Why the Biggest Battery Company is Betting Against Lithium. Go to https://surfshark.com/undecided or use code UNDECIDED at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN! Sodium-ion battery technology isn’t exactly new, but something interesting is happening. CATL, the world’s biggest lithium battery manufacturer, says that up to half the market could switch to sodium. That’s right—the biggest name in lithium batteries is betting against lithium. Looks like lithium might need to recharge its reputation. After all, sodium-ion batteries are nearly as good lithium, and salt is much cheaper and easier to access than lithium. So maybe its not surprising that CATL and some other companies are getting ready to manufacture huge numbers of them in preparation for what could be a massive market shift. But is sodium really the future of energy storage, or is it just another battery technology destined to live in lithium-ion’s shadow?
Watch How This Overlooked Battery Might Change Everything https://youtu.be/AzU78eq3Kzw?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7uzySCXq8VXhodHB5B5OiQ
Video script and citations:
https://undecidedmf.com/why-the-biggest-battery-company-is-betting-against-lithium/
Get my achieve energy security with solar guide:
https://link.undecidedmf.com/solar-guide
Follow-up podcast:
Video version – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4-aWB84Bupf5hxGqrwYqLA
Audio version – http://bit.ly/stilltbdfm
Join the Undecided Discord server:
https://link.undecidedmf.com/discord
👋 Support Undecided on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/mattferrell
⚙️ Gear & Products I Like
https://undecidedmf.com/shop/
Visit my Energysage Portal (US):
Research solar panels and get quotes for free!
https://link.undecidedmf.com/energysage
And find heat pump installers near you (US):
https://link.undecidedmf.com/energysage-heatpumps
Or find community solar near you (US):
https://link.undecidedmf.com/community-solar
For a curated solar buying experience (Canada)
EnergyPal’s free personalized quotes:
https://energypal.com/undecided
Tesla Referral Code:
Get 1,000 free supercharging miles
or a discount on Tesla Solar & Powerwalls
https://ts.la/matthew84515
👉 Follow Me
Mastodon
https://mastodon.social/@mattferrell
X
Tweets by mattferrell
Tweets by UndecidedMF
Mastodon
https://mastodon.social/@mattferrell
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/mattferrell
https://www.instagram.com/undecidedmf
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/undecidedMF/
Website
https://undecidedmf.com
📺 YouTube Tools I Recommend
Audio file(s) provided by Epidemic Sound
http://bit.ly/UndecidedEpidemic
TubeBuddy
https://www.tubebuddy.com/undecided
VidIQ
https://vidiq.com/undecided
I may earn a small commission for my endorsement or recommendation to products or services linked above, but I wouldn’t put them here if I didn’t like them. Your purchase helps support the channel and the videos I produce. Thank you.
Chapters
00:00 – Intro
00:46 – CATL Tease
02:08 – Sodium-Ion Pros
05:21 – BYD and China
07:09 – Natron
08:21 – Dincă Group
10:44 – Northvolt
12:01 – Lingering Issues
36 Comments
Do you think sodium has a shot at catching on? Go to https://surfshark.com/undecided or use code UNDECIDED at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!
If you liked this, check out How This Overlooked Battery Might Change Everything https://youtu.be/AzU78eq3Kzw?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7uzySCXq8VXhodHB5B5OiQ
The sound great for grid storage which is at least as important a problem as vehicle batteries
When you look at energy density of stationary battery banks, consider voltage per cubic meter, not per Kg. If a battery doesn't have to move, weight is pretty much not a factor. The space it needs to fit in, and it's tolerance of environmental extremes, become more significant factors. If energy density per volume is comparable, then sodium will win against lithium for cost and temperature variation tolerance.
Just got a quote for a sodium home BESS. Same price as LFP but with a six month wait
I wonder what will happen to the chloride left over from separating sodium chloride? I'm interested in sodium ion batteries, but it's just occurred to me that there must be a byproduct?
Sodium? Still highly reactive in contact with water!
The puns are salty
I have had problems with batteries since the 90's, when I was experimenting with custom built EVs. I've had various tech but would prefer to avoid Lithium batts. Granted, I've used them in various small vehicles, but don't completely trust them enough to buy an EV car. They are safer than LA batts, but I don't think they are really ready for prime time, even after the last couple decades. Now that I'm retired, I could easily live with a sub-150 mile vehicle if I was sure there was no chance of them burning down. In fact, for 80% of my driving, I could do with a car capable or 50 MPH.
Someone could do the environment something amazing here… You can purify water for arid regions or places like california and use the waste (sodium) for these batteries. This could be done with solar concentrators for the distillation so the power consumption would be much better than other methods.
