this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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This is big! Grid scale Sodium Ion battery technology is (on paper) the best candidate for cheap large scale electricity storage. The fact that this company is working on 9 pilot deployments mean that this will likely produce the real world results that the paper exercises promise.
There are SO MANY advantages of Sodium Ion battery tech for grid storage over everything else we've used so far (nearly all Lithium based).
Sodium Ion batteries:
The only downsides to Sodium Ion is that the batteries are physically larger for the same amount of energy stored (which isn't a problem for stationary storage), and the charging/discharging curves are not as linear as other chemistries (which again, isn't an issue because these are purpose built applications where the curves can easily be managed by battery management systems).
I would happily dedicate a corner of my garage for a big sodium ion battery.
Also, fun fact they can charge and discharge faster than lithium ion. Also, their chemistry doesn't lead to spontaneous combustion. Perfect for a house backup.
I think it's the fire thing that is really their killer feature. So to speak.
Can we make them from desalination plants, in part? Or no? I don't know the science for it.
Yeah, the brine is where various useful ions can be further extracted from. https://news.mit.edu/2019/brine-desalianation-waste-sodium-hydroxide-0213
It's both amazing and hilarious that our sodium battery production is similar to modded Minecraft logic.
Well, not too surprising, modded Minecraft chemistry is modeled after real life after all!
Quite forward thinking of the Mekanism devs, then.
I love this too, I just hope they don't use too much Phosphorous, because those reserves are limited too, maybe there are alternative designs once this gets going.
What about the environmental impact of degraded sodium ion batteries?
I'm not going to take sodium mining into account, as there are many ways that it can be extracted, with probably minimal impact, like salt evaporation ponds. I assume it's less destructive than building a hydro dam.
I'm really excited about na-ion, if commercial BMS circuitry was available I would already have some for a few home automation and sensing projects because of their low temp performance alone. But I'll have to spin up a custom implementation with an arduino or something and I don't have that kind of skills lol.
We have used water before lithium, and it isn't bad at all.
Not so great in a flat dry desert though. Pump storage is great when there is lots of water and a naturally occurring elevation, but there's lots of places on Earth that don't have that, but do have energy to store.
Hopefully you are free not to live there...
Middle east would like a word with you.
Middle-East involves plenty of mountainous areas, and the reason many of those are arid is because water, ahem, flows down.
Also in a flat dry desert one can replace pumping water up with raising heavy things up. I think. More wear though.
Not what I was replying to my dude.
Pumped hydro?
Also very good, but geographically limited.
And very destructive for the local environment
Not sure why you're getting down voted, as you're sadly correct here
Still better then many alternatives, but it's not as environmental friendly as it's advertised
Would container ships be a good application? Or too heavy/large?