Hello, everyone, I hope this is the right forum to discuss a BIG problem. All over the U.S. power companies are scheduling purchases of lithium batteries. One lithium battery storage bank for a power company ( > 200 MW ) takes as much lithium as we need for 20,000 EVs. Help! They are causing a shortage of lithium and cobalt and driving up prices. Worse, we don't even produce these materials in the U.S. The power companies have lots of other choices-they need to consider their options. Pacificorp is the power provider where I am (Utah)--they plan to place orders for batteries in the next few months. My questions: Are they doing it in your state? WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
This article states that there is a temporary surplus of lithium, and that mining in Nevada may start in 2021 providing they get the permits. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/lithium-developer-ioneer-forecasts-high-margins-for-nevada-project-2020-04-29
I fail to see how this is a problem at all, if it's true. If a large power company can more efficiently store their generated energy in batteries during times of low demand, for future use when demand is high, this will allow them to avoid building additional power plants! Less power plants is a massive environmental win! Why the heck would we want to discourage this, especially if it is being done in such a way that might be preventing the production of yet a larger quantity of wasteful individual personal passenger vehicles? A lithium battery being actively used to store and disburse the energy of a power plant is a whole lot better use of resources than a car's lithium battery which is sitting idle and unused 90% of the time in some individual's garage or parking lot.
Just one utility, Pacificorp, intends to buy 2,800 MW of batteries in the next 18 years (if they keep some of their coal plants.) There is another battery technology that is better suited to utility use (zinc hybrid cathode batteries--cheaper) but they would be too heavy for use in cars. Also, other countries are using generators running on biofuels made from garbage. We should do that too. An EV parked in the garage at night is a perfect battery storage the power company can access. It costs them nothing, rather, it's another customer.
I've read of several, non-LiON batteries that have reasonable claims to be better for utility grade. The problem is absence of volume to bring the manufacturing costs down. I like the MIT liquid batteries but realize there are significant problems preventing production and mass deployment. Bob Wilson
won't be a problem shortly either. theres what, about a dozen battery factories being built right now? shortages shouldn't be a problem by the end of the year. other batteries are just not there yet for cost or density. vanadium looks good by design, but it's densities are low. although for grid the buildings would just have to be bigger to store the electrolytes. flow batteries just need to store 2 liquids. grid battery size and weight doesn't really matter. and vanadium flow are very long life batteries.
