One of the first principles of physics that I learned in high school is that matter cannot be created not destroyed, only changed from one form to another.
A burning stick is in essence a battery - energy from the sun is stored in plants and released through oxidation (burning). Energy storage will become as important an invention as generation as we run screaming from oil.
General Electric announced this week a $100 million investment to build a new factory in upstate New York that will make sodium based batteries -- a sector with huge potential, according to G.E.'s chairman and chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt. nyt.com
Sodium based batteries are highly efficient in large applications like storing power from wind turbines or in use in heavy demand applications like locomotives.
Ford experimented with sodium-sulfur batteries in the Ford "Ecostar" prototype EV in the early 1990's, but other battery types proved more suitable for smaller applications.
Energy efficiency can be increased when energy is cheap to produce, store, and released at a later time.
- Think of the batteries that work with a gasoline hybrid
- Think of water reservoir storage systems for electrical utilities
- Think of peak demand vs. low demand for a utility
This news is fine, and an inexpensive method of large scale energy storage would be fantastic. But sodium batteries cost $3-4,000 per kilowatt-hour of capacity. To put that into perspective, my house (with it's heat pump) can easily go through 100 kWH in a single day when it's cold outside. So the cost of batteries for my house alone would be many tens of thousands of dollars. Also, they must be kept at 285 Celsius, so there's the cost of that also. That's 545 Fahrenheit. Don't look for sodium batteries in your next Prius.
This news is fine, and an inexpensive method of large scale energy storage would be fantastic. But sodium batteries cost $3-4,000 per kilowatt-hour of capacity. To put that into perspective, my house (with it's heat pump) can easily go through 100 kWH in a single day when it's cold outside. So the cost of batteries for my house alone would be many tens of thousands of dollars. Also, they must be kept at 285 Celsius, so there's the cost of that also. That's 545 Fahrenheit. Don't look for sodium batteries in your next Prius.
Well, GE must find something profitable about it if they are investing $100 mil. Fed money only goes so far.
GE has annual sales of $182 billion. The government has been funding research into sodium batteries for years and no doubt they still do. Plus, the state of NY is kicking in $15 million. And my understanding is that the deal is contingent on stimulus funds being approved. Besides, while sodium batteries are not attractive for widespread use, they can be worthwhile for certain niche applications. So I'm not surprised that Immelt would do this. He gets to build a factory with tax dollars, make a small profit, and burnish his green reputation. The fact remains that they are simply not practical for storing power for the grid.