About twelve years ago, there was a quiet wave of solar company bankruptcies in Australia. They were not caused by dodgy panels, bad installs, or disappearing warranties. They were caused by tax. Hundreds of solar businesses that were otherwise healthy suddenly received letters from the ATO demanding payment of GST they did not realise they […]
#SodiumIonBatteries offer an alternative to tricky #lithium
Oct 26th 2023
Excerpt: "Fortunately, lithium is not the only game in town. As we report this week, a clutch of firms are making batteries based on sodium, lithium’s elemental cousin. Since sodium’s chemical properties are very similar to those of lithium, it too makes for good batteries. And sodium, which is found in the salt in #seawater, is thousands of times more abundant on Earth than lithium and cheaper to get at. Most of the companies using sodium to make batteries today are also Chinese. But pursuing the technology in the West might be a surer route to energy security than relying heavily on lithium.
"Besides its abundance, sodium has other advantages. The best lithium batteries use #cobalt and #nickel in their electrodes. Nickel, like lithium, is in short supply. #Mining it on land is #EnvironmentallyDestructive. Proposals to grab it from the #seabed instead have caused rows. A good deal of the world’s cobalt, meanwhile, is extracted from small mines in the #DemocraticRepublicOfCongo, where #ChildLabour is common and working conditions are dire. Sodium batteries, by contrast, can use #electrodes built from #iron and #manganese [and wood #lignin], which are plentiful and uncontroversial. Since the chemical components are cheap, a scaled-up industry should be able to produce batteries that cost less than their lithium counterparts.
"Sodium is not a perfect replacement for lithium. It is heavier, meaning sodium batteries will weigh more than lithium ones of an equivalent capacity. That is likely to rule them out in some cases where lightness is paramount. But for other applications, such as #GridStorage or #HomeBatteries, weight is irrelevant. Several Chinese carmakers are even beginning to put sodium batteries in #ElectricVehicles."
Read more:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/10/26/sodium-batteries-offer-an-alternative-to-tricky-lithium
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/7x6JX
#SolarPunkSunday #EnergyStorage #SodiumIon #NewTechnology #GiantLeap #Reuse #WasteReuse #NoLithiumMining #NoMining
Access to discounted electricity rates and cost-cutting VPPs is coming, rooftop solar or not.
https://cleantechnica.com/2026/02/11/now-anyone-can-join-a-vpp-with-or-without-rooftop-solar/
#rooftopsolar #vpp #virtualpowerplant #solar #solarpower #solarenergy #pv #electricity #utilitybills #sustainable #sustainability #homebatteries #batteries #energystorage #energy #renewableenergy
Access to discounted electricity rates and cost-cutting VPPs is coming, rooftop solar or not.
https://cleantechnica.com/2026/02/11/now-anyone-can-join-a-vpp-with-or-without-rooftop-solar/
#rooftopsolar #vpp #virtualpowerplant #solar #solarpower #solarenergy #pv #electricity #utilitybills #sustainable #sustainability #homebatteries #batteries #energystorage #energy #renewableenergy
Australian Renewable Energy News
DoomsdaysCW
Tina M Casey
Tina M Casey