Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

For Now, at Least, the World Isn't Making Enough Batteries (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the demand-and-supply dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Evidence of the battery-powered era is all around us. Electric vehicles are cruising down our freeways. Household appliances thrum with stored solar energy that was until recently a daytime-only power source. Governments from California to China and South Korea -- even Donald Trump's Washington -- have taken steps that will make battery power more ubiquitous. There's just one hitch to this battery boom: The world isn't making nearly enough. All of the new demand from North America, Europe and Asia is constrained at the moment by a market that remains heavily dependent on a few producers. Data on the global supply of batteries is hard to come by, but close observers of the industry have noticed evidence of the shortfall. "We've never seen such demand," said Yayoi Sekine, a New York-based analyst at Bloomberg NEF. "But the supply is struggling to keep up."

Oddly, however, lithium-ion battery-rack prices have continued their annual decline, even in the face of constrained supply and expectations of ever-growing demand. To get a clear sense of the near future, consider battery-powered cars: Today, there are more than 3 million electric vehicles on the road worldwide; by 2025, Volkswagen AG alone plans to build as many as 3 million electric vehicles per year. Those vehicle batteries -- in addition to storage batteries for homes, businesses and utilities -- will have to come from somewhere.

20 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Big Battery Factory by Thelasko · · Score: 5, Funny

    Someone should make a massive battery factory to profit off of this problem!

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
    1. Re:Big Battery Factory by magarity · · Score: 3, Funny

      The largest football stadium in the world becomes rather fucking worthless without any football players.

      I thought football stadiums are best used for rock concerts.

  2. No. It is not making enough *cheap* batteries by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The demand for batteries is not some fixed quantity irrespective of price.

    At 130$ /kWh there is demand for 300,000 units of 75 kWh batteris, may be a little more or little less. Model 3

    At 160$ /kWh there is demand for just 25,000 units, (Bolt)

    At 200$ /kWh there is demand for just 0 batteries. no one would buy it at that price

    At 100$/kWh there will be demand for about 3 million units of 75 kWh a year. Tesla's projection of breakeven price between BEV and ICEV

    At 80$/kWh there will be demand for something like 30 million units of 75 kWh battery packs a year or even more.

    At 50$ /kWh the whole world will run solar and wind. We can store two or three days electricity usage of the whole world at affordable prices.

    Moore' Law for batteries, is a 7 year half life. Energy density doubles and price halves every seven years for battery packs. Right now Tesla is at 130$ /kWh. In 7 years it will be at 65$/kWh. In 14 years, @ 32$ /kWh we are possibly looking at the greatest disruption the energy sector has seen since the switch from whale oil to coal, from coal to petroleum.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:No. It is not making enough *cheap* batteries by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 2

      At 50$ /kWh the whole world will run solar and wind. We can store two or three days electricity usage of the whole world at affordable prices.

      Adiabatic CAES. Batteries are for portable things; compressed air is for grid.

      I've been saying that for about 20 years now...

    2. Re:No. It is not making enough *cheap* batteries by ljw1004 · · Score: 3

      Moore' Law for batteries, is a 7 year half life.

      Where do you get this? I was interested to see some historical graphs to justify a "7-year" claim but I haven't yet found any.

      https://longtailpipe.com/2013/... - I found this article which suggested a 10-year half life

      https://www.upsbatterycenter.c... - this graph showed that improvement has flattened out completely. But the graph lacks no vertical axis so I don't even know what it's measuring.

    3. Re:No. It is not making enough *cheap* batteries by balbeir · · Score: 2

      Adiabatic CAES. Batteries are for portable things; compressed air is for grid.

      So, basically we're going to run the grid off unicorn farts?

    4. Re:No. It is not making enough *cheap* batteries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Funny thing, the fossil fuel energy companies have about $107 TRILLION in fuel reserves that have not yet been pumped/mined

      This represents a staggering loss of value if the rest of the world moves to renewables, supplanted by batteries.

      Expect them to lie, foot drag and employ every delay tactic available while they try and glean money from their bad investment

    5. Re:No. It is not making enough *cheap* batteries by ljw1004 · · Score: 2

      The first citation is 5 years old, 2013. The second one is dated 2018 but it shows a plot that stops before 2000. This is the first hit on google search: ...

