Here's a link to the podcast. watchnebula.com/modulus/battery-breakthroughs

I love how Prof. Sadoway addresses scalability & affordability. Making something work in a laboratory environment is a very different problem than implementing it at a large scale.

Sony: "Fine, I'll just do it myself."

"you know in university, you build 5 cells, one of them works and you get a publication and everyone is high fiving and so on - but in manifacturing, everything has to work" lmao

This astounding amount of quality research and detailed facts paired with beautiful and comprehensive presentation is seriously above anything else on youtube. Please keep up the awesome work!

I wonder if the term "lava battery" has any marketing merit.

Didn’t know that Sony was the first ones to introduce lithium-ion batteries to the masses. They, if not invented, started something big.

@4:21 I can't unsee that smiling gauge :D

Thank you for actually talking about power frequency regulation, which is a measurement often forgotten or misunderstood by other UKpostsrs talking about next generation grid storage. Storage capacity and output power are good measurements for medium and long term energy storage, but short term frequency smoothing for renewables like wind is something that is essential in a green power grid!

I really liked how you covered the "challenges" of manufacturing, and how that is a barrier. Almost no battery video which talks about "breakthroughs" touches this aspect.

"Well fine! I'll start my own battery manufacturing facility! With lithium! And ions!" -Sony

Love your dedication to high quality research for your videos! You make your sources transparent and even put in an interview with a leading expert - great work!

I really like how you include references and indicate them in your videos.

Please do keep us updated on those batteries : )

"If you want to make something dirt cheap, make it out of dirt." Haha, I love it!

When it said they need a niche customer. My first thought was data centers.

Imagine using the heat generated by that data center combined with a heat pump in order to keep the batteries at optimal temperatures.

Im from South Australia. The blackout was good fun. My local pub had a generator built in and as word spread, a quiet bar became the most packed its probably ever been.

14:55 "you know at the university you make 5 cells and one of them works and you get a publication out of it and everyones highfiving and so on..." XD

The fact that a private company is bringing into the world such an urgently-needed and revolutionary product while governments are sipping oil money and banning plastic straws is ridiculous.

Humanity’s rejection of Nuclear power was a massive mistake, and the environment has payed dearly for it as we continue to rely on fossil fuels for our electricity

No Sci-Fy nosense Start to explain a metal lava battery Cool as always

"Deep cycling" is the thing that makes this sound so much better and more possible

I loved this. Two things: 1) CNTs are actually plausibly commercializable in ten years. Arguably they're already commercialized as they're deployed in a lot of contexts, albeit haphazardly (lightweight tennis rackets being the constant example). The fact that they're being put into products, and have been for years now is actually a cause for alarm given that they're able to infiltrate the body and cross the blood/brain barrier. I worked as a policy research assistant to a nanotechnology lab and there was a lot of excitement about doping battery anodes with CNTs and whatnot at the time. So both CNTs and hyper-energy-dense battery technology are just about fully realized. 2) I did my PhD dissertation on technology policy, and used grid-scale energy storage as a case study. I think the title of your video is a little misleading: the economics and technology development aspects of grid-scale energy storage are solved at this point. Ambri's battery chemisty is SUPER exciting and will, no doubt, push the economics even further, but we can go ahead with renewables today. I would argue that the real missing link is the political and sociofinancial wherewithal. Just as you describe lock-in as a function of a LI+ manufacturer's sunk costs specializing in that chemistry, grid operators and utilities have a psychological lock-in to current grid technologies. They simply don't have the perspective to value storage, and so they keep telling policymakers and regulators that "it's too expensive" and "it doesn't work." Technologically, speaking, however, there is still a major innovation that we desperately need. We can go ahead and deploy 100% renewable grids right now, but they'll be more expensive than they really need to be because storage operation is a new concept to us, and every technology (Pumped Hydro/CCAS, flywheel, battery+inverter, thermal storage, etc) operates differently and is optimal for a different use case. Current grid planning tools, but in particular grid operating software, doesn't have the capacity to use these assets to their fullest potential. Massive upheval in grid tech is going to be needed, starting with the ability of the grid to self-monitor and then, as a consequence, cybersecurity for that capacity. I'd love to see you talk about the software side of all this. Great vid, though. Love your stuff.

This channel just keeps getting better and better with every video! Awesome work!! Also, I'm definitely going to listen in on the new podcast. :D

This might be the best video you ever made. The interview sections were also a great addition!

4:04 that gauge looks happy.

I've been in renewable energy since the early 70's and the "Holy Grail" has always been cheap and reliable energy storage. If I had a nickle for every time I've heard "This new technology will finally provide a cheap and reliable battery solution!" I would be VERY rich!

4:30 Says lithium ion batteries, and shows standing electrolyte lead-acid batteries.

Half way through the video* "So this is where things get complicated" Me: ఠ_ఠ yeaa..

