Posts Tagged ‘EVs’
SSBs, not as bad as they sound
Hmm – well, it’s a start
So I watched a video touching on solid state batteries (SSBs), and the difficulties involved in developing them and the promise they hold for the future of battery technology and electrification in general, in the battle for clean, renewable power generation. It was a bit nerdy, in other words way too technical for an arts-based ignoramus like me, but I do have a certain interest in learning and the future, so I want to get my head around the possibilities and the problems. So away we go.
Batteries are all about two electrodes, an anode and a cathode, with electrolytic material between them which enables charged ions to pass from one to the other. This material has generally been a liquid or a gel, but these materials have many efficiency (and flammability) problems, apparently.
So, to basics. How does a battery work? Why is it called a battery? AINL [Artificial Intelligence Never Lies] puts it this way:
A battery is a device that stores electrical energy in chemical form and converts it to electricity on demand through electrochemical cells. It consists of two terminals (anode and cathode) separated by an electrolyte, and when connected to a circuit, a chemical reaction causes electrons to flow from the negative terminal through the circuit to the positive terminal, creating an electric current.
Which raises more questions from the novice: what exactly is electrical energy, and how can it be stored in chemical form?
We have to get more basic. Energy is essentially stuff in motion, like a rock rolling down a hill, but also lightning, which is electrical. It ‘releases built-up electrical charges between a storm cloud and the ground, or between such clouds’ (AINL again). I’ve written about lightning before, quite a bit in fact, because it’s complicated. As to the term ‘battery’, it comes from Benjamin Franklin, whose early electrical experiments involved Leyden Jars, devices to store static electricity, linked together like a battery of cannons.
Anyway, no matter what I’ve written in the past, I have no idea what ‘electrical energy in chemical form’ means. Will I ever know? It has something to do with redox (oxidation-reduction) reactions, in which one chemical substance loses electrons (it’s oxidised) to another (which, counter-intuitively, is reduced, though I suppose that’s because electrons are negatively charged).
But I’m getting bogged down in the basics here – let’s accept as a given that batteries which use liquids or gels as the electrolytic material are never going to be as effective (energy-dense) or long-lasting, or safe, as those using solids (SSBs). The big issue is, why are SSBs so hard to create in a stable and effective form? Again according to AINL, it’s all about ‘high manufacturing costs, scalability, and performance issues, particularly in cold temperatures’.
Solid-state batteries being tried use lithium as the anode, from which lithium ions pass through a ceramic or solid polymer to a cathode of oxides or sulphides. Wikipedia briefly summarises the benefits and problems:
Solid-state batteries are potentially safer, with higher energy densities. Challenges to widespread adoption include energy and power density, durability, material costs, sensitivity, and stability.
These problems, or challenges, have been around for a long time, but apparently 2025 has been a year of real progress in the field, with lots of cashed-up, well-reputed manufacturers vying for SSB priority in making the crossing of ‘the valley of death’, as one expert puts it. One of these is the Chinese state-owned car manufacturer, Chery, and another is VW, in partnership with others, including Gotion, a Chinese company that has produced a battery called Jinshi. AINL again:
This advanced battery technology offers a high energy density of 350 Wh/kg [watt-hour per kilogram], which can extend the driving range of EVs to approx. 1,000 km. The Jinshi battery is also noted for its enhanced safety features, durability and ability to charge quickly.
This energy density is apparently well over that produced by Tesla so far. Gotion is claiming a 1,000 km range for its battery, with ‘stable performance between -20 degrees celsius and 85 degrees (!), and a projected lifespan of a million kilometres. They’re expecting effective mass production by end of decade. As a 69-year-old, I can hardly wait – just to see it never mind drive it.
Another organisation VW is working with is QuantumScape (how impressive is that name) in the US. They’re apparently a well known company ‘in this space’, They’re working on a lithium-metal/anode-free solid-state cell. Their lithium-metal anode is ‘formed in-situ’ during charging, it isn’t a permanent ‘built’ thing, apparently. According to ‘Just have a think”, there is no pre-existing anode:
The solid electrolyte is in fact a ceramic separator which plays a dual role: it provides a highly conductive pathway for lithium ions and it physically impedes the growth of the dreaded lithium dendrites (that we’ve looked at in previous videos).
I’ve seen images of the dreaded dendrites, which form like little tree roots on the anode of lithium batteries when charging.
Anyway, just to change the subject for a mo, what about sodium batteries? Not for vehicles though – for home. Subject for another post.
So QuantumScape are promising higher energy density – 300 watt-hours per kilogram at cell level – and improved safety and faster charging, and a longer cycle life. It might all be hype, but they have at least demonstrated one of their SSBs in a VW Ducati electric motorbike, so that’s something.
‘Just have a think’ tells me that the two largest battery companies in the world are CATL and BYD, so let’s just have a look. CATL is a Chinese company, Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited, which is ‘the world’s EV and energy storage battery manufacturer’. They’re into lithium-ion and other advanced battery technologies, for EVs and other commercial applications, including aviation. BYD (‘build your dreams’) is also Chinese but it has been focussing a lot on the Australian market, so I need to learn more about their operations here, where it’s been selling cars since 2022.
