Re:Flow Batteries Are Here and They Will Change Everything
by mhink on Friday July 01, 2022 @03:30PM
(#31951537)
I'll grant that I'm not an expert in this kind of thing, but according to the article:
> Furthermore, vanadium is a readily accessible element in many different easy-to-find minerals. The rest of the battery is made up of equally accessible materials, making it easy to assemble and recycle, in comparison to lithium-ion batteries, which need metals like cobalt and manganese to function.
This paragraph links to the following website: https://www.australianvanadium.com.au/what-is-vanadium/
Obviously this doesn't answer all questions, but at the very least it's a place to start.
Re:Flow Batteries Are Here and They Will Change Everything
by FooBarBizBazz on Friday July 01, 2022 @07:53PM
(#31954549)
There are also organic ones, which seem kind of like stripped down biological respiration. Pretty cool. Redox stuff with hydrocarbons.
Main worry: The magic ingredient this time appears to be vanadium instead of lithium, but there's still a magic ingredient (at least, according to my cursory understanding of the tech, entirely due to the OP's link)
- How abundant is vanadium? Wikipedia says it's 'rarely found in nature' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium
- What are the geopolitics of vanadium? Under what conditions is it typically mined? Within which nation-states' territories is it typically found?
- What other industrial uses does vanadium have?
- What quantity is needed?
- Can we ramp up exploitation of deposits, or are there hard reasons (scarcity, remoteness, etc) that prevent this?
- EDIT: most importantly, are there other candidate elements that can, in the case of shortage or war, also provide service?