Apparently, this company (EOS) has overcome the recharge limitation that exists in conventional zinc-air batteries, and supposedly has several patents on the technology. If true, this technology would be a big boost for all sorts of battery powered technology, not just grid storage. The big question: what is the conversion efficiency? – Anthony
Guest post by Mathias Aarre Mæhlum
In the next few years, an increasing amount of wind turbines and solar panels is expected to be built all around the world, reducing the stress that coal, fossil fuels and other polluting methods of harnessing energy does on our environment.
There are several challenges related to the electrical grid we face when solar, wind and other renewable energy sources reaches 10, 15 and 20% of the total useful energy generated. This article focuses solely on energy storage. Why is energy storage important?
Wind and solar energy (other renewable energy sources as well) are highly fluctuating. We are having a hard time predicting the flow of the energy resulting in two main problems:
How can we assure that we have enough energy to satisfy the rate of consumption? Imagine days where the amount of energy harnessed does not reach the demand. Or if we flip the coin, days where we generate too much electricity and want to store the surplus for times when energy is scarce.
A stable flow of energy is also important. If we are to exchange our current base load energy systems with renewable energy sources, we need some kind of device between the electricity generation and consumer, ensuring a stable and controllable flow.
Batteries have previously not been applicable for utility-scale energy storage. There are several reasons for this, but most important is the price tag. In the last ten years, technological advancements have been made in a battery that utilizes zinc and air as reactants. The key here is that the air comes from the outside rather than acting as a reactant within the battery.
This result in one very interesting thing: Since there is only one reactant in the battery itself, we can expect an increased energy density. In theory, this can be up to ten times the density of ion-lithium batteries. In addition to this, zinc-air batteries are expected to have a lifetime of 30 years. This things all help with lowering the costs, allowing us to use the technology on larger scale.
It looks like zinc-air batteries on utility-scale could be a valuable addition to our renewable energy systems and help us transition towards the smart grid. The first utility-scale zinc-air batteries are promised to be on the market within 2013:
It is time to admit the only way solar or wind will be feasible is on an individual, building by building basis.
The pursuit of batteries that store and release energy safely and effeciently has been going on for centuries. The fact remains that Mr. Volta, Edison or Tesla could open the hood of the most modern automobile and recognise the battery and note that except the packaging not much has changed. Mr. Tesla’s namesake car is powered by thousands of dry cell batteries, odd to use DC power in a car named after the father of AC.
John F. Hultquist says:
January 16, 2012 at 9:19 pm
Zinc is found underground, usually with other metals such as lead.
Wikipedia claims: “ At the current rate of consumption, these reserves are estimated to be depleted sometime between 2027 and 2055.”
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There is a lot of zinc out there. It’s just a matter of the price per pound, which is low at around $0.90 per pound. Plus zinc is usually found with copper and lead so different concentrating circuits may be necessary. Try googling how many new Cu-Pb-Zn smelters have been built in recent years and compare that to the number that have been closed. If we do run out its because mining companies don’t want to take the risk in the current environment (low prices, high regulation, high cost of electricity etc). Google Flin Flon, Trail B.C. and Kidd Creek for example.
The world thinks wind energy is free without considering the cost to get to generation. Then we have a storage problem because we don’t need electricity exactly when the wind is blowing. Answer is more subsidies to retrofit the wind turbines with batteries. Try building a zinc concentrator that is hooked up to a wind farm.
After launching in utility batteries, EOS is promising a vehicle battery costing 17% of Li-Ion.
Energy Storage: Automotive Opportunity Summary pdf
If they can support that in production, that will be a major breakthrough.
The reference to the NASA – Low Energy Nuclear Reactions experiments is accurate. The only thing that isn’t said, is that they are in violation of preexisting patents. The Widom-Larson Theory appears to cover the Weak-Force interactions causing the reactions to occur. Now all they have to do is figure out the ON/OFF switch. Numerous experiments have shown “Life after death,” i.e. the power generation doesn’t stop when the power stimulous is removed – it continues. In some cases there have been reported power releases for hundreds of hours.
I love the idea of inexpensive energy, I have a problem with anything without an ON/OFF mechanism – just letting the gas run out isn’t exactly reassuring.
If my math is correct, LME estimates another 160 years of zinc reserves at current use. As usual, take Wiki info with a large grain of salt.
http://www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/zn/zn.asp
JOHN DOUGLAS says:
January 17, 2012 at 2:04 am
Cold fusion gets 11,100,000 strikes on google and Andrea Rossi has got N.I. to herd his E-Cats .
He has delivered the first commercial version, with orders for thirteen more. The domestic version is due in the autumn . The Saudis will go from camels to camels in three generations.
