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How Argonne National Lab Will Make Electric Cars Cheaper
ashshy writes Argonne National Lab is leading the charge on next-generation battery research. In an interview with The Motley Fool, Argonne spokesman Jeff Chamberlain explains how new lithium ion chemistries will drive down the cost of electric cars over the next few years. "The advent of lithium ion has truly enabled transportation uses," Chamberlain said. "Because if you remember your freshman chemistry, you think of the periodic table -- lithium is in the upper left-hand corner of the periodic table. Only hydrogen and helium are lighter on an atomic basis."
Look at me! My hard drive holds ONE TERABYTE. Ah ha ha ha ha yes.
and the weakest most powerful man.
We don't know everything about the universe. There might be another lighter element between lithium and hydrogen that we don't know about. It might be out there in space and we have to go explore the universe with 3D printers to make better batteries.
Computers got better, and someone was wrong once, so anything is possible and you're a Luddite if you don't believe it.
"Because if you remember your freshman chemistry, you think of the periodic table -- lithium is in the upper left-hand corner of the periodic table. Only hydrogen and helium are lighter on an atomic basis."
This is true, but I'm wondering if this is a non sequitur for electric batteries.
Okay, I admit being beyond my depth, but I have often wondered if lithium is necessarily the best choice. Yes, it's light, but might there be a more efficient choice based on some other elements with a different set of reduction potentials (i.e. a larger reduction potential gap between material x and y than LiPo has, for example)?
The goal is really about cost effective energy density rather than strictly the mass density of components. In fact, it's probably something like cost per J/g or something.
And lithium will burn aggressively in water. ripping the oxygen right out of the water molecules to do so, incidentally releasing hydrogen, which is also flammable if it ever escapes to the atmosphere.
There might just be aa safety concern.
Jeff Chamberlain explains, paraphrase " Yea like MAN, it's ... Chemistery ... Yea Rightous ... Electrons .... Then IONS. Yea the IONS have it. It's the smashing ... mashing ... mashing ... Yea a mash pit ... Smashing and Bumping .... Yea Mash It Up Baby ! ... Electrons ... Fizzing ... Zinging ... Wizing ! A real Hell on Earth ... OH what a cool name for a band ... Yea ... Rightous !
First of all, many thanks for the link
Second of all, this ---
Obama spoke from his vacation on Martha's Vineyard and played golf immediately after delivering his remarks
"The advent of lithium ion has truly enabled transportation uses," Chamberlain said. "Because if you remember your freshman chemistry, you think of the periodic table -- lithium is in the upper left-hand corner of the periodic table. Only hydrogen and helium are lighter on an atomic basis."
Well, now that we're clear as mud with this justification for using lithium, I guess I should try and figure out how I can get my helium-powered turbo bolted on to my engine. Or perhaps I should go with a hydrogen-powered supercharger instead.
Some new game changing battery/supercapacitor breakthrough might be just around the corner. If so, all that investment in the battery megafactory could get wiped out. Ditto with investing in lithium mining.
So the megafactory might be still happily minting money 25 years from now, or it might be nearly worthless 5 years from now. Presumably this means we'll be paying a risk premium on lithium and lithium batteries. It seems to me that it would be smart for Tesla to be investing in the very technologies that might disrupt their factory, as an insurance policy. That way, if the fortune you've invested in the factory evaporates, hopefully you'll have a new replacement fortune due to having a stake in the new technology. However, this strategy requires that you have the funds for this speculative investment, and has you encouraging the very research which will ruin your factory investment. (Also, maybe you won't have invested in the right places and won't have a stake in the new technology.) In the case of Tesla, they are major consumers as well as (soon to be) major manufacturers of batteries, so there is an additional up-side to investing in the hypothetical tech breakthrough.
Is lithium mining expanding fast enough to feed this factory when it comes online?
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I think electric cars are the future. Some will debate me on that, but I'm not interested in that debate.
Where are we likely to be in 15 yrs? 2x current capacity? 4x current capacity? 10x current capacity? Where are the growing pains?
How much better/cheaper can lithium ion batteries get? What will they be replaced with? What's the end game?
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
They'll make electric cars dramatically cheaper just like they brought us fusion reactors!
