Advancement in Batteries

I would like to open a discussion regarding battery advancements. I will start with this link, and encourage you to add others. for discussion / review.

http://www.technologyreview.com/article/427679/high-speed-materials-discovery/


Cordially, Tom Knutson TKO USA

 

A real advancement in batteries should be a cathode without lithium or any other stuff we do not need the Chinese for. Both lithium and cobalt are very scarce already; if applied on a really large scale the resources are depleted within a few years.

 

The greatest reserves of lithium are in Chile, the second greatest are in Argentina. China only has reserves that are about 13% of those in Chile and Argentina added together. Chile is the worlds biggest producer (around three times more than China), followed by Australia (around one and half times the output of China). Even Russia produces about 75% of the output of China.

China certainly doesn't have any sort of stranglehold on lithium production that I can see, if anything it's Chile and Argentina who could call the shots in a few years time.

 

You might have a look thru this rather extensive subject thread as well
Batteries and New Battery Technologies

 

True Jeremy, but it is a bit more complicated. Chile has the largest reserve, although part of it is in Bolivia. As in Argentina and in the US, Lithium is recovered electrolytically from brine, so it is very energy intensive and there are a lot of low value by-products. Bolivia doesn't seem to have enough electricity to exploit the reserves; they are never mentioned as Lithium suppliers.
Harvesting the brine and transporting it to a location where cheap electricity is available would be an option, but due to the low lithium content the amounts to be transported are astronomical.

In China lithium is present both as a salt and a silicate rock. The silicate is processed using thermal processes, without electricity, something that has been considered too expensive in most countries, but the Chinese don't mind to use their coal, wood or whatever they can find in their furnaces. They have announced in 2010 to step up the lithium production to 500% in 2015....

 

China has bought up Lithium and other resources wherever they are allowed to do so by a host country's laws. Canada for various strategic non lithium resources, and also some places in South America for others, as I recall. So some of that 500% may be imported....

Porta

 

The Great Salt Lake in Utah has a lot of Brine ... I wonder how many firms are currently there that are extracting for Lithium?

 

According to Meridian International Research 350 million tons of seawater contains 61.5 tons of lithium. That larger figure would be equivalent to the daily flow from the Nile River if it were seawater.

 

Even South Africa has lots of Lithium, but it is too expensive to process.

 

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/will-seawater-stave-off-a-lithium-squeeze/

 

Any promising links would be helpful - latest developments you are aware of.

 

I haven't heard anything from EESTOR lately -- or supercapacitors in general. Is anyone else hearing anything?

 

You will need t scroll down a bit, but there is some good data from the Knowledge Foundation here ... http://www.knowledgefoundation.com/viewevents.php?event_id=275&act=evt

 

Actually there are large reserves of Lithium in Nevada. Nowhere near as large as in Chile, Ecuador or Bolivia. but enough to supply the US industry for many years. So there is no need to go to China or anyone else for Lithium.

See http://greentechnologyinvestments.com/amerilithium-amel-252/

An excellent book on this is Bottled Lightning http://www.amazon.com/Bottled-Lightning-Superbatteries-Electric-Lithium/dp/0809030535/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343791999&sr=1-4&keywords=lithium+batteries

 

Found this on the internet: "Energy storage company EEStor put out a press release on Tuesday saying it’s still alive and making progress on its technology."

If you have a large bag of money you don't need anymore, send it to them. From the rest of the article I got the impression that is the only thing they're interested in.