Iron-air batteries appear to be legit. Time is of the essence now, we're well off-track on limiting warming to 1.5° C. I may be writing about some advances in wind power soon as well. I believe a near zero carbon world is technically possible. Heat pumps are very important in this goa, and induction cooking is amazing. Time to get off the gas!
Fascinating! Probably the most common electricity storage technology has been lead-acid. Those heavy blocky things just under the hood of most cars. Similar to iron-air, lead-acid is a two-directional chemical state. Now it turns out rust can be a *good* thing...so long as it’s *inside* that new battery. I say, “Look out, Rustoleum paints. You may become illegal!” 😁
Iron-air batteries appear to be far more appropriate and cost-effective for backing up the power grid. Hopefully, this will reduce the frenzy for lithium batteries, which until now were the presumptive answer to grid storage. The market should correct this. The cost difference is huge, and may persuade hesitant utilities to invest in soar and wind. Hoping.
The downside of iron-air batteries of course is in the GHG emissions of manufacturing the technology, but this is common to wind and solar as well. Just the massive concrete platforms of windmills themselves are a significant carbon hit. Manufacturing iron is no clean matter, and neither will transporting these heavy batteries to their destinations. We should have been deploying technology like this decades ago, but of course we have been drunk on oil. It feels like we're threading a needle now, and of course we're seeing deaths every day as a direct result of climate change. That said, these batteries feel encouraging, hitting the price point to wean off of natural gas and the remaining coal-fired plants as well as reducing the need for lithium that doesn't work well for grid storage anyhow.
Thanks, you're right. That 35,000 is a yearly production figure. Still, though, lithium is far less abundant than iron and doesn't have the right attributes for grid storage. The water usage is truly appalling (maybe you'll read my article on Thacker Pass), particularly in context of drought stricken regions of the world. I appreciate you reading and your correction. Of course, EVs are an entirely different discussion.
Of course; I was merely nit-picking. We "Volts" fans have been aware of Form Energy for a few years, and they really give hope for a complete solution. (NB: My birth province of Alberta had quite the event last Xmas: over a week, with the lowest-light of the year, AND heavy cloud, there was ALSO almost no wind - turbines putting out <10%. The province was 96% on gas, and fossil fans asked archly what a Green Alberta could have done in that situation...)
So Form Energy is quite crucial. Even at $20/kWh capex, Alberta would need to sink about $20B in to batteries to have gone through that week.
Some years back, when Johnny B. Goodenough was talking about "glass electrolytes" increasing the capacity of his Li-Ion cells by 10-fold, there was some hope lithium could do it all. But YouTube is this graveyard of "game-changing" batteries via miracle chemistry at this point, and the simplicity (and inventor-pedigree) of Form Energy makes them highly believable.
Going electric is critical. Every day of delay increases the disaster we are living in and dying from. I don't have to tell you, the wildfires Canada has suffered this year are hard to comprehend, the vast hectares going up in smoke. We, in America, wish to thank you for the smoke. I was glad to learn of Form Energy. Although mining iron is dirty and GHG intensive, for once, I found something that gave me a bit of hope. We have little choice, but to burn FFs to create a grid based on solar and wind. Too bad we didn't start 50 years ago. I wish we would adopt degrowth as well, I think reducing consumption is necessary and could actually improve our lives. However, that's a political non-starter. We'll just be lucky if Trump isn't running again.
Even though lithium is the wrong kind of battery back up for the grid, I have no doubt the backers will persist. Billions have invested by people who care only for money.
Actually, I'll abuse your substack hospitality with a longer bit of chat; I've been getting clearer on what batteries mean, the last few months. Li-Ion and other battery chemistries like zinc may be important for grid storage, too.
Let's dumb it down to one house off the grid, and its storage needs, to make an example.
What I got through my head recently is that every chemistry comes with a maximum speed of discharge. It takes the battery chemical reaction a certain number of hours to run. So your *storage* purchase is tied to your *power* purchase. You can't buy only 120 kWh in Fe-Air that can provide more than 1 kW of power. 120 kWh over 120 hours is the most it can do.
So: imagine your off-grid house needs to get through 120 hours with zero income, to simplify. It needs at least 1kW all the time, for lights, heat pump, refrigerator, but needs 2kW through much of the night, 12 hours, and 3 kW during supper, about 2 hours a night.
