Nothing Better than Li-Ion on the Horizon

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

Battery Reality: There’s Nothing Better Than Lithium-Ion Coming Soon

Makes sense but I won't stop posting about interesting alternatives.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

Personally, I think the flywheel is the more logical energy storage device.  Full charge for a 500-mile run in 90 seconds.

And if that doesn't float your boat, try the steam engine!  Works great!

[Okie + 83]

https://reneweconomy.com.au/aluminium-ion-battery-breakthrough-announced-by-unsw-researcher-79896/

[NickW + 2,714]

On 4/18/2019 at 2:33 AM, Okie said:

https://reneweconomy.com.au/aluminium-ion-battery-breakthrough-announced-by-unsw-researcher-79896/

Aluminium is the one to crack because it has potential storage densities of 2kwh / kg. Get into that area and its bye bye ICE. 

Aluminium also the most abundant metal on Earth so no physical shortage issues

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

On 4/17/2019 at 11:10 AM, Marina Schwarz said:

Battery Reality: There’s Nothing Better Than Lithium-Ion Coming Soon

Makes sense but I won't stop posting about interesting alternatives.

Yes. We'll see many improvements  in the lithium-ion technology in the coming years. But more step by step improvements rather than disruptive changes. Lithium-ion will probably dominate the battery market for at least 10 or 15 years.

We could see more alternate solutions emerge in the stationary batteries market (energy storage for renewables) were the weight is less an issue than in mobiles devices or EV's.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

Yes, that would make sense, since it's a lot more mature than any of the alternatives, right? They're so much more recent, all of them.

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

On 4/17/2019 at 9:04 PM, Jan van Eck said:

Personally, I think the flywheel is the more logical energy storage device.  Full charge for a 500-mile run in 90 seconds.

And if that doesn't float your boat, try the steam engine!  Works great!

Can you link a working prototype?

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

13 hours ago, NickW said:

Aluminium is the one to crack because it has potential storage densities of 2kwh / kg. Get into that area and its bye bye ICE. 

Aluminium also the most abundant metal on Earth so no physical shortage issues

ICE is already going away. Current lithium tech is good enough to do that. But batter chemistries will come along.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

48 minutes ago, Bill the Science Nerd said:

Can you link a working prototype?

Since it is my own design, the answer is emphatically No!  

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

5 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Since it is my own design, the answer is emphatically No!  

What kind of efficiency do you see round trip?

What is the rate of power loss?

What kind of bearings do you use?

Just curious.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

24 minutes ago, Bill the Science Nerd said:

What kind of efficiency do you see round trip?

What is the rate of power loss?

What kind of bearings do you use?

Just curious.

The "efficiency," in terms of input-output, is very high, as there are little losses in the conversion of electrical to mechanical and back to electrical.  I have not made an effort to calculate it as it is not interesting to the design or the function.  The unit sits in a vacuum and is suspended in magnetic bearings.  It would typically take about four months for a charged flywheel to spool down.

What makes it interesting is that you can re-charge the flywheel using flexible welding cables.  Plug them in, throw the switch, and up she spools.  Now, if you are out on the road and you run out of steam, then the rescue service has a spare flywheel sitting on the back bed of the pick-up truck, and the operator simply connects your dead flywheel to the spare one, and a minute later you are recharged and good to go. 

The advantage of flywheels over lithium type batteries is (1) they are quite light, figure on about 400 lbs;  (2) easy to build; (3) cheap to build; (4) no mining pollution of extracting rare earth metals; (5) easy to recharge; (6) as a mechanical device, it has no real maintenance and all you need to do is maintain the vacuum, as inevitably outside air will leak in over time; (7) no fire risk from shorted batteries; (7) can accept inrush currents from regenerative braking at far more than any other mechanism, so your brake shoes will last the life of the vehicle; (8) it will make me richer than Bill Gates.   A flywheel is hard to beat.   Cheers.