"Not scalable to our current needs" - unintended pun there ;)

Thanks for your videos, they are very well explained, very interesting and timely! I would love to also see a video that compares this technique with other energy storage techniques like hydrogen, li-ion batteries, pumped hydro etc (in terms of price, scalability, impact on the environment etc).

this video need more views such innovations cant remain unheard

LOL! As a chemistry teacher I used to ask my students to write down hypothetical batteries using redox tables, that was one of the solutions :-)

I only understood 1/3 of this video but the 3D models in the Battery set are FIRE!! It took me a few seconds to realize they were CG! Great work to Mike Ridolfi, the animator (and I'm assuming 3d modeler)! The texturing and lighting was perfect!

The North American grid is 240 volts at 60 hertz and is tripolar, but standard outlets are 120 volts at bipolar with a separate ground. Generally the higher voltage is used for manufacturing and electric appliances that require more power such as electric stoves and run at higher amperage. Standard outlet at 120 volts are either 15 or 20 amps.

17:35 "Technological lock-in" that term I will use endlessly lol

Bringing in the world-leading expert, quantitative analysis and reviewing the literature. This video is incredible. Completely rich in state of the art content too, that's not even mentioning the animations! Well done Brian. It is so good to see the channel growing 🙌

17:32 Heartless people ! Give that Cell Assembly a hug come on !

Would love to see this storage technology be integrated in a way with energy production so that the heat generated from energy creation can warm start the batteries, further increasing efficiency!

would really like to see an update for this, it seems the most important technology at the moment.

Why listen to Real Engineering when his comments sections are packed with experts?

I should just mention this, I live in South Australia and we don’t get tornadoes here. Our blackouts are just caused by storms with heavy winds. The northern parts of Australia, mostly Queensland, do get the occasional cyclone.

"I say, if you want to make something dirt cheap, make it out of dirt." ~ Prof. Sadoway 7:19

Yay I just subbed to you and also got the bundle deal. Very awesome video and thank you for the 41% off. Have been contemplating getting CuriosityStream for a while (gotta admit I had not heard of Nebula before) but never felt I really needed it until now.

Using Li-ion cells for everything is a bit like using titanium for things of metal. Possible, but not practical.

"if you want to make something dirt cheap make it out of dirt"

This was an excellent video. Prof. Sadoway addressed many of the current hurdles to overcome before these new forms of storage can become a reality.

I can see it working for magacities energy storage as a group of huge underground "siamese" swimming pools, to "share/stabilize" its heat, connected in series to reach the desirable voltage. The terrain layer around the ceramic pools can work as a thermal battery and other outer terrain layer can work as a insulator, just changing its composition (sand/clay) during the site construction phase. Keep in mind that volume grows "cubic" and area grows "square", it means the bigger the volume gets, less surface area in proportion to lose heat.

So crazy to be hearing about Ambri again. I did a college engineering project on this company almost 10 years ago and now they're getting a big break to show off their batteries in the real world.

I can't say I've ever heard the word cation pronounced that way before

22:01 I literally watch both tom scott and teirzoo and they're both right there with those two plus you im probably gonna get it

The video did not start yet, the ad was running. I scrolled down to the video description section inthe meantime. I saw the references. I subscribed to the channel ♥️

The animations are looking incredible! You have inspired me to pursue a career in a STEM field. Continue the fantastic work :)

Please can we get an update when Ambry start their battery production.

Lovely lovely narrative, tech, animations and science behind it! Much interesting and would like to follow its progress 😇

I hope they're working on much bigger cells. Stack a bunch of those together and all that insulation on the inside is just to keep the labels from burning.

This was a very pragmatic introduction to this promising storage solution. I wish all sustainable energy related videos were like this.

3:40 "It was a poorly planned grid." Erm, yes, it was a poorly planned grid because it was sold off to Hong Kong Infrastructure company many years before, and they had done sweet little since then, reaping the profits and doing virtually no upgrades. Onto this grid was added renewables like wind, hydro and solar because they were cheapest, but the infrastructure company did little to nothing to ensure grid harmonisation. This is what happens when you don't have vertical integration and sell everything off. Blaming wind-turbines for a storm that toppled power stanchions and cut power lines on an ageing grid decades overdue for an update is disingenuous, since it became evident after PM Malcolm Turnbull's comments that there was a political purpose of moating fossil fuels by using the storm event as a weapon to attack renewable energy uptake. PM Turnbull at the time, using the storm and subsequent blackout as an excuse, said that renewable uptake was 'irresponsible' and thus implying that this was responsible for the blackout - but it was the very neoliberal economic policies of selling everything off that was 'irresponsible', since no new renewable additions to the grid had been properly integrated.

As an addendum, I must clarify that the sodium batteries I believe have lower power densities than lithium ion right now! It doesn't matter, as I want to see huge sodium ion batteries put in static positions, to support hometowns and cities, as energy backup. Buildings in cities and towns, especially these box stores, should be covered with solar cells, especially since they're so ugly anyway, they would look better with a bank of solar cells with a pitch roof design on them.

Absolutely loved how he reminded us of the fact that big manufacturer's can and will stop progress.

I personally would love more videos on the darkside of economy of scale, amorization and technological lock in, as these are common problems in so many markets of every kind.