Is it too good to be true?
What is the E-Cat? – http://www.e-catworld.com/what-is-the-e-cat/
$50 per kW – http://www.e-catworld.com/2012/01/rossi-first-e-cats-will-now-cost-50-per-kw/
You guys tell me, but I’m thinking one might be able to recharge an electric vehicle a lot of times for $500 USD.
Having worked in battery research in my early career, specifically on high density lithium batteries, I marvel at the blogsters mind set when it comes to the development of any technology. More appropriately the chemistry is totally misunderstood with respect to its longevity, recharge capability and most of all its efficiency.
Batteries, wind and solar will not contribute any where near the electricity needs projected through 2050. And barring a MAJOR ADVANCE in THERMODYNAMICS, only carbon based and nuclear fuels can provide that–get used to it.
@majormike1 Installation costs are not a big deal. It’s an easy thing for anyone to survey the best spot (a smartphone with a compass app and a level app gives you azimuth and altitude of the point-outline of the obstacles on your horizon, and you can plot those points against the course of the sun over the year that you can get here http://solardat.uoregon.edu/SunChartProgram.html ). It’s easy for anyone slightly handy to build a ground mount for panels with a few 2x4s, and the slightly more handy can build a shed mount and the slightly more handy can even build their own trackers on poles! Compared to the average bathroom re-model, it’s simple and CHEAP!
Next, panels are darn near $1/W and micro-inverters are already BELOW $1/W. Add connectors and run the AC to your box. Next, get the power company to inspect it and they’ll give you an updated meter (that can measure backwards).
This strikes me as an energy-efficiency type investment that will pay for itself as quickly as most, and that you can choose to dismantle and take with you if you move (unlike other energy upgrades)!
As far as the Quixotic mission of getting off of fossil carbon goes, I think only the market should decide the best mix of efficiency, wind, solar, and nuclear–given a substantial and rising price on fossil carbon.
But even now, I don’t see how anyone can be against getting some independence from the utility. Over a few years, you can build out your panel array to around several KW, and buy a small, cheap 25-mile runabout for commuting, and you’re not paying for most of your gas, and not paying for any electricity, but quite literally taking your utility for a ride. Also, with enough distributed solar, the idea that summer afternoons are the highest demand time for electricity becomes a silly anachronism! Who’s not for that?
Conversion efficiency doesn’t really matter that much for utility applications.
The first applications will be to ease congestion constraints where peak load can’t be met without improving the transmission system – but improving the transmission system is very expensive or not possible. Think NYC. Some very expensive systems have already been put in, because the only alternative is to not add load.
The next applications will be running reserve – where generation has to be available for immediate dispatch but not actually being used. Coal, nukes, wind, and solar can’t do this. Small gas, hydro, and diesel can – but it is expensive. Batteries will be perfect.
The final, lowest margin application will be economic load shifting – buying power for $10/MWh overnight and selling it for $60/MWh during peak. This is where conversion efficiency starts to matter.
If these batteries are real, they could change things significantly for wind energy. Utilities could use them to force wind generators to act like real generators – where they only produce power when told to do so and always produce power when they’ve said they would.
Based on the picture, which I saw, of their crude prototype. It looks like they’re a long long long way from having a an actual marketable utility scale product. However, as we read this there are no doubt many a “green” blog uncritically touting this as the solution to all of our energy needs and a vindication for all “renewables.”
Show me the patents. Patents disclose how a technology works. That’s the trade-off. You get property rights for your invention… only if you disclose how your invention works. So.. why write an article about a patented process and not bother to discuss the revealed novelty. How does the invention recharge the zinc-air battery? How efficient is it?
“Wind is only competitive with NG when it is over $6.00 and that will be some time !”
Add PV and other renawables to that as well.
I’ve seen forward pricing curves for natural gas going out to 2020, and you don’t see $6 till the 2019-2020 time-frame at these prices.
The first utility-scale zinc-air batteries are promised to be on the market within 2013
I’m still waiting on my Isuzu pickup truck with ceramic engine, and my Tata Air Car, and that hydrogen fuel cell that was going to power my home.
110 years ago electric vehicles accounted for 25+% of the US motorized vehicle markets. For 110 years every year someone promises they will have a ‘better battery’ by next year.
The answer lies in the soil
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2012/01/answer-lies-in-soil.html
Natural Gas Future down, down, down.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204555904577166713425845328.html?mod=WSJ_markets_article_liveupdate
Not a world about shale this time but….
We really don’t need dirty, useless, bird and bat killing wind power, we don’t need solar panels and we don’t need ideologues presenting yet another untested but well patented technology that will not deliver.
