Lighter Cheaper More Powerful Battery Changes Renewable Economics
Guest essay by Roger E. Sowell, Esq. Marina del Rey, California
It is not often on SLB that I use the phrase “game-changer.” Most things progress, if they progress at all, in small increments. This time, though, is one of those that deserves the phrase game-changer.
The innovation is the low-cost, light-weight but powerful battery developed by Nobel prize-winner Alan Heeger, PhD of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). The company is Biosolar . see link to www.biosolar.com
The battery is suitable for mobile and stationary applications such as cars, trucks, grid stabilization, home power storage, and others. The innovation is the use of the Nobel prize-winning plastic-that-acts-like-a-metal, haologenated polyacetylene.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2000: Conductive Polymers (see link) is lengthy but has this to say about the discovery:
” In 1977, however, Shirakawa, MacDiarmid and Heeger discovered that oxidation with chlorine, bromine or iodine vapour made polyacetylene films 10^9 times more conductive than they were originally. Treatment with halogen was called “doping” by analogy with the doping of semiconductors. The “doped” form of polyacetylene had a conductivity of 10^5 Siemens per meter, which was higher than that of any previously known polymer. As a comparison, teflon has a conductivity of 10^–16 S m–1 and silver and copper 10^8 S m–1.”
The battery, which is now patent-pending at the US and other patent offices, is expected to cost less than $100 per kWh (about one-fourth that of the best batteries today), to weigh less and therefore provide longer range to cars, to have a greater power density (power to weight ratio), have a faster charging time and much longer life. Another substantial positive is the material itself, made from common acetylene. There are no rare earths to mine and extract, no toxic residues. The halogen dopants are also common, cheap, and abundant.
This battery, which continues the use of lithium for the anode, is likely a primary contribution to the Tesla company’s announcement this week of a new mid-price all-electric car.
The renewable energy field, especially those technologies that have variable output due to changes in the wind or sunshine, will benefit greatly from a low-cost high-density battery. A wind energy project would not be limited to selling power at low prices, currently 3 cents per kWh, but instead selling the power as would a gas-fired power plant, on demand and reliably at the market price.
Added by Anthony:
From the Bisosolar website:
Breaking the $100/kWh Cost Barrier to Mass Market Adoption
Materials account for more than 70% of the cost of a battery. In particular, the cathode material makes up 20-35% of the total materials costs. Therefore, lowering the cost of the cathode is an effective way to lowering the total battery cost. The estimated raw materials cost of our cathode is similar to that of inexpensive plastics, with a very high possible energy density of 1,000 Wh/kg.
Our Super Cathode can be used to manufacture a super battery that is 2 times higher capacity than the batteries currently used in a Tesla Model S, at 4 times less cost.
Processing materials and time are additional cost drivers. Our cathode can be processed from water and eco-friendly solvents, which (i) eliminates the use of costly and toxic solvents, (ii) eliminates high temperature drying processes, and (iii) speeds up the production throughput.
Many analysts in the electric vehicle and solar industry consider $100 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to be the “holy grail” price threshold. In the case of electric vehicles, $100/kWh will make them undeniably cost-competitive with gas-powered vehicles. And in the case of solar, it will finally be cost effective to store daytime solar electricity for nighttime use and be less reliant on, or completely independent of, the power grid.
Our current estimate of the cost of a full battery using our Super Cathode with a conventional graphite anode is approximately $54/kWh.
Compared to Existing Batteries Based on internal experimental data, other published data, and a calculation model adopted from the Energy Laboratory of Samsung Electronics, we have estimated the energy density and energy costs of a complete super battery that uses our Super Cathode technology.
The BioSolar Super Cathode can be combined with conventional anodes to create different battery configurations to meet specific application or market requirements. Due to the overall low cost, high energy, long life and rapid charge features of our cathode, the resulting battery will be inherently lower cost, higher energy, longer life and faster charging.
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New battery technology is good. In a car, the rare earths are sued in thee motor, not the battery.
