Making batteries out of sand
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have come up with a magic ingredient that may improve the performance of lithium-ion batteries by a factor of three. It’s common beach sand.
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Take me shopping for eggs, copper and corn starch
Good news for a world often filled with bad news has recently been generated by two major U.S. universities, both in regards to the efficacy of alternative fuels. Maybe the announcements will lend confidence that America can find a way to balance economic growth with environmental concerns. Increasing success over time will mean that (paraphrasing in part, the late Sen. Robert Kennedy) the nation will not have to accept “what is” with respect to the dominance of gasoline as a fuel, but can consider “what could be” concerning the use of alternative, cleaner, safer, environmental-better and cheaper fuels.
Stanford University professors, in a paper co-authored by Dr. Matthew Kanan, assistant professor of chemistry, announced that they have developed a copper catalyst that can efficiently convert carbon monoxide and water into ethanol. Quoting from a recent MIT Technology Review (April 2014), “while the work is still experimental, it’s significant because the group was able to synthesize ethanol and other desired products with so little energy input.” The Stanford researchers envision a “two-step process in which carbon dioxide is first converted into carbon monoxide using either existing processes or more energy-efficient ones that are currently under development. Then, the carbon monoxide would be converted to ethanol or other carbon-based compounds electrochemically. The key to the new catalyst is preparing the copper in a novel way that changes its molecular structure.”
How long will it take to get from idea to market? If the copper-based process survives further lab tests and evaluations, and if it is then converted into a prototype that is able to produce ethanol fuel, a big push to convert the prototype to real-world status from both the private sector and government would be warranted.
Stanford’s “breakthrough” — if the process becomes marketable and can generate lower-priced, environmentally-safe ethanol that is capable of fueling flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) and older, converted FFVs — will be significant, even perhaps a disruptive technology. With the proper support, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, increased use of the copper catalyst will minimize and maybe even end the food vs. fuel and land-use allocation fights, as well as help resolve GHG emissions and other pollutant issues that have sometimes frustrated the use of corn-based ethanol and muted receptivity to natural-gas-based ethanol. Technological improvements concerning production reflected in recent life-cycle analysis of corn-based ethanol and reasonable assumptions concerning the cost and environmental benefits of natural-gas-based ethanol, combined with the success of Stanford’s copper catalyst approach, could offer owners of FFVs (both converted and new vehicles) a wider variety of alternatives to secure ethanol that, clearly, will be cheaper, safer and better for the environment.
Stanford’s good news was matched by Cornell’s. Dr. Yingchao You and Dr. Hao Chen announced that they had discovered that a component of corn starch and the yolk shell structure of eggs improve the durability and performance of lithium batteries. In this context, they note that lithium-sulfur batteries are a very solid alternative to lithium-ion batteries. Stabilization problems related to its capacity can be resolved by using amylopectin, a polysaccharide (mainly good old corn starch).
Enveloping the battery’s lithium sulfur cathodes, with an encasing resembling the shell of an egg yolk (sulfur coated with an inexpensive polymer) also apparently improves the battery’s durability and performance.
Cornell has initiated a startup company to take the new and improved starch, egg-yolk shell battery to market. Maybe sometime soon, moderate and middle-income owners of electric cars that are less expensive than what is now available will be able to reduce their fear of driving long distances and feel confident about the life and efficiency of the batteries in their vehicles.
I avoided chemistry, physics and engineering in college. I knew I was not destined to become neither city planner nor designer at MIT when my first student-planned bridge went under water instead of over it. While my efforts were applauded by the Malthusians among my colleagues, they were not regarded highly by professors. Since graduation, unless supported by respected colleagues with a background in relevant sciences and engineering, I have been hesitant to suggest approval of science-driven energy innovations. I am a policy and program person. However, after review and discussions with trusted experts, I believe the Stanford and Cornell initiatives have a good chance to see the light of day, or, more appropriate, see the light in the market place. If one or both do, we will all be better off and the number of feasible alternative transportation fuels available to the consumer will grow. Hooray for copper, starch and eggs.
Is Elon Musk the next Henry Ford?
Elon Musk doesn’t mind making comparisons between himself and Henry Ford. Others are doing it as well.
In announcing his plans for a “Gigafactory” to manufacture batteries for a fleet of 500,000 Teslas, Musk said it would be like Ford opening his famous River Rouge plant, the move that signaled the birth of mass production.