That's a click-baity title and premise
Mad respect for always getting the units right. Even that Natron article said "24GW", which means a wholly different thing and I never know if someone just confused units or are they talking about power capacity.
So what is a Gigafactory other than Muskrat's hype like almost all his hype about tesla auto ?
Too many ads per unit knowledge
Nothvolt is a scam, or was a scam.. they spent a lot of money and didn't mange to produce a single battery..
It seems that Sodium batteries would have a great edge over Lithium for stationary applications, while the converse is true for EVs – each is better at specific functions & different sections of the overall battery market.
In the immediate future, replacing vast numbers of poorly performing Lead batteries with Sodium is the way to go due to the immense benefits for the environment.
If Sodium really is as stable at low temperatures as these manufacturers are making out, then it would be highly valued in the colder Northern Hemisphere countries for establishing better distributed power storage support for their power grids. Having cheaper (if more bulky & less energy dense) batteries for individual homes, neighbourhoods, suburbs & towns would make power supplies extremely robust & power failures for essential infrastructure a thing of the past.
If the big companies bet on this technology, they're quite sure they will get price down and/or energy density up significantly within the next couple of years. This is exciting
Unsubscribed from this pro-ccp channel
why is the video in normal speed but playing at x1.25 speed
I will take an EV that has 2/3 the power of a regular EV if it's cheaper. Tesla could make cheaper vehicles.
I live near the Northvolt factory, and have lived here all my life.
It's bad. Battery lines not working, robots and machinery from China that are by contract not allowed to be programmed by people who do not have Chinese citizenship, expanding for future production when there is not even a proof of concept, Absolutely insanely high pay for simple work, People just walking around and moving the same pallet back and forth, etc..
This is all information i have heard from people who work there, have worked there, and friends who are related to people who have/are working there.
Absolute shitshow
Instead of talking about REPLACING a technology.
The Sodium battery becomes PART of the total solution.
So stop pushing that "This is the BEST thing, and will replace EVERYTHING!"
Different industries, and factors change their demand on what they actual need.
In a datacenter the Lithium have a safety hazard, but not he Sodium…so I make sure there is space for those bigger batteries.
Can we stop calling factories "gigafactories."
i want a new battery tech that doesn't explode when you abuse it.
Sodium ion batteries have a second major drawback – much wider operating voltage range. This becomes important for cable/bus bar sizing (cost) and inverter operating range (not compatible with current market offerings)
The operating voltage range is inherant to the battery chemistry, so cant be changed. The only solution is to limit operating voltage range, which further decreases storage capacity compared with lithium based batteries
There is plenty of lithium. Recycling will become mainstream once volume rises in a few years. Black mass is already traded on LME. I think sodium ion batteries are a blind alley
Meanwhile in the US : Coal, Coal and more Coal….
another problem with sodium batteries is the limited charging amps. compared to li-ion
the biggest advantage i see (for home battery use) is you can charge below freezing point!
I have been trying to get a sodium ion battery to use as a home battery. I contacted a few Chinese companies, but they were asking like 90k €. So, if anyone finds the fair 'sodium' price, that's supposed to makes this cheaper. Let me know please. For use in Europe.
Sodium always Wins.
Not every battery needs to be highest-density.
Making grid storage with lithium for example always felt like a huge waste of rare resources.
I could see these replacing home battery storage by storm cuz they are safer.
About Natron energy, I saw 1.54v on the pouch cell, so that's probably a different chemistry than most sodium Ion cells which are 3v nominal.
Sodium Ion cells actually go from 4v down to 0v, but effectively 1.5 or 1.8v. It is a much larger voltage range. Seeing that most inverters (also in vehicles) are limited in amps, it means power goes down.
But still, they can become really cheap. Some say in 4 years (or so) with $10 per kWh. In a lot of applications you solve some issues with just more kWh if there is a low price per kWh and a low ecological impact.
I am pretty convinced that Sodium Ion will become a major player in the field where LFP is making success now.
Who said the lithium ion is expensive？Copper, electrolyte(not a salt, solvent）, Cobart, Nickel and extremely sevier clean room management are the majority of cost. Also, transportation cost is much bigger problem. So why？Sodium ion can solve these issue is nonsense.
Ukraine and Romania have massive pure crystaline salt reserves. Trump is on the ball
BisTetraAminoBenzoQuinone sounds like an addidive in an energy drink. Maybe they should share research 😆
With the world moving to self-sufficiency and isolationism, it makes a lot of sense to use Sodium-based technology as it is readily available almost anywhere. Whereas, lithium can only be obtained from a limited number of places.
*Seasoning the competition."
I see what you did there.