The stock is a penny stock, trading under $0.20/share.
http://www.biosolar.com/investors.php?PHPSESSID=72f6ed9e810500bf424ef3d8a95951aa
Yes, a penny stock. Imagine how rich the current major shareholders would become if the price were to reach a few dollars based on press release hype. From the company’s web site:
“BioSolar is currently funding a sponsored research program to further develop its super battery technology. The lead inventors of the technology are UCSB professor Dr. Alan Heeger, the recipient of a Nobel Prize in 2000 for the discovery and development of conductive polymers, and Dr. David Vonlanthen, a project scientist and energy storage expert at UCSB. ”
I wonder if the UCSB scientists hold lots of stock and/or options?
People seem to have lost sight of a very simple basic fact here, electric vehicles work, we all can see that, but they have an ‘Achilles Heel’ problem, they have poor range, they have no reserve, and do have to stop and recharge more often and can run flat before they can get there.
What people seem to have not realized in these sorts of discussions, is that this fact is precisely the reason Toyota developed the Hybrid Drive-Train, because it recharges the battery while you are driving it.
Duh!
So you need to carry both far fewer batteries and their weight and cost, and far less fuel and its weight and cost.
Why this fact escapes people I will never know. lol
If there were or is a massive (claimed) improvement of battery tech in the wings, no, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is going to lead to electric vehicles, but it certainly will lead to rechargeable on-the-fly, better, cheaper higher-performance hybrid-electric drive train vehicles.
Hundreds of millions of them, with hundreds of new models.
Rechargeable on the fly efficient long-range reliable electric drive vehicles are here, have been for 15 years now, and they’re not going away, they’re going to take over every form of road vehicle. We’re now less than ten years from when every vehicle produced will be hybrid electric technology.
Governments will do this via simply no longer registering new conventional drive-train vehicles, at all, for use on public roads. So every new vehicle will be a hybrid of some kind wit minimum efficiency standards.
If you think not, take note that last year Formula-1 racing was forced to adopt new hybrid drive technology rules, they’re racing with it for to seasons. It works, its fast, it’s reliable, it uses less fuel, it is high performance. Ad it will keep getting better and the rules will keep getting extended.
Get used to the idea of hybrid-electric self-recharging cars, because you’re going to either own one soon or spend a lot of time in them.
That really isn’t the way the Toyota’s hybrids work. They really are closer in concept to the KERS systems forced on the F1 teams in that they primarily harvest braking energy to lower the energy required to accelerate the car, allowing for a smaller, more fuel efficient (but less capacity efficient) ICE. This is why their battery systems are so small (the original Prius only had an electric range of around 20km while the hybrid Camry’s electric range is 3km)
BTW F1 regulation changes are often politically motivated which is why they often make the cars lower in performance than technology would allow eg the grooved tyres from 1998 to 2008, no ABS nor traction control, very limited adjustable aerodynamics (banned until DRS was introduced), etc. KERS would almost certainly not be run by teams if the regulations allowed the teams to ditch them and run simpler, lighter cars.
Nevertheless, hybrids have their place but saying they’ll be universal is ridiculous boosting.
Tesla has ~400km range and has built rapid charge facilities all over the place. Stop for lunch and get a free charge.
Yes, and Tesla is such a profitable company to boot. /sarc
Oh, I agree with your disparagement. Just updating the 2005 thinking on electric car range and rapid charging. Electric cars will one day be much better and cheaper. If I were asked how to make the best use of wind and solar, it would be to forget about the grid – let much smaller footprint projects become electric car recharging stations. There they would have the more traditional localized use of these technologies and not have to worry about the ‘grid’.
How does this battery perform down to -20C ?? Living in Canada you can’t have a vehicle that has a range of 10 kilometres when it get s cold.
Meanderings about electric cars, and grid-scale storage to mitigate the intermittency of renewable energy
Remember all the hype circa 2000 about automobiles powered by hydrogen fuel cells? I dismissed that notion in an article written in 2002, because hydrogen is a very low-energy-density, hard-to-store fuel that does not exist in nature and must be manufactured from a primary energy source. I claim success on that prediction, because hydrogen fuel-cell autos have not come to the mass market. [Bing#1]
I also wrote in 2002 that battery-powered electric cars would find a place in the market, and now there are several models in mass production. [Bing#2]
I expect future improvements in batteries and fuel cells that will improve the performance of electric cars – recognizing that the majority of car travel is short urban commutes, not long-distance driving.