So, over 5 days, you use up 120 kWh from your iron-air battery, but also 48 kWh from your 2kW zinc-battery that takes 24 hours to discharge - or 48 if you run it at half-power, and also 8 hours from your 2kW Li-Ion battery at half-power.
The battery cost is like 120 X $20 for the iron, plus 48 x $100 for the zinc, plus 8 x $120 for the Li-Ion. You only buy the expensive chemistries for the peaks of your personal "duck curve".
A commercial storage facility might have a similar mix, rather than providing just one flat power-delivery rate, which leaves the grid operator to find extra sources when demand peaks.
So far, batteries have ONLY been discussed as replacing gas "peaker plants", because we've only had 4-hour batteries (or so). The big problem with Form Energy is that there's no market for their product! That's because of existing infrastructure; they'll only be needed when the grid gets past 40% renewable.
When we need to run whole states off batteries for a few days running in bad winter weather, iron-air will be the only thing, but the battery plants will probably be most popular if they can also ramp up for duck curves.
Well, that's a distressing chicken or egg conundrum, but surely one Form Energy recognizes. Perhaps they are working on relationships with solar and wind producers to coordinate efforts? It seems like an obvious place where government coordination would make sense. Floating offshore wind appears to be poised for deployment, which would open up significant opportunities to scale up renewables. It appears Canada is far ahead of the states in this regard. Look at poor Africa in the link below, little info available, but Iikely devoid of renewables. If we don't bring poor nations along on the green energy revolution, we will fail to stop warming. Thanks for the info on discharge rates, appreciated. https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy
Bluntly, grids have to be forbidden from running gas-peaker plants. At the moment they're unattractive, but let the Ukraine war end, and the price of gas go way back down, and the gas-peaker solution is usually going to look like a lower risk.
Iron-air batteries appear to be legit. Time is of the essence now, we're well off-track on limiting warming to 1.5° C. I may be writing about some advances in wind power soon as well. I believe a near zero carbon world is technically possible. Heat pumps are very important in this goa, and induction cooking is amazing. Time to get off the gas!
Excellent and quite hopeful. The rustbelt is back in business. Thank you Geoff!
Fascinating! Probably the most common electricity storage technology has been lead-acid. Those heavy blocky things just under the hood of most cars. Similar to iron-air, lead-acid is a two-directional chemical state. Now it turns out rust can be a *good* thing...so long as it’s *inside* that new battery. I say, “Look out, Rustoleum paints. You may become illegal!” 😁
Once again . I have enjoyed reading your article!
I haven’t heard of iron - air batteries ... maybe this is the answer... it does sound hopeful!
Lithium batteries are to toxic and not the answer . plus to mine for lithium fossil fuels are needed ...
I also had a Mazda RX7 and loved the car .. even if it came with speeding tickets !!!
Thank you for mentioning Thacker Pass again!!
Means a lot ..
Iron-air batteries appear to be far more appropriate and cost-effective for backing up the power grid. Hopefully, this will reduce the frenzy for lithium batteries, which until now were the presumptive answer to grid storage. The market should correct this. The cost difference is huge, and may persuade hesitant utilities to invest in soar and wind. Hoping.
The downside of iron-air batteries of course is in the GHG emissions of manufacturing the technology, but this is common to wind and solar as well. Just the massive concrete platforms of windmills themselves are a significant carbon hit. Manufacturing iron is no clean matter, and neither will transporting these heavy batteries to their destinations. We should have been deploying technology like this decades ago, but of course we have been drunk on oil. It feels like we're threading a needle now, and of course we're seeing deaths every day as a direct result of climate change. That said, these batteries feel encouraging, hitting the price point to wean off of natural gas and the remaining coal-fired plants as well as reducing the need for lithium that doesn't work well for grid storage anyhow.
Your lithium figures appear to come from :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust
which has that "35,000" figure, but it's not the total in Earth's crust, as the sentence implies; it's the current yearly production.
Look a few rows down, and you may be surprised to find that lead is only 70% as available, a mere 0.0014% of the Earth's crust, to Lithium's 0.002%
Further, an eV has only 8 or 9 kg of lithium; an ICE car has a lead-acid battery with 11kg of lead.
Thanks, you're right. That 35,000 is a yearly production figure. Still, though, lithium is far less abundant than iron and doesn't have the right attributes for grid storage. The water usage is truly appalling (maybe you'll read my article on Thacker Pass), particularly in context of drought stricken regions of the world. I appreciate you reading and your correction. Of course, EVs are an entirely different discussion.