Oh that dirty fossil fuels stressing the environment…
Just try to run the economy without it for 30 day’s and we’re back in the Stone Age.
Thank you very much.
tesla_x says:
January 17, 2012 at 7:54 am
I’ve seen forward pricing curves for natural gas going out to 2020, and you don’t see $6 till the 2019-2020 time-frame at these prices.
Tesla:
I’ve been watching oil and gas price forecasts for 30+ years. It amazes me that the forecasters have never been accurate beyond a few months, yet all “earn” huge money and prestige for doing it. All forecasts are essentially linear trends from the present. It gets no better than that. If the present is crappy, so is the future. If the present is a boom, so is the future.
The only “true” pattern is cost of recovery. Natural gas has mostly found its application, which is why the current over-supply of gas is not displacing oil even though on a cost-energy basis, it is cheaper than oil. But the cost-of-recovery causes its selling price to drop below that of oil: even at low costs, it still makes a profit for the producers. Oil can’t drop proportionatately as much, as the current North American cost of production, treatment and transport is higher than it was and (post-well) essentially fixed. Coal, on the other hand, is still plentiful, even if old coal-burning plants need to be replaced: the plants are a post-production cost, not a finding and removal cost.
Whatever energy source we choose, coal will be the most cost effective for a very long time. The technology for coal extraction is low. The burning of coal is simple and while scrubbers are required now at a higher cost than before, the costs can be spread out over the lifetime of the plant. Oil (and gas) get more expensive to extract as time goes on: in spite of what you hear about the fracing success of tight shale gas, the required price of gas is significantly higher when you go to shale gas. Right now a lot of shale gas is not economic to produce (meaning you can’t get your money back, let alone make a profit, in <7 years). Coal, though, is abundant, we know where it is, and extraction costs are generally constant.
Battery storage for electricity. Sounds like artificial dams that cycle the water below the turbines to above the turbines would be a better idea.
Windmills are intrinsically visually beautiful.
De gustibus non disputandum est.
I use zinc-air batteries in my hearing aids. With the new technology, if they can get them to last a month in hearing aids then I’m all ears. Until then… not so much.
DirkH says:
January 16, 2012 at 10:01 pm
Jake says:
January 16, 2012 at 9:09 pm
“Excellent, new patented battery technology. Now an oil company can buy it and sit on it for the next 20 years.”
You surely have some examples of oil companies doing that, and are happy to provide some links?
The buy-and-sit-on thing (some say carburetors, others say . . .) is over the top. However, the issue has been seen before in the “so called” National City Lines conspiracy –
“. . . a number of other companies to purchase and dismantle streetcars (trams/trolleys) and electric trains in many cities across the United States and replace them with bus services. . . .”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal
I remember the electric trolley in Warren, PA.
“The big question: what is the conversion efficiency? “ Well, that’s a huge consideration, but also how scalable is it?
For some of the commenters here……… the implications aren’t towards oil use. They are towards electrical storage. People continually conflate the two issues.
People! Among many other things, we use oil and its derivatives to make our vehicles go…. vrooom! What we don’t use oil nor its derivatives for is electricity. (with very few exceptions.)
1. The 5000 cycles is a little better than ten year life if charged the equivalent of once a day.
2. The traditional zinc/air efficiency is 60% vs 70% for lead/acid.
If these batteries are needed for photovoltaic or wind power generation then the cost is:
cost of windmill or panels (amortized over 25 years)
cost of batteries (amortized over 10 years) + cost of inverter (ac -> dc, dc -> ac)
cost of maintenance
cost of installation
cost of disposal
The cost of power used directly is Total Cost per hour/watts generated per hour.
or TC / WG
Since about 10% of the power is lost in the inverter (for a total loss of 50%) the cost for power routed through the batteries is:
2 x TC / WG
Under ideal conditions wind is barely competitive with coal. Power routed through the batteries isn’t competitive with anything but photovoltaic.
To me this doesn’t look like a winner.
Unless the E-Cat stuff pans out the best battery is still thorium IMHO. Unless your battery can do away with the need for backup gas or coal generation then it isn’t going to fly.
Now if it is cheap enough for a serious number of homes (5-10%) to go off grid completely (where you really save the money) then that would free up a lot of capacity.
ANY advancement in battery technology is important and a much needed/welcome addition to our “off the shelf” technology supermarket. It may not be as exciting as the LENR technology but it could solve many intractable problems. GK
This reminds me the fusillade of articles a few years back about the coming breakthrough in room temperature superconductors. I have yet to see major implementations of this game changing technology.
Wind and solar are the choices of fools. They are not economically or technically viable, and if solar ever is, it will be the only one of the two. As soon as the subsidies go away, these two technolgies and the companies behind them will die.