[Bill the Science Nerd + 73]

1 hour ago, Jan van Eck said:

The advantage of flywheels over lithium type batteries is (1) they are quite light, figure on about 400 lbs;  (2) easy to build; (3) cheap to build; (4) no mining pollution of extracting rare earth metals; (5) easy to recharge; (6) as a mechanical device, it has no real maintenance and all you need to do is maintain the vacuum, as inevitably outside air will leak in over time; (7) no fire risk from shorted batteries; (7) can accept inrush currents from regenerative braking at far more than any other mechanism, so your brake shoes will last the life of the vehicle; (8) it will make me richer than Bill Gates.   A flywheel is hard to beat.   Cheers.

How do the magnetic bearings deal with the accelerations imposed by accidents?

What failure modes have you experienced?

How do you spin it and draw power? Do you apply a magnetic field to the rotor or use a permanent magnet? Do you draw power directly off of the rotor of use a magnetic field to produce power on the stator. 

I have thought about magnetic bearings but decided they would be failure prone in cars. If you can get it to spin for months then maybe they could scaled up and used for seasonal storage. This is a topic I am interested in.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

28 minutes ago, Bill the Science Nerd said:

If you can get it to spin for months then maybe they could scaled up and used for seasonal storage. This is a topic I am interested in.

There is nothing to stop an enterprising young man to go out there and build a storage flywheel big enough to fit nicely in the basement of an apartment building or office building, there to be the silent sentinel, ready to leap into work when the grid goes down.  And if you have enough of these flywheels out there, the grid becomes self-stabilized, able to handle surges caused by bursts of sunlight on those solar panels the Greens are so enamored of.  

[Patrick Gafa 0]

@Jan van Eck in my opinion you can promote this in a better application rather than apt blocks.

Think about the industry production machinery turning on at the same time (peak demand). Your device comes handy (if proven) to help both the consumer to reduce the peak demand rates and also the utility wouldn't need to engage all those generators to meet the demand. 

As for utilisation in vehicles I'm a bit sceptical on flywheels (I stand to be corrected anytime) as the car's change of direction, acceleration and deceleration might impact on the flywheel inertia hence the energy. What do you think?

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 minutes ago, Patrick Gafa said:

@Jan van Eck in my opinion you can promote this in a better application rather than apt blocks.

Think about the industry production machinery turning on at the same time (peak demand). Your device comes handy (if proven) to help both the consumer to reduce the peak demand rates and also the utility wouldn't need to engage all those generators to meet the demand. 

As for utilisation in vehicles I'm a bit sceptical on flywheels (I stand to be corrected anytime) as the car's change of direction, acceleration and deceleration might impact on the flywheel inertia hence the energy. What do you think?

As to the question of industrial production machinery, in all candor I had not thought of that application.  As is the case with every invention, there will be enterprising and bright young men and women who will figure out some clever use, and will make fortunes on them. It is the way of the world.

As to vehicles, no need to be skeptical.  Flywheels have been used in vehicles since about 1903.  Every single installation has been successful. Indeed, they have uniformly been a great success.  A zero-failure result is always encouraging. 

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

7 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

As to the question of industrial production machinery, in all candor I had not thought of that application.  As is the case with every invention, there will be enterprising and bright young men and women who will figure out some clever use, and will make fortunes on them. It is the way of the world.

As to vehicles, no need to be skeptical.  Flywheels have been used in vehicles since about 1903.  Every single installation has been successful. Indeed, they have uniformly been a great success.  A zero-failure result is always encouraging. 

A Youtube video with some pictures of the Gyrobus, the flywheel bus built by Swiss firm Oerlikon in the fifties.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ypfvTtmgOo

Some gyrobuses were in use from 1953 to 1960 in Yverdon (Switzerland), Leopoldville (now Kinshasa in DRC) and Gand (Belgium)

At that time the main problems reported were a limited autonomy and the difficulty to keep the flywheel rotating till the end of the travel  in case of high traffic density.

 

[FlbrkMike + 1]

Sonnen's residential size storage battery (competitor with Tesla's Power Wall) uses lithium iron phosphate. Supposedly safer and more stable than Li-Ion. I believe that the power density may not be as high as Li-Ion, but that's not so important in a stationary application.

https://sonnengroup.com/sonnenbatterie/