If I said that solid state batteries (or SSBs) were coming to the market soon, would you believe me? What if I told you that some of the most advanced SSBs ever made are right around the corner? And that the pilot programs and production facilities are already in the
Sand. It’s coarse, it’s rough, and it can make for a great battery. And as weird as that might sound, it’s just one example of the many earthy materials currently used for thermal energy storage (or TES). A while back, we covered the debut of the world’
Some of you may have seen Marques Brownlee’s video from a few months back about how he hasn’t paid for electricity in a year because of his Tesla Solar Roof. But…this got me wondering why I’m still not seeing a lot of Tesla Solar Roofs around.
This is the biggest solar plant in the United States, located in Kern, California. The Solar Star Plant is over 8 square miles and has a generation capacity of 579 megawatts, powering around 255,000 homes.1 This is impressive, but about 6,500 miles away, in this remote desert,
It might surprise you to learn that the basic chemistry of the lithium ion battery at the heart of a brand new Tesla or iPhone hasn’t changed all that much in the last 30 years.1 So, when several of you left comments pointing me in the direction of
There is no perfect battery. Every one of them has pros and cons. One might be perfect for electric vehicles, but horrible for another use case because of cost, longevity, or power output. But what if you combined two separate technologies into one package? Better yet, what if you could
What do you do if a satellite runs out of batteries? It’s prohibitively expensive to send a team into orbit and pop in some new AAs, and as a result many satellites use very efficient, reliable and long-lived nickel-hydrogen batteries. We’re talking about batteries that may last decades.
It’s been nice to see the growing popularity of electric vehicles these last few years, but EVs need batteries and batteries don’t last forever. In fact, the first generation of EV batteries are already dying, and there’s an absolute dead battery typhoon coming. Lithium battery recycling is
There’s no shortage of potential solutions to the world’s critical need for renewable energy storage. But there is a shortage of accessible and cheap resources to use for those solutions. With the limitations of materials like lithium and vanadium in mind, it’s logical to look for alternatives
Adding solar panels to your home is a bright idea, but according to one report from 2020 only about 6% of installed residential solar systems included battery storage.1 2 That’s a bit of a power outage in the world of renewable energy. But with a home battery, you’
Who doesn’t want a smartphone, laptop, or EV that can charge in minutes? Or a device that holds its charge just as well when it’s 5 years old as the day you plugged it in for the first time? Faster-charging, longer-lasting, and cheaper energy storage options are something
Grid-scale lithium-ion batteries are our current go-to chemical energy storage solution, but they present their own challenges in safety, sustainability, cost, and longevity. However, the competition is … heating up. New forms of thermal energy storage systems built using abundant, cheap materials are on the rise. One company is aiming to