Yes, where are they? I only stumbled onto this today. Everyone going on about Wind farms and other renewables and no mention of this. Certainly a worthwhile alternative to others being spruiked.
I Googled it, the liquid metal battery company's name is Ambri, and they are still developing their batteries. They had a serious problem with the high temperature battery seals and have had to invent a new chemistry for their batteries. The new chemistry is less expensive than the old one, and they project the cost of a commercial battery facility using their process will cost five times less than a lithium ion battery facility of the same size. They hope to have a working unit in 2020. They are still alive.
Most technology take on average 5 to 10 years to even become public consumer products from development. I feel that the rising energy needs have expedited this process. Only 2.5 years in and they have already released their findings to the public. Pretty good if you ask me. Where this technology will really shine is high energy demands for things like solar, wind, or other renewable energies for homes and big businesses. This technology won't have much use in mobile fields.
bugs181 Cars didnt, after people saw (and heard) automobiles for the first time, everyone wanted one and it just took off ever scince. Cars back then were dangerous, slow and clumsy. Eventually they even had lead in the fuel and people STILL paid for them.
Ilir Kumi Actually, it's not well known that the first automobiles were invented far before they become popularized. The first propelled steam automobile was invented in the 1700's. It's true that cars back then were dangerous, however that still holds true today. Fun Fact: You're far more likely to get into an automobile accident than in any other mode of transportation, including walking through a high crime neighborhood. My point was also not directed to any one technology specifically. That's generally how long it takes for technology to go from the lab to becoming consumer products. Some more, some less.
according to Ambri's website, they are testing some batteries in 2015 and, if everything works fine, expect to have a commercial "for all" product by 2016
I'm no expert on this, but I would guess some of the complexities are: 1) Molten salt is highly corrosive. The correct stainless alloy needs to be selected and tested for the container. 2) How do you handle thermal expansion/contraction? You can't exactly have air bubbles in there. 3) One of the toughest engineering challenges for any design is low price. You can't throw a bunch of exotic nickle based metals at this problem for the container. 4) How do you re-heat to a molten state? This is why no one thought of it before. At first glimps, the problem looks very hard and expensive to solve. Also, size matters very much. Heat content is a product of volume which is a cubic exponent. Cooling is a product of area, which is a square. The volume needs to be sufficiently large so that the heat loss thru the case is minimal compared to power. This is why the ocean takes millions of years to change temperature compared to a glass of water. You are never going to see liquid metal AA cells. They would cool down in seconds.
+NathansHVAC 1) Use layers of ceramic that is naturally non-reactive to corrosive materials, outside layers can be stainless alloy 2) Because the battery runs at 700 degrees the expansion and contraction is limited 3) ceramics and the materials used in the battery are abundant and relatively cheap (at this industry scale, when compared to conventional techniques) 4) the process is reversed
Bottom line: The reduced operating temperature (and hence, cost) simplifies the design and extends the battery’s working life, without compromising its desirable performance characteristics. The antimony produces a high operating voltage, and the system returns about 70 percent of the power that’s put into it. Also, testing has shown that after a decade of daily charging and discharging, the system should retain 85 percent of its initial efficiency. Sadoway tells Nature that a large-scale, molten-metal unit might cost around $500 per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced. “Now we understand that liquid metals bond in ways that we didn’t understand before,” he adds in a news release. The team is looking into other metal combinations that might provide even lower-temperature, lower-cost, and higher-performance systems.
No stainless is involved. Ceramics are require for the casings. Expansion is calculated and sufficient room left at the top Heating to temperature requires the input of electricity during the 2 phase charging process.
How do you feel about using concentrated solar light to make chemical fuel? That's what I'm studying, and it seems like a really practical solution for our farm equipment and trucks.
