Prime Minister Mark Carney announces 49,000 #EVs to receive a 6% import tariff annually in Chinese trade deal.

Finally, Canada’s automakers will experience direct competition to push them out of their outdated business models, and consumers will be able to access leading EV technology. Perhaps EVs with low cost #sodiumbatteries?

#Canada #automakers #ev #batteries #China #Canpoli #ClimateChange #tariffs

#FYI #JustHaveAThink #batteries #renewableenergy #solarpower #windpower #GoodNews

Since #SodiumBatteries are rolled out by #China now, which are much more useful in a wide range of temperatures from (-20°C to 60°C) up to (-70°C to 100°C), mega-batteries will replace fossils even faster.
I still advocate for more #homebatteries and #microgrids to stabilize the grid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR--t-eMq_Y

#SodiumBatteries offer an alternative to tricky #lithium

Lithium is relatively scarce and mostly refined in China. Sodium is neither

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 3nickel in their electrodes. Nickel, like lithium, is in short supply. #Mining it on land is #environmentally destructive. 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 Democratic Republic of #Congo, where child labour is common and working conditions are dire. Sodium batteries, by contrast, can use electrodes built from iron and manganese, 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 grid storage or home batteries, weight is irrelevant. Several Chinese carmakers are even beginning to put sodium batteries in electric vehicles.

"Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of sodium batteries is their late start. #LithiumIon batteries were first commercialised in the 1990s and have benefited from decades of investment. But the rest of the world is behind China on both fronts anyway. America and the European Union have announced enormous programmes of green industrial subsidies. If they are determined to bankroll batteries, some of the pot should go to sodium."

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 #DeepSeaMining #NoLithiumMining #LeaveItInTheOcean #LeaveItInTheOcean #LithiumAlternatives #SodiumBatteries #RenewablesNow

I have been following battery technology with some interest. This is good news
#ev #sodiumbatteries

Sodium-ion battery startup scores large automotive supply contract for a 10 GWh production line https://www.notebookcheck.net/Sodium-ion-battery-startup-scores-large-automotive-supply-contract-for-a-10-GWh-production-line.913264.0.html

@lenzgr also #SodiumBatteries or rather #SaltwaterCells are not only going to beat #Lithium in terms of #pricing but also are way less hazardous and energy intensive to manufacture..

• And whilst they don't compete with #LiFePO4 or #LiIon / #LiCo / #LiPo cells in terms of #EnergyDensity they'll certainly replace #LeadAcid for stationary #UPS-alike applications.

Not to mention they'd really make sense next to rectifiers for #OffshoreWind, #PV / #Solar and other #RenewableEnergy sources where they could buffer away peaks and fluctuations as well as increase total output on average...

• Only better would be the even more scalable #MethanolFuelcell-based systems which in return could also replace #Diesel for #Emergency #Generators as #Methanol is almost as easy to store longterm and safetywise is even easier to handle than Racing #Gasoline.

"Unlike lithium, sodium is abundant: it makes up most of the salt in the oceans. [...] Given sodium’s advantages, non-chemists may wonder why it was not preferred to lithium in the 1st place. The answer is that sodium atoms, which have 11 protons, 12 neutrons & an extra electron shell, are bigger & heavier than lithium ones (3 protons & 3 neutrons). A sodium battery will be bigger & heavier than a lithium one."

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2023/10/25/firms-are-exploring-sodium-batteries-as-an-alternative-to-lithium

#TheEconomist #SodiumBatteries #Batteries

"Lithium & sodium are alkali metals, which are famously reactive. This is because their outermost shell of electrons has but a single occupant. These “valence” electrons are easily shed, creating positive ions (cations). If, however, the lost electrons are routed to their destinations via a wire, while the cations make the journey separately, through a medium called an electrolyte, the result is an electrochemical cell."

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2023/10/25/firms-are-exploring-sodium-batteries-as-an-alternative-to-lithium

#TheEconomist #SodiumBatteries #Batteries