I do not believe that dedicated battery technology will soon solve the huge problem of intermittency of grid-connected wind or solar power at the grid level – there may be battery solutions at the household level, but they will tend to be expensive and short-lived, especially when compared with a simple fossil-fueled standby generator.
Many years ago I suggested that when electric cars become commonplace, a distributed “super-battery” for the electric grid could be utilized consisting of many electric cars, plugged in when not in use – in effect the super-battery company would “rent” your car battery when your electric car is parked and return it to you charged at a programmed time of your choosing. The virtue of this approach is that the super-battery is already paid-for by the car owners, and the super-battery use is secondary.
It will take a remarkable improvement in battery technology before a dedicated grid-scale super-battery is an affordable and effective solution for the intermittency of wind or solar power.
Best to all, Allan
Electric cars AS the super storage battery – brilliant idea!!! These renewables can be wind or solar farms that aren’t even on the grid!!
“These cars are selling, because they’re in demand with the public, because they’re brilliant for cheap reliable personal transportation.”
I give Toyota A+ for green washing. I also give Toyota A+ for cheap reliable personal transportation. Which is why I bought a Corolla.
Unmentionalbe you may want to drop by a Toyota dealer and see how big vehicles are in the showroom. They no longer sell a small PU. Two sizes. Really big and really, really big.
I would like to see EV plotted with sales of PU and SUV.
The point, consumer buying habits are not an indication of making good choices but the gullibility of the consumer.
If it happens that electric cars become efficient enough and cheap enough that they replace a lot of gas and diesel powered ones, who is going to pay for the additional power generation?
Indeed. How will the vastly increased demand for electricity be met? How will govts replace lost revenue from taxing hydrocarbons? Answers on a postage stamp……
‘Glad to see I’m not the only one irritated by the ignorant use of multiples instead of fractions/percentages. It just shows the math skills of journalists — now being copied by people who should know better.
I notice that they apparently haven’t actually made any batteries yet … nice theories … cool Nobel prize … 50% chance it won’t work …
When I hear marketing gobbledygook like BioSolar – not good.
BioSolar is photosynthesis. A battery is neither photo nor synthesizing.
Also, acetylene is another word for “fossil fuel”.
I guess OilBatt wasn’t as sexy.
Loved your response Janice except for:
“Apparently, that does not include you. Emotions have completely fogged in your ability to look at this issue rationally.
Janice”
Sowell is an attorney. His job is to win an argument. An environmental lawyer might bring a suit against a power project by listing 25 reasons to stop the project. Janice might read the list and think rationally that Item #2 and Item#22 are mutually exclusive. However, all Sowell has to do is get a judge to think one of the items might be valid, to put it on the docket thus holding up the project for years.
For example, Sowell writes.”No refutation of the 15 anti-nuclear arguments made by Professor Derek Abbot ….. Note that only 3 of Dr. Abbot’s 15 arguments appear in my list of more than 30 reasons not to build nuclear.”
What Sowell does not understand is that rationally people do not care how long his list is, if he refuses to engage in a rational discussion.
“and may you always wonder why so few nuclear power plants are built around the world, if the technology is so very, very good. Approximately 11 percent of the entire world’s electrical production is from nuclear. That puts nuclear in a distant fourth place, after coal, natural gas, and hydroelectric. ”
Roger does the typical anti-nuke thing of asking a question in a misleading way.
Actually many new nuke plants are being built. Since nuke plants are large, a relatively few number have to be built. Since nukes plants run so we and last so long, fewer new ones need to be built.
Historically, we have depended on coal, natural gas, and hydroelectric. Power plants are built to replace old plants and meet growing demand. Nuclear power is the only alternative to importing fossil fuels.