... when I can buy an all-electric car that is just as sexy and just as performant as the Tesla Model S for under about $45k in today's dollars.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"lithium is in the upper left-hand corner of the periodic table. Only hydrogen and helium are lighter on an atomic basis."
I'm wondering if this is a non sequitur for electric batteries.
Not a non sequitur at all.
An important factor for batteries is energy density: How much energy is stored per unit mass. This is particularly important for electric cars: The higher the energy density, the less mass you havce to haul around for a given amount of "fuel", which means the less "fuel" is spent hauling your "fuel" around, so it's a more-than-linear improvement.
Lithium is both extremely light and a very reactive nonmetal. So you're talking about a lot of energy per unit mass for the lithium-based electrode's contribution to the reaction.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Lithium is a metal.
Thanks for replying. Can you address the rest of my post rather than simply taking my first sentence out of context?
Specifically, the inquiry regarding the possibility of better choices than lithium due to a potential increased difference in standard reduction potential leading to superior energy density vs lithium-based cells. If the energy density is increased sufficiently, it doesn't matter if the technology uses, say, lead instead of lithium because an equivalent battery pack would be lighter than a lithium one.
That was my post's question in a nutshell.
P.S. Simply asserting that lithium is a light metal is insufficient to support an argument to use it in a vehicle battery pack. That's the non sequitur.
Volume is also important. If you can store as many picojoules in a hydrogen atom as in a lithium atom then still lithium is more useful as the same amount of hydrogen atoms is way bigger.
You don't want a 3 m3 battery, even if it is lighter.
Lithium is a metal.
Oops. Right. Sorry.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Another 'new battery' article. I've read about a trillion (feels like it) of those lately.
I'm developing a helium battery, if it's big enough, your car can fly.
The weight of lithium is pretty irrelevant. There are no currently existing battery technologies where Li is more than 10% of the total weight of the battery, and standard battery types are significantly below that. If the active ion weight were the prime factor, there would be more interest in beryllium batteries (just 30% more weight vs. twice the charge per ion).
Tesla Motors, Inc. Is Itching for More and Better Batteries by: Anders Bylund
And then at the very bottom of the article:
Anders Bylund owns shares of Tesla Motors. The Motley Fool recommends General Motors and Tesla Motors. The Motley Fool owns shares of Tesla Motors. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.
God I hate these ad pieces disguised as news.
The battery pack is not the bulk of the price of an electric car. It's all the other bits.
So it is not going to drive down the price, not by any reasonable amount.
What is needed is a single company making the motors and standardization. If the Govt demanded that all cars follow a standard motor design then suddenly costs will drop. Ford,GM,Toyota,Honda are NOT going to standardize unless forced to. And prices will not drop until there is a standard that is interchangeable.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Still, the 400 lb battery pack in the Chevy Volt only has the energy of about 1 gallon of gasoline. If you allow that electric motors are 5x more efficient, that's still only the equivalent of 5 gallons and it still takes all night to recharge. In my econo box, I can drive 300 miles, stop at a gas station, fill it up and be on my way in 10 minutes.
The economics don't make sense either (for now, at any rate). If you bought a Chevy Volt and operated it for 10 years, which would include 1 battery replacement, you could have bought a Chevy Cruz Eco, drive it for the same 10 years, then bought another one and still have money left over. (Based on EPA fuel economy estimates, normal maintenance and equal insurance.)
Won't we run into some kind of lithium shortage if the demand for li-ion batteries raises ?
Or at least a increase in raw material price offsetting the decrease in manufacturing costs.
Talking of dragging fuel around, what we could do with is fuel that we could suck straight out of thin air (or at least part of it). I guess that will never happen.
"Hell, Dr. Fred, if we put enough energy into the damn stable thing, just think how big an instantaneous charge we can drain out!"
where's the Kickstarter link?
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Just think how much more advanced electric car technology would be today if the Electric Vehicals mandated and produced in California more than 10 years ago had not been killed by the big oil and automotive industries. If instead of both of those industries doing everything possible to delay, supress, and defeat such technology, and instead had done everything possible to promote and advance that technology. We could have electric cars with greater range and shorter charging times. And they would cost far less too.
Mine is charging in the garage.
I'll admit it's been a few decades since I did high school chem, but WTF does it matter to be in the upper-left corner?
Helium's in the upper right and it's lighter than Lithium.