Why We Need Better Batteries

Tim Loh explains why better batteries are necessary to make wind and solar energy work:

Between the present and a low-carbon future lies a technically vexing gap — building a better battery. Solar and wind power are cheaper than ever, but the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. More powerful batteries could solve the problem of keeping the lights on, plus expand the market for electric cars by eliminating so-called range anxiety. Battery research today is hotter than any time since Thomas Edison and battery costs are falling faster than many had hoped. But the science is still daunting. There may be limits to how much better current technologies can be, and bolder new approaches depend on big breakthroughs. Price is an issue, too. Wind and solar were helped by tens of billions of dollars in global subsidies of a kind not available for the less-sexy work of storing power.

I think he needs to think outside the box a bit more. Although we’re not particularly good at storing electricity, we’re pretty good at storing heat. The problem there is what it’s always been: conversion loss.

What if we already have the best batteries we’ll be able to make? Or nearly so? What if the cost of developing the next generation of better batteries is exponentially higher than the cost of developing the last?

These are the considerations that make me believe that solar and wind will always be niche technologies. That and their requiring such huge subsidization to be competitive.

15 comments… add one
  • Jimbino Link

    Wouldn’t it be much better and cheaper to develop a contraceptive to put in the world’s water supply? Better batteries won’t save the rhinos, elephants or even coral.

  • ... Link

    Couple the wind & solar farms with pie-in-the-sky tech to scrub the excess carbon from the atmosphere and convert it into useful hydrocarbons. Hey, probably no harder to do as making magic batteries!

  • ... Link

    If the rhinos, elephants and corals can’t compete with other species in their environments, perhaps they need to make way for creatures that can. It’s not like hominids were put here by the giant Flying Spaghetti Monster from on high.

  • Ebenzer_Arvigenius Link

    I would be much more convinced by these complaints if the people making them would not normally advocate nuclear or coal-based energy which are in effect equally or even more subsidized than Solar/Wind energy.

  • Your logic is backwards, EA. I suspect that many of those who advocate nuclear or coal-based energy also don’t think they should be subsidized.

    To the best of my knowledge most of the recent analyses of coal subsidies have found that in the U. S. they’ve fallen to a fraction of what they were just ten years ago. There are lots of international subsidies for coal but that’s a different subject.

  • Ebenzer_Arvigenius Link

    There is nothing backwards about that logic.

    If one wants to do this market-based one needs to abolish existing subsidies first. Expecting new technologies to compete unsubsidised on even footing with already existing subsidized ones is nonsense.

    Anything else is not a practical solution but an philosophical exercise.

    This would of course still leave the problem of unpriced externalities but that’s another kettle of fish entirely.

  • PD Shaw Link

    . . . and then the word “subsidy” began to mean less and less, until there was no word left there at all.

  • Solar and wind power have plenty of externalities.

  • Based on the information here the subsidy per kilowatt-hour for solar is more than three orders of magnitude and the subsidy per kilowatt-hour for wind is two orders of magnitude higher than for coal. The subsidy for solar is two orders of magnitude and the subsidy for wind an order of magnitude greater than for nuclear.

    Let me be clear. I don’t think we should be subsidizing energy production at all even indirectly. Indirect subsidies include, for example, transportation subsidies and zoning that favors urban sprawl.

  • TastyBits Link

    You could also store pressure in a fixed volume. With a properly insulated vessel, you could retain much of the heat.

    For recharging stations, you really want to use wireless electricity.

  • ... Link

    PD, it seems like you’ve been having more fun with your writing lately. Keep it up!

  • PD Shaw Link

    I’m equal opportunity malcontent on the subject of subsidies and externalities related to energy. If we were talking about hard subsidies like tax breaks for energy-related-activity A that is not available to energy-related-activity B, I think we might have something to debate. But at some point soft or indirect subsidies take us to point where the failure the government to regulate diaper commercials, in particular those cute babies with oh-so squeezable cheeks, is an energy subsidy. Or the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is an oil subsidy. Or fixing that pothole is a 99.9% oil subsidy depending on the extent and relative impact on electric cars and how one calculates the oil composition of a bicycle tire. Energy relations are ubiquitous.

  • Guarneri Link

    “Energy relations are ubiquitous.”

    Gibbs free energy makes the world go ’round.

  • Andy Link

    PD,

    In the same vein, banning Tex Mex food should be considered as a part of a larger plan to combat Climate Change.

  • Guarneri Link

    “In the same vein, banning Tex Mex food should be considered as a part of a larger plan to combat Climate Change.”

    If this legislation saves just one life………..

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