also includes small fuel efficient ICE vehicles, such as the Swift. And Hybrids. Although hybrids which I gather are really popular, need refining as far as the tax goes. 

tdgeek:

 

I haven't caught up on this, but while I do favour the tax, I dont favour the tax when some vehicles dont yet have an EV equivalent. There may be an EV equiavalent technically, but we dont want buy a 60k farm type vehicle vs an EV 160k farm type vehicle. Any case, its 2021, plenty of time to refine it. 

 

Plus, apparently people in NZ hate new taxes, so on that note, it should be canned???  Lets see what Nationals green policies come out at.

 

The easy option was to buy one of the options that didn't have a penalty - there were a few utes that based on their carbon emissions would not have been affected by it. It wasn't just about encouraging people to buy an EV but also to make people think about less emitting options.