The Battery Battle

Toodles · 2025-08-26T08:52:57Z

Had I money that I wanted to invest in ‘The Battery of the Future’, (I haven’t, this is purely hypothetical and out of interest in others’ views please) where would I start investigating before investing? Almost daily, announcements are being made about new developments in rechargeable battery technology; with lithium out front in terms of of capacity / weight but somewhat less so in terms of safety and social responsibilities, other runners are beginning to look more and more promising as far as I can see. Aluminium (yes, good old British spelling please!) looking very promising and if Graphene manufacturing costs can be reduced, many new formulations look very promising. I suppose various types will be needed to satisfy different types of application but they all share the same interests in being cheaper, lighter, higher capacity and longer life, ability to charge more quickly, be socially acceptable etc. etc. etc. All these developments are very exciting but they make me think, (After having had fingers burnt when investing in a wind turbine project that collapsed when the company floundered.) which battery design is likely to flourish? Trying to back a winner in this race looks like being a very risky business! I also wonder why there is so much range anxiety for EV batteries now, after all, I think that a smaller battery could still outrun the average driver’s bladder constitution / safe driving duration and would result in a lighter vehicle and longer tyre life - just a muse on my behalf! Regards, Toodles.

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AgentGeorge

(@agentgeorge)

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11/10/2025 3:07 pm

Biggest advantage for the planet is sodium is available from sea water, lithium is mined and causes environmental issues

also with extracting the sodium from sea water, you get drinkable water, and the possibility of hydrogen extraction for use in heavy vehicles

trying to battery power trucks is a non starter, besides the weight of the batteries around 5 tons, you get a reduced max payload, and driving to Eastern Europe will require several lengthy recharges. The final obstacle for electric trucks is the Giga Watts of electricity you meed to run all the trucks.

no one has explained where the extra electricity will be generated from in 2030 when we have 2 million cars, 4 million trucks, hundreds of HS2 power hungry trains and thousands of local busses to charge up

final obstacle is the grid interconnection is not capable of adding the solar farms and wind farms currently built but not cant operate as the wait is 5-10 years for some areas to get hooked up

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Toodles

(@toodles)

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Topic starter 11/10/2025 3:16 pm

@agentgeorge ‘Hundreds of HS2 Trains’ - my, you are confident!😉 Regards, Toodles.

Toodles, heats his home with cold draughts and cooks food with magnets.

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Batpred

(@batpred)

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11/10/2025 6:11 pm

@agentgeorge

Agree and hopefully there will be a few more switching to heat pumps as well. There will need to be a lot more storage in whatever form it may be. I would not get too worried in terms of capacity, plenty of wind not being explored...

Now hydrogen is typically produced from methane and still expensive to handle. Unless there's a better way to store it, my money would probably go onto sodium batteries for grid scale storage, if I had any lying around.. 😉

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