The founder of PayPal and current titular leader of Silicon Valley (now that Steve Jobs is gone), Musk is not one for small measures. The factory he is now dangling before four western states would produce more lithium-ion batteries than are now being produced in the entire world. And that’s not all. He’s designing his new operation to mesh with another cutting-edge, non-fossil-fuel energy technology – solar storage. His partner will be SolarCity (where Musk sits on the board), run by his cousin Lyndon Rive. Together they are looking beyond mere automobile propulsion and are envisioning a world where all this solar and wind energy stuff comes true.
So, is Musk a modern-day Prometheus, bringing the fire to propel an entirely new transportation system? Or, as many critics charge, is he just conning investors onto a leaky vessel that is eventually going to crash upon the shores of reality? As the saying goes, we report, you decide.
One investor that is already showing some qualms is Panasonic, which already supplies Tesla with all its batteries and would presumably help the company fill the gap between the $2 billion it just raised from a convertible-bond offering and the $5 billion needed to build the plant. “Our approach is to make investments step by step,” Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga told reporters at a briefing in Tokyo last week. “Elon plans to produce more affordable models besides [the] Model S, and I understand his thinking and would like to cooperate as much as we can. But the investment risk is definitely larger.” Of course, this is Japan, where “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” Corporate executives are not known for sticking their necks out.
Another possible investor is Apple, which has mountains of cash and, at least under Steve Jobs, was always willing to jump into some new field – music, cell phones – to try to set it straight. This is a little more ambitious than the Lisa or the iPod and Jobs is no longer around to steer the ship, but Apple and Musk officials held a meeting last spring that stirred a lot of talk about a possible merger. A much more likely scenario, according to several commentators, is that Apple would become a major player in the Gigafactory.
And a Gigafactory it will be. Consider this. The three largest battery factories in the country right now are:
1) The LG Chem factory in Holland, Mich. is 600,000 square feet, employs 125 people and produces 1 gigawatt hour (GWH) of battery output per year.
2) The Nissan factory in Smyrna, Tenn. is a 475,000 square-foot facility with 300 employees puts out 4.8 GWH per year.
3) A123 Systems’ battery factory in Livonia, Mich. is 291,000 square feet, employs 400 people and produces 0.6 GWH per year.
Both LG and Nissan received stimulus grants from the Department of Energy, built to overcapacity and are now operating part-time.
Now here’s what Musk is proposing. His Gigafactory would cover 10 million square feet, employ 6,500 people and produce 35 GWH per year of battery power. Basically, Musk’s operation is going to be ten times better anything ever built before, at a time that most of what exists isn’t even running fulltime. Does that sound like something of Henry-Ford proportions? Similar to Ford’s $5 a day wages, perhaps?
There are, of course, people who think all of this is crazy. In the Wall Street Journal blog, “Will Tesla’s $5 Billion Gigafactory Make a Battery Nobody Else Wants?,” columnist Mike Ramsey expresses skepticism over whether Tesla’s strategy of using larger numbers of smaller lithium-ion is the right approach. “Every other carmaker is using far fewer, much larger batteries,” he wrote. “Tesla’s methodology – incorrectly derided in its early days as simply using laptop batteries — has allowed it to get consumer electronics prices for batteries while companies like General Motors Co. and Nissan Motor Co. work to drive down costs without the full benefits of scale. Despite this ability to lower costs, no other company is following Tesla’s lead. Indeed, in speaking with numerous battery experts at the International Battery Seminar and Exhibit in Ft. Lauderdale a few weeks ago, they said that the larger cells would eventually prove to be as cost effective, and have better safety and durability. This offers a reason why other automakers haven’t gone down the same path.
But Musk has managed to produce a car that has a range of 200 miles, while the Leaf has a range of 85 miles and the Chevy Spark barely makes 82. Musk must be doing something right. And with Texas, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico all vying to be the site of the Gigafactory, it’s more than likely that the winning state will be kicking in something as well. So, the factory seems likely to get built, even on the scheduled 2017 rollout that Tesla has projected.
At that point, Musk will have the capacity to produce batteries to go in 500,000 editions of the Tesla Model E, which he says will sell for $35,000. Sales of the $100,000 Model S were 22,000 last year. Does this guy think big or what?
To date, Silicon Valley doesn’t have a terribly good record on energy projects. Since Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers fell under Al Gore’s spell in 2006, its earnings have been virtually flat and the firm is now edging away from solar and wind investments. Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla’s spotty record in renewables was also the subject of a recent 60 Minutes segment. But, as venture capitalists say, it only takes one big success to make up for all the failures.
Will Tesla’s Model E be the revolutionary technology that, at last, starts making a dent in oil’s grip on the transportation sector? At least one investor has faith. “I’d rather leave all my money to Elon Musk that give it to charity,” was the recent evaluation of multi-billionaire Google founder Larry Page.