      The link you provided is about prices. Your claim was about energy density as well. I haven't yet found any evidence for your "7 year half life for energy density" claim.

    6. Re:No. It is not making enough *cheap* batteries by Barsteward · · Score: 2

      distributed power storage will be the best way. if all buildings had their own battery and they have EVs, those batteries could be accessible by the main or micro-grids in times of need. Lots of buildings will also have solar so they'll charge their own storage. Centralisation is too much of the old "put all the eggs in the one basket" idea. No real need for much centralised storage.

      --
      "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
  3. cobalt mines and rubber trees by Comboman · · Score: 3, Insightful
    At one time, the growth of the automobile industry was limited by the number of rubber tree plantations in the world (all those cars need tires you know). Then someone invented synthetic rubber made from the byproducts of the petroleum all those cars were using. Problem solved.

    Now the limit on electric cars is cobalt for lithium-ion batteries. Until some clever person develops zinc-air batteries or carbon nanotube batteries or something even better. One way or the other, electric cars are coming.

    --
    Support Right To Repair Legislation.
    1. Re:cobalt mines and rubber trees by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      Perhaps the Rumors were true. The Flintstones didn't take place in the past but in the future. Where technology had peaked and dipped, while advancements in genetics and material management. So we create "Dinosaurs" and other large animals with boosted intelligence to perform complex jobs. With carbon and silicon based materials that looks like rock, but are actually strong and light weight material. So we can have a car that can maintain speed with just foot power.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  4. Re:This needs to stop by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not exactly. They were making the point that even an administration hostile to renewable energy still acknowledges the issue.

  5. Kwh costs too by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 2

    I might be interested for 5-10 cents per kwh and 400+ miles range.

    The problem is that where I live, it is 28+ cents per Kwh, usage based, price goes up with usage, and we have vulnerable, limited capacity wires.

  6. Volkswagen AG says..... by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah I believe them. They would never lie to us. /end sarcasm

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    1. Re:Volkswagen AG says..... by commodore64_love · · Score: 3

      > there is no car company that did not lie about exhaust

      Back in 2002 or so, Ford and Honda cars failed emissions, but that was an honest mistake (the US had introduced new, stricter standards). Both Ford and Honda fixed the mistake immediately. . In contrast Volkswagen KNOWINGLY removed the Urea Equipment that is used to neutralized NOx pollution in all other diesel cars..... and then they designed the software to detect an EPA emissions test, and run the engine in a self-damaging condition to pass that test. (After which it returned to normal operation of emitting upto 40 times the NOx limit.)

      This was not a design mistake like Ford and Honda made. This was a deliberate plan to cheat & cover it up..

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    2. Re:Volkswagen AG says..... by commodore64_love · · Score: 2

      The only carmakers to fail emissions were Ford and Honda (circa 2002) and YES they did recall those cars and fix them. They also paid appropriate fines. To say they didn't do recalls smacks of an EXTREME amount of ignorance. Use google; do some damn research.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    3. Re: Volkswagen AG says..... by commodore64_love · · Score: 2

      Notice that article says "in real world driving" HOWEVER every one of those cars (except VW) passes the EU government's testing **inside the lab** (which is all the Law requires they do). They are 100% compliant with the law.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    4. Re: Volkswagen AG says..... by commodore64_love · · Score: 2

      The difference is Volkswagen actually CHEATED by having the computer software recognize "Oh we're in a lab. Change the engine's running conditions to pass this test."

      Ford, Honda, the rest don't have cheat code in their software. The engine runs exactly the same, whether in the Emissions lab or not in the lab. That makes them legally-compliant.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  7. You mean Zinc Air batteries? by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2

    Dude, we are making them.

    Maybe you fail to realize that the entire West Coast is going to 100-120 percent Renewables. And, yes, we're using those batteries.

    Wake me when you guys stop whining and start doing. We're most of North America's economy.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  8. Re:It sucks by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 2

    Apple Inc in 1997 had money losing ugly computers.

    Not compared to anyone else...

    If you look at this timeline of Apple computer models in that time period (say 1995-1999), Apple was the ONLY computer company NOT making computers utterly devoid of style.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ...That is, except for the MANY others that were essentially COPYING Apple's case-designs...