Something to be aware of, and this is still in flux as the market is so new, but when sodium-ion batteries that use Prussian Blue/Prussian white cathodes enter thermal-runaway (or catch fire for whatever other reason), they release hydrogen cyanide gas.
Obviously manufacturers are aware of this and other chemistries of sodium-ion exist, but when a market is new you can sometimes get all manner of competing tech floating around.
I have entertained the idea of being an early adopter for home battery storage, but learning this made me hold off until their was more info/you could be sure about what you were buying.
Lithium batteries will also produce HCN in a fire. I believe sodium batteries actually produce less than lithium, but I do not have a primary source handy.
CATL isn't the first to put sodium-ion batteries into production, but they are the first large established manufacturer to do so, so chances are they won't go bankrupt before production ramps up to general availability.
And gasoline fires and high speed collisions aren't? This is the bit of paranoia around EV deployment that I genuinely fail to understand. Personal vehicles are by far the most dangerous apparatus with which we interact, already. And we're fine with it! Have you ever, even once, called a Civic or Vespa "scary"?
But put a battery in it suddenly they need new tech before you'll be comfortable?
Ask your local fire department about putting fires out in battery-powered cars versus gasoline cars. Yes, there is a qualitative difference and it's not in favor of the battery-powered cars.
That's not to say that it's a stopper for them; it's just part of the cost/benefits analysis. The idea of technologies that are better on all parts of the cost/benefit analysis at once is a science fiction or video game concept. In the real world there's always a mixture of positives and negatives between two different technologies.
Same protocol for a burning pile of tires at your favorite bumrocks exurban service station, amusingly. Yet no one loses their shit on HN about that horrifyingly dangerous technology.
I give up. This is a proxy war for something else. No one seriously is scared of batteries in the way people here keep trying to justify.
It's not just vehicles. Battery fires from electric bikes and scooters have also caused issues. And currently you can't put a battery pack into plane hold luggage because of fire risks.
How much more likely are you to be injured on an eBike vs. getting run over on a Schwinn, though? Have you ever been afraid of the bike?
The presence of a different failure mode isn't the question at issue. Yes, they're new tech and require new techniques. Duh, as it were.
It's your abject and frankly irrational paranoia that I'm calling out. Chill the fuck out, as it were. Moving things have always been dangerous, and if you believe this represents a change in aggregate risk you are simply wrong.
You seem to be turning this into a discussion of vehicles, but the post you're replying to was purely about batteries. I get it - ICE cars suck. But speaking for myself, I waited until I could get LFP batteries before adding a lot of lithium to my house. I deemed the fire risk of NMC not worth the benefits. I now have about 15kWh of LFP and I'm happy as a clam.
note sodium-ion is no longer two or three times the weight of lithium-ion, there is only a +33% penalty
apparently the problem is there is not yet enough volume in production to compete on price, which I thought was the whole point?
> sodium-ion specs have improved to the point that the technology could break into the general EV market. A recent study by Moritz Schütte at Aachen University in Germany and his colleagues found that a sodium-ion battery by the manufacturer Hina rivals Tesla’s lithium-ion batteries on most parameters, although it would still be a third heavier
> But CATL claims its sodium-ion battery has an energy density of 175 watt-hours per kilogram, which can compete with the lithium-iron-phosphate batteries in low-cost models from Tesla and others. And while sodium-ion batteries still haven’t quite beaten lithium batteries on price, that could change as they expand, according to Schütte
> sodium ions generate less heat in electrochemical reactions, reducing fire risk, so less money can be spent on cooling. They also form weaker bonds with the electrolyte, so they don’t slow down as much in the cold
That's competing against LFP chemistry, so 33% penalty on a chemistry that itself has a penalty versus NMC.
My understanding about sodium though is that the performance in cold and heat is excellent. So even if you pay a penalty for weight, you can drop the thermal management, which saves quite a bit.
For grid storage, this chemistry will be a game changer. For vehicle, I think it has a ways to go before being preferred over LFP, but that's a guess.
I do wonder if there will be a convergence between sodium-ion battery architectures and cheaper, renewable-powered desalination. Could industrial seawater mining be competitive as a sodium feedstock source?
I just realize we have heaps and heaps of seasalt sludge around desalinization units. Dirty sludge, but salty nevertheless, right there at the fingertips. Maybe some of it could be useful?
Historically, vehicles actually did have completely interchangable motive components. They were called horses.
It would have been difficult given the state of other technology at the time for the inventors of the internal combustion engine to have supplied it as a drop-in horse replacement for your carriage, but you could kind of imagine that working with current technology.
I don't like the impulse to regulate, especially as a formative measure. Regulating new technology before industry has time to experiment seems like a recipe for high prices, few choices, and low competition.
There is no reason I can’t put a swimming pool size battery under my house. I don’t care what the energy density is, make it bulletproof and cheap and massive.
I failed to land my point, it’s that instead of chasing small and complex battery systems to put in cars, lower tech, bigger, less convenient battery tech of the pool-under-house scale, could be an incredible option. Stationary batteries don’t have the same constraints as the portable batteries we are familiar with from even before the lithium ion age.
that might be a evolutionary step where you just pump in electrolyte under a housing into waterproof container and every 10 years just pump it out again for fresh electrolyte
doesn't burn like LiFePo4 so no fire risks, though I am not sure what a short-circuit would do in damage/danger
why even under a structure though, just do it like a septic tank?
I don't think swimming pool is the best size. Why not a hole that's a few meters in diameter but SUPER deep? So long as your water table is sufficiently deep. This way you can service it, should you need to remove/replace contents. If it's under your house - good luck with that.
I think it is weird that the recent breakthroughs in sodium batteries have come from China; I would have assumed they would want to keep everyone reliant on their rare earth minerals.
Obviously manufacturers are aware of this and other chemistries of sodium-ion exist, but when a market is new you can sometimes get all manner of competing tech floating around.
I have entertained the idea of being an early adopter for home battery storage, but learning this made me hold off until their was more info/you could be sure about what you were buying.