As for these companies’ development of commercially viable All-SSBs, they’re generally seeking to dampen expectations, as clearly they’re meeting with obstacles. Five years from now, more or less, seems to be their prediction. I can’t wait.
Obviously I’ve just started to scratch the surface of this technology, but it’s clearly stuff that’s got a lot of smart people and companies activated. I hope to educate myself further for future posts.
References
Amazing internet, female science communicators and fighting global warming: an interminable conversation 4
from Renew Economy – SA doing quite well
Jacinta: As I’ve said many times – or at least I’ve thought many times – the internet is surely the greatest development in human history for those interested in self-education. Can you think of anything to compare?
Canto: Not really. The printing press was important, but literacy rates were much lower when that came out – which makes me think that universal education, which includes literacy of course, must be up there. But of course it was never really universal, and I suppose neither is the internet, but it appears to have penetrated further and wider, and much faster than any previous technology…
Jacinta: Universal education was more or less compulsory, and so very top-down. Not self-education at all. The internet gives every individual more control…
Canto: And most choose to stay within their own social media bubble. But for those keen to learn, yes the internet just gets more and more fantastic.
Jacinta: And the trend now is for spoken presentations, with bells and whistles, rather than reams of writing, which can be off-putting…
Canto: Well, our stuff is pretend-speak. We don’t do videos because we’re both extremely ugly, and even our voices are hideous, and we haven’t a clue about bells and whistles.
Jacinta: Sigh. Consigned to obscurity, but we must perforce mumble on into the vacuum of our little internet space. Even so, I’d like to enthuse, however impotently, about the many excellent female science presenters out there, with their vodcasts or vlogs or whatever, such as Australia’s Engineering with Rosie, as well as Kathy loves physics and history, Sabine Hossenfelder and Dr Becky. And I’ll keep an eye out for more.
Canto: But of course we still love books. The most recent read has been Saul Griffith’s The Big Switch, a call to action on renewables, particularly here in Australia.
Jacinta: So with a change of government, Australia is now going to try and catch up with the leading nations re renewable energy and generally changing the energy landscape. So it’s time to turn to the Renew Economy website, the best Australian site for what’s happening with renewables. First stop is the bar graph that’s long featured on the site. It shows that the eastern states, Queensland, NSW and Victoria, are the problem states, still heavily reliant on coal. Victoria is arguably worst as it relies on brown coal for about two thirds of its supply.
Canto: And the other two states use black coal, but they’ve developed a lot more solar than Victoria. They are, of course, a lot sunnier than Victoria. What’s the difference between the two coals, in environmental terms?
Jacinta: Black coal, aka anthracite, is generally regarded as a superior fuel. It contains less water than brown coal, aka lignite, and more carbon. You have to use quite a lot more brown coal – maybe 3 times as much – to extract the same amount of energy as anthracite. According to Environment Victoria,
Brown coal is pulverised and then burned in large-scale boilers. The heat is used to boil water and the steam is used to drive turbines that generate electricity. When brown coal is burnt it releases a long list of poisonous heavy metals and toxic chemicals like sulphur dioxide, mercury, particulate matter and nitrogen oxides. By world standards these pollutants are poorly monitored & controlled, and they impose a staggering health cost of up to $800 million every year.
I’ve left in the links, which are to other Environment Victoria articles. Clearly this website isn’t government controlled, as it castigates heavily subsidised ‘boondoggle’ projects intended to keep the brown coal afloat (very problematic for mining). These projects have apparently gone nowhere. However the site does mention the ‘recent’ announcement of an electric vehicle manufacturing plant in the Latrobe Valley, providing at least 500 jobs. But since the article isn’t dated, I don’t know how recent it is. PLEASE DATE YOUR ARTICLES.
Canto: Yeah, and please do your research Jazz. That plant, announced in 2018, was scrapped last November. Apparently it was announced ahead of the 2018 election. And over-hyped, as it was never guaranteed that the ‘promised’ 500 jobs would be created. Politics.
Jacinta: Sad. Manufacturing has been in a sorry state in Australia for years. As Saul Griffith points out, we rely largely on the raw materials – crushed rocks – we export to keep our economy going, but if we could switch to other crushed rocks for the growing renewable energy economy we would be even better off. Further, if we added value through processing this material at home, we might be even better off financially, and we wouldn’t have to import those processed materials as we do now. Our two biggest imports are petrol and cars. If we could produce that stuff here we wouldn’t be paying for another country’s production costs, according to Griffith. Though I’m not quite sure if it’s that simple.