Here is a video update of one of the construction sites in the US.
Biosolar seems to be listed on Nasdaq. Share price was about $4 in 2012, today its about 19 cents. That’s probably a pretty accurate measure of its credibility.
The best thing that becomes available with batteries using super cathodes made with halogenated polyacetylene plastic films, which will be cheaper, smaller and lighter, is that the #1 problem of all rechargeable battery powered devices can finally be resolved effectively.
For those who aren’t sure what I mean, I assure you that we are ALL 100% totally clear on exactly what this problem is.
Simply stated, it is that 95%+ of the time, the moment that rechargeable battery powered devices reach zero volts, and shut down, happens when we are right in the middle if using the device to complete an activity, and when we were expecting that the device’s battery would have continued functioning longer, to have allowed us complete the task.
What this new leap in battery technology now facilitates is to overcome “Ledford’s Law → The battery pack will always run down when you’re in the middle of using the device.” How we can overcome this law is to redesign all battery pack powered devices to have two or more full capacity battery packs fitted into the space that the old technology packs occupied. If the new plastic cathode packs can be more than double power density in less than half the space, as well as half (or lower) the cost, then with only a slightly smarter power charging & power control module handling both packs, the personal breakdowns caused by devices dying while in use can be all but eliminated.
After driving my co-worker’s Tesla S last week, I was 4 X less interested in buying one and 100% more in love with the throaty roar of my Jaguar XKR. I have learned that anything that requires government subsidy to make it economically viable, will have a number of mistruths built in. Inevitable.
Great if batteries can be made cheaper and have higher energy densities, longer output times, etc.
But batteries merely store energy; the do not nor cannot create energy. They must be recharged and as such, the NET reduction in total energy usage is very near zero.
Yes, efficiency’s may be realized (better mileage per unit of BTU) by allowing the use of certain types of engines that are “better” than, say gasoline/diesel types of engines , etc. but the battery will drain and require recharging; and now you are back to your basic electric socket which provides electricity generated by coal, natural gas, nuclear, diesel or hydro.
Sooner or later, the battery will totally cease to function once it reaches it’s maximum number of discharge / recharge cycles. The energy used to make, dispose or recycle a battery, of course, is never discussed.
I don’t have time to jump on the grammar train and moan about linguistic foibles. My problem is (1) the proper term is “specific energy” not “energy density”…so if they can’t get the terminology correct, what else are they skimping on? And (2) why not plot gasoline on the same graph? (And no word about specific power, which is a different kettle of fish. Or about efficiency decay as a function of number of charging cycles. I am mindful of the Space Shuttle Main Engine, which was “reusable”–as long as you were wiling to disassemble it with cutting torches for a complete rebuild and then re-weld it together again.)
BioSolar’s research has discovered that their battery can be rechared for 50,000 cycles without loosing substance. Lithium batteries for EV are reduced by 20% after only 1,000 cylce charges. Elon Musk is a pit bull in finding the best technology on the planet to get his Teslas running optimallly. I can’t imagine that he is not EXTREMELY interested in BioSolar’s battery.
I can fill up my gas tank in 5 mins and then drive ~350 miles in a car that costs ~$15,000. Let me know when battery cars get there.
Two things that I noticed:
1) In the ‘battery chart’, they show energy density versus cost for five different types of battery.
Three of them are proposed (so far, imaginary) BioSolar batteries, one is a Tesla battery, and one, LFP/LTO, I am not familiar with.
Conspicuous by its absence is a plain old lead-acid battery, which would be informative for many of us as comparison to something we are familiar with.
2) The article states “Our Super Cathode can be used to manufacture a super battery that is 2 times higher capacity than the batteries currently used in a Tesla Model S, at 4 times less cost.”
This cost comparison to the Tesla battery is meaningless to me.
Is this battery supposed to be less expensive than ‘regular’ batteries, or is it that the Tesla battery is 8X (or 16X, or 100X) more expensive than a ‘regular’ battery, so this one is ‘only’ 2X (or 4X, or 25X) as expensive as a ‘regular’ lead-acid battery?