Great talk. The problem is your locally-sourced dirt-cheap magnesium costs around a buck per pound and antimony actually costs a few bucks per pound and uses Chinese ore:P
What a great approach to one of the major issues the world faces today. It certainly sounds like a battery like no other. Presumably these batteries would be industrial rather than the sort you might have in your home, given the high temperatures needed, but maybe they could be part of new home designs somehow. Look forward to hearing how they develop!
You're right. These are specifically targeting grid scale electrical energy storage. They may not be practical for home rooftop solar, and definitely not for electric vehicles. think of this in the same category as redox flow batteries.
I came here from school. There was a newspaper assignment where we were supposed to read an article about better batteries. We were supposed to find the main ideas. I saw it say something about Don Sadoway having a few TED Talks. I recently watched some TED Talks, so I knew I should come here.
Ambri partnered with NEC in September 2019 to start producing their batteries at higher scale. Technologies like this take a long time to come to the market, but I'm seeing this deal as a positive sign that they're still on the right track.
the battery is mainly for industry use due to the high temperature requirement. Its advantage over lithium battery is on number of life cycle health retenation, and larger power.
This talk is full of optimism and promise, the kind of thing you need to keep attracting research funding. Of course you try to use cheap materials, that's nothing new that's just how to maximize profits! Prof Sadoway makes it sound like it's problem solved here and that they have found the perfect battery chemistry but magnesium-antimony isn't cheap. Actually, a year later they publish a research paper saying that further research is needed both to overcome "enormous challenges" in this becoming economic, and also to explore "rich , new battery chemistries". Don't get me wrong, I wish him the best of luck but there is a race on for energy storage technologies, and it seems that thermal energy storage has many advantages over batteries: for example, allowing offices to run electric chillers at night to produce ice and move their electricity demand for cooling away from peak times. There are also power generators that can switch the balance between heat and power production at short notice without compromising efficiency in order to help balance intermittency through storing hot water in heat networks in countries that have them like Denmark.
OK, this was in 2012. I just saw an Video and he updated that it will be on the Market in about 3 Years.... 2012+2018+3= 9 Years.... So it's 6+ Years so far.... We have to wait 3 more years! :((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( Here is the Video: th-cam.com/video/ImqmMOkANgg/w-d-xo.html
Magnesium seems pretty readily available, but what about Antimony? In deep cycle lead acid batteries, antimony is used as an alloy in the grids of the plates. Only about 5%. that amounts to about 2% of the overall materials in a finished lead acid battery. This battery uses 100 percent antimony as one of its electrodes. That's a lot!
A forty foot shipping container for every 200 homes sounds super expensive.Antimony is almost run out of supply.And all those batteries in a container would melt them selves. My favorite is pumped water storage.This is cheap efficient and can match loads easily. Capital cost is high but operating costs are very very low.
Nothing is "almost run out of supply." Do you know how much seawater there is in the world. Me neither, but lots. Use of the word "shortage" without a price should be a Federal felony.
Its pretty crazy how much technology has changed things. Aluminum being as precious as silver is a huge understatement. At one point it was even more valuable than gold.
This is how all TED talks should be! Chalkboards and hard science rather than fruity ideas and bogus emotional pleas... Verbally documenting an actual scientific experiment is much more entertaining than listening to mere words. Adding a great speaker is icing on the cake!
This was not a formal speech at a scientific convention this was a speech to the general public...BIG DIFFERENCE! This was a spectacular TED Talk as far as TED Talks go & that is why it has overwhelming praise! Having said that, your comment suggest you did not listen in terms of whether this is a reality he showed in great detail what he has already achieved & where he intends to go...Watch the talk again all the way to the end.
Wow, this guy is damn proud of his invention. He should be! Thank you Donald Sadoway and involved students for making our future look a bit brighter! :)
Wrong - huge battery in South Australia supplied by Tesla. Works really well. reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-big-battery-in-south-australia-is-about-to-get-bigger-54935/
You are correct, sir. Entropy is the killer. It is inevitable, but can be delayed. Conceptually and principally, the problem we have is more of a consumption problem. The common person is not motivated to change that, though. I think this presenter is right to try to improve storage, but to your point, much more should be done to reduce consumption, and to teach people how to capture it at points of application (houses, buildings, cars) in low-cost, simple ways.