Canto: So you’re talking essentially about manufacturing in Australia. The Reserve Bank (RBA) has an interesting article on this topic, and here’s a quote from the opening summary:
Manufacturing output and employment have fallen steadily as a share of the Australian economy for the past three decades… the increase in the supply of manufactured goods from low-cost sources abroad, exacerbated by the appreciation of the Australian dollar during the period of rising commodity prices, impaired the viability of many domestic manufacturers and precipitated the closure of some manufacturing production over the past decade. While the recent exchange rate depreciation has helped to improve competitiveness of Australian producers, so far there is only limited evidence of a recovery in manufacturing output and investment.
Economics isn’t my strong suit, but I think I understand what ‘exchange rate depreciation’ means. Something like the exchange rate has swung a bit more in our favour (for home-grown manufacturing) than it was before..
Jacinta: But wouldn’t the exchange rate between us and other countries vary greatly from country to country? Or maybe they take an average, that’s to say of the countries we tend to trade with?
Canto: I suppose so. The article goes on to say that manufacturing hasn’t declined so much as commodity exports have increased. Commodities being raw materials, mostly. And by the way, this article is from the June quarter of 2016, and I suspect things have gotten worse for this gap between manufacturing and commodities. So, not so out-of date re trends. It claims that ‘over the 2000s, strong Asian demand for Australian commodities led to a sharp increase in the terms of trade and an appreciation of the Australian dollar’.
Jacinta: Well, we all appreciate the Aussie dollar…
Canto: Appreciation just means a rise in value. An increase in the terms of trade means an increase in the trading price agreed by any two countries, for example Australia and China, our big bogey man trading partner. Here it might mean beneficial terms of trade for Australia specifically. So basically, manufacturing has stagnated, and declined as a percentage of total output, which includes commodities. Manufacturing industries as an employer have declined quite sharply – as I can personally attest to. I’ve worked in five different factories in my life, all of which have since closed down – for which I take no responsibility.
Jacinta: So there would be a lack of skilled workers in manufacturing, unless… do we make solar panels here? And what about the old car factories we had here – Mitsubishis and Holdens, remember? Though I presume making EVs would require a whole different skill-set, and besides, wouldn’t it be largely automated?
Canto: Well, in February – that’s 2022 – the Australia Institute posted a highly optimistic media release entitled ‘Australia ready to become sustainable EV-making powerhouse: new research’. And with the new federal government elected in May, this hope, expressed in a report from the AI’s Carmichael Centre, Rebuilding Vehicle Manufacturing in Australia: Industrial Opportunities in an Electrified Future, may actually be realised, at least partially. But before I explore that report – solar photovoltaic manufacturing in Australia. A recent (early July) Guardian article reports that ‘China controls over 80% of the global photovoltaic (PV) solar supply chain, with one out of every seven panels produced worldwide being manufactured by a single factory’. And China is actually increasing production, so as to dominate the market. Diversification is urgently required. Meanwhile, Australia is suffering a labour shortage in the field. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has found that ‘one in three installation jobs in Australia – including electricians and installers – were unfilled and at risk of remaining unfilled in 2023’. Tindo Solar is our only home-grown PV manufacturer, and is expanding its output, but clearly this is dwarfed by China’s production. Also there’s a problem with expending production here because, currently, it actually creates more carbon emissions. We need to ‘create renewables with renewables’, which local experts are saying is now more cost-effective than ever. So, back to the report on vehicle manufacturing in Australia. It’s a job trying to access the full report, so I’ll rely on the media release. It describes our country as ‘uniquely blessed’ to rebuild our car manufacturing capabilities, retooled to EVs, but this will require essential government input – a view very much consistent with Griffith’s. Here are some of the recommendations from the report:
- Establishing an EV Manufacturing Industry Commission
- Using tax incentives to encourage firms involved in the extraction of key minerals – primarily lithium and rare earths – with local manufacturing capabilities, especially emerging Australian EV battery industries
- Introducing a long-term strategy for vocational training, ensuring the establishment of skills to service major EV manufacturers looking to set up operations Australia
- Offering major global manufacturers incentives (tax incentives, access to infrastructure, potential public capital participation, etc) to set up – especially in Australian regions undergoing transition from carbon-intensive industries
- Introducing local procurement laws for the rapid electrification of government vehicle fleets
Jacinta: So, as Griffith points out, we need to do some lobbying for this ourselves. Here in SA, we have a sympathetic state government as well as a federal government keen to make up for lost time, or at least saying all the right things. Where do we start?
Canto: The Clean Energy Council has a website that encourages everyone to get educated (they cite a number of resources such as Renew Economy and ARENA), to spread the word, and of course to actually invest in renewable energy, which we, as impoverished public housing renters, aren’t in a great position to do, though we are trying to get our Housing Association to explore renewable options, and to lobby the government in our name.
Jacinta: I think I’m starting to feel more optimistic…
References
Saul Griffith, The big switch: Australia’s electric future. 2022
Difference Between Black and Brown coal
Nem Watch
Australia ready to become sustainable EV-making powerhouse: new research
https://www.carmichaelcentre.org.au/rebuilding_vehicle_manufacture_in_australia