Of course; I was merely nit-picking. We "Volts" fans have been aware of Form Energy for a few years, and they really give hope for a complete solution. (NB: My birth province of Alberta had quite the event last Xmas: over a week, with the lowest-light of the year, AND heavy cloud, there was ALSO almost no wind - turbines putting out <10%. The province was 96% on gas, and fossil fans asked archly what a Green Alberta could have done in that situation...)
So Form Energy is quite crucial. Even at $20/kWh capex, Alberta would need to sink about $20B in to batteries to have gone through that week.
Some years back, when Johnny B. Goodenough was talking about "glass electrolytes" increasing the capacity of his Li-Ion cells by 10-fold, there was some hope lithium could do it all. But YouTube is this graveyard of "game-changing" batteries via miracle chemistry at this point, and the simplicity (and inventor-pedigree) of Form Energy makes them highly believable.
Going electric is critical. Every day of delay increases the disaster we are living in and dying from. I don't have to tell you, the wildfires Canada has suffered this year are hard to comprehend, the vast hectares going up in smoke. We, in America, wish to thank you for the smoke. I was glad to learn of Form Energy. Although mining iron is dirty and GHG intensive, for once, I found something that gave me a bit of hope. We have little choice, but to burn FFs to create a grid based on solar and wind. Too bad we didn't start 50 years ago. I wish we would adopt degrowth as well, I think reducing consumption is necessary and could actually improve our lives. However, that's a political non-starter. We'll just be lucky if Trump isn't running again.
Even though lithium is the wrong kind of battery back up for the grid, I have no doubt the backers will persist. Billions have invested by people who care only for money.
Actually, I'll abuse your substack hospitality with a longer bit of chat; I've been getting clearer on what batteries mean, the last few months. Li-Ion and other battery chemistries like zinc may be important for grid storage, too.
Let's dumb it down to one house off the grid, and its storage needs, to make an example.
What I got through my head recently is that every chemistry comes with a maximum speed of discharge. It takes the battery chemical reaction a certain number of hours to run. So your *storage* purchase is tied to your *power* purchase. You can't buy only 120 kWh in Fe-Air that can provide more than 1 kW of power. 120 kWh over 120 hours is the most it can do.
So: imagine your off-grid house needs to get through 120 hours with zero income, to simplify. It needs at least 1kW all the time, for lights, heat pump, refrigerator, but needs 2kW through much of the night, 12 hours, and 3 kW during supper, about 2 hours a night.
So, over 5 days, you use up 120 kWh from your iron-air battery, but also 48 kWh from your 2kW zinc-battery that takes 24 hours to discharge - or 48 if you run it at half-power, and also 8 hours from your 2kW Li-Ion battery at half-power.
The battery cost is like 120 X $20 for the iron, plus 48 x $100 for the zinc, plus 8 x $120 for the Li-Ion. You only buy the expensive chemistries for the peaks of your personal "duck curve".
A commercial storage facility might have a similar mix, rather than providing just one flat power-delivery rate, which leaves the grid operator to find extra sources when demand peaks.
So far, batteries have ONLY been discussed as replacing gas "peaker plants", because we've only had 4-hour batteries (or so). The big problem with Form Energy is that there's no market for their product! That's because of existing infrastructure; they'll only be needed when the grid gets past 40% renewable.
When we need to run whole states off batteries for a few days running in bad winter weather, iron-air will be the only thing, but the battery plants will probably be most popular if they can also ramp up for duck curves.
Well, that's a distressing chicken or egg conundrum, but surely one Form Energy recognizes. Perhaps they are working on relationships with solar and wind producers to coordinate efforts? It seems like an obvious place where government coordination would make sense. Floating offshore wind appears to be poised for deployment, which would open up significant opportunities to scale up renewables. It appears Canada is far ahead of the states in this regard. Look at poor Africa in the link below, little info available, but Iikely devoid of renewables. If we don't bring poor nations along on the green energy revolution, we will fail to stop warming. Thanks for the info on discharge rates, appreciated. https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy
Bluntly, grids have to be forbidden from running gas-peaker plants. At the moment they're unattractive, but let the Ukraine war end, and the price of gas go way back down, and the gas-peaker solution is usually going to look like a lower risk.