"This is NASA price point" Elon Musk: hmm..? Interesting..

Ceramic seals are already used in vacuum systems and have all those properties. They also have the perfect expansion under heat to match metals such as copper to maintain a seal.

Thorium reactor. That is what we need. Was done in the 60s worked well in Oak Ridge for a long long time.

I like your way of covering difficult science-economic relationship. Keep it going!

The most interesting thing I learned from this video is that Japan has two different power grids =p

Speaking of flywheels several companies develop flywheel energy storage and personally i feel this is a great tech. Some power plants already use flywheel storage to smooth demand

In Australia we often refer to the "tyranny of distance", which applies directly to Grids and Grid Storage, a magnificent Engineering problem solving exercise. If the future expectations of Solar Roof Micro generation, Home Battery Storage and P2P EV vehicles continues, then there's a bit of explaining to be done as to why Government does not promote the same on-site Power systems for the Industries, the same ones we were told to buy our own systems for so as to allow them cheaper access to the failing fossil fuel system.

My engineering thesis was on energy storage for the grid. The biggest obstacle is trying to get the government to uptake other forms of energy storage that isn't lithium batteries

You know when you learn something recently in school and it is mentioned in an educational video? I recently learned about electronegativity and now am squealing while typing this comment out.

loved the sa blackouts. imagine week long frames of no power

Excellent video. Keep up the coverage on energy storage!

This is the kind of things for which the state can intervene for the greater good. Either subsidizing them or becoming the initial buyer would give producers the leg up they need in order to kickstart their scale economies. Thats why engineers need to be able to clearly communicate the benefits to economists which in turn need to influence economic policy.

These animations. 😍 This Knowledge 😍 Great Video!

Liquid air, redox, and gravity trapping batteries are also seemingly good futur options for non-mobile energy storage. I particularly like air batteries as they they the only ones using the single most common and available resource absolutely everywhere on the planet.

Wow what a great video, very watchable and packed with content

It would be interesting to make a back-of-the-envelope calculation to find out how extensive the battery capacity would have to be for the grid to run on renewables.

Solid State Batteries and Now Liquid Metal Batteries... this honestly seems fascinating and exciting

As a Canadian, one of the most important questions is how much power can the battery hold under extremely cold conditions? We need mass power storage that works in sub zero temperatures reliably. For that, lead sulfide is still the most reliable though it's power density is very low for it's weight. Lithium Ion are unpredictable when they are required to charge or supply power below -15C. Canada's north has lots of wind all year around but there is no means of storing that power using pumped hydro (it's too cold and permanently frozen)

Yes I agree the answer to your query is storage also micro minimal storage too whether that being you EV in your garage or a molten salt pile in a Dewar bottle or what ever that is deemed sustainable, reliable, economical

TBH, Redox Flow Batteries seem like the more promising technology for this kind of application. Super cheap and massively scalable.

"If I were to ask you, today, what technology breakthrough the world needed most.." Me: "A cure for human idiocy"

Nuclear fusion: 10 plus years. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: hold my beer

Very interesting. It seems like the scaled-up version of flow batteries which aren't that toxic.

I'm glad you finally did a video about this battery, i had seen the TED talk about this kind of battery was was wondering when more detail would come forward.

When looking for a niche market with that hot climate, Venus comes into my mind... ;)

Signed up for curiosity stream - what a bargain! thanks!

I'd actually like to invest in that. Great work! Thank you!

"And non of that sci-fi nonsense" - Haha love it

Very cogent discussion, backed up by unassailable research. Well done! Sadoway is an international treasure, and your reporting and presentation are world-class. All good wishes for a brilliant 2021.

A company called Azelio is working on this rn by using sterling motors, pretty remarkable and effective. Not as effective as a standard battery but much cheaper and environmentally healthier. They have just started to construct their grids in Dubai, hopefully, they will get It going!

When you said the big question, I thought you were going to answer how long the container can stay good. The metals sound a lot like liquid salt nuclear power - they just eat the containers

I heard about this a long time ago, I'm glad to see they're still working on it

Technology lock-in: the process of societal stagnation and paralysis whereby dominant market actors suppress revolutionary products, no matter how beneficial they are to society, in order to maintain profits.

Bro i gotta say you are fuckin talented. This is a whole 23 minute documentary

I think these new small and medium scale reactors are only a few years away and with no outside electric source required, for pumps etc, using simple water flow instead, they offer a brilliant solution for the next 40 or 80 years until technology in storage catches up

The best part of this video, is hearing that they are doing a 250 mwh install. If that works well, they will have a much easier time selling more. "There is no test like production".

Just a little correction, a flywheel doesn't maintain the speed of an engine. It acts as an energy buffer and smoothens the torque ripple from the engine. I believe a governor should be the one you are referring to. Big fan of your work!

The sheer number of batteries of the mechanical variety is truly astounding. True you lose % with mechanical batteries, but near endless possibilities.... A train on a hill is a mechanical battery. Near Limitless possibilities.