"The electricity powering the lights in this theater was generated moments ago." Electricity is a type of energy and most of the electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels. They release chemical energy and in power plants we first transform it to mechanical, then with generators to electricity. Most of the power plants don't store energy. They send along transmission lines as it is generated, but is not stored. That's why he is right.
Right, but wouldn't that require that the battery always be connected? (Is there current inside a disconnected battery? I googled the question, and nothing popped up immediately) And for that matter, how do you start the battery up? Presumably after shipping it would be solid. Heat it? How?
It has been more than 3 years since this speech. We were supposed to have something in 2014. Nothing!! Maybe next year. Or the year after that, or the year after that, or the year..........
Rather than trying to store electricity, we should store water. A water reservoir can store water either from natural water flows or pumped up a grade and then release the water when energy when needed.
: Inventor of AC. A man 90% responsible for our way of life. The person that could have but is still somehow propelling us into the future, exponential bounds at a time.
+Ryan Kenway True, but hydroelectric reservoirs also provide reliable water supplies for homes, businesses, manufacturing and agriculture as well as recreation, in addition to reliable electrical power. The fundamental problem with solar and wind energy is that they aren't reliable. Solar can't work at night. Wind can't work on a still day. Hydroelectric provides both water and power, reliably. If you want biofuel crops, reliable water supplies are critical. ;-)
That's only a problem for mobile applications. The power grid does everything big, so a battery the size of a shipping container is no issue at all, if it works
There hasn't been any real breakthroughs in battery chemistry the last one hundred years. In packaging and manufacturing yes, but we still have only the same basic technology. This guys major talent is probably fund raising, going on for eight years now with no product. A lot of that going on in the battery business.
I honestly dont understand the opposition to renewable energy. Beyond the obvious beneficial environmental impacts, we complain about the economy(which is actually doing just fine) but anyways I have to imagine an energy infrastructure overhaul on a national scale would be a colossal economic stimulant. You would have large quantities of engineers, technicians, construction workers, and everybody else associated gainfully employed. Im totally open and curious to feedback about the opposition to renewable cleaner energy. I just honestly dont understand it
+Will Parsons Agreed with everything else you said, but the economy is doing terribly. I and my friends are paid less now ($8 an hour) compared to what we made in the 1980s: $14 an hour.
+Will Parsons Will, there was a time when I used to share your enthusiasm for so called renewable energy, the problem with wind and solar etc is different depending who you are talking to, some argue against the economics, others against the clean label given to them, both of these arguments are quite valid I think, but for me it boils down to NET ENERGY. That is, the energy "profit" of the technology after a thorough accounting for all the energy inputs to deploy and maintain it for it's complete life cycle. Net energy is a concept that should be front and centre in any discussion of energy production but sadly it is usually not considered at all. In the case of wind and solar, net energy is way too low to run a techno-industrial-consumer culture like the one we have running right now.
+brett rasmussen It is not considered because Net-energy does not account for the limitations (abundance, effect on the environment) of the resource that is consumed. If we wanted the highest 'net-energy' we would still be digging up local coal for coalplants.
+Will Parsons Try cost. Plain and simple. Renewable energy will never gain widespread public acceptance until it can be shown to be a more cost effective alternative to fossil fuels. Maybe this could happen in 20-50 years. But it hasn't happened yet.
Will Parsons whats to understand ? any threat to the status quo of the huge gouging and profits . the dumbing down of the public with antiquated technology promoted and innovation suppressed is also key in controlling the minds of stupid oppulent masses of sheeple
Nice :) Well done, Students and teacher to the power XD I hope universities come up with programs like this with a clear leader and a clear goal would make the world a favor
rock on Prof D! dont want to sound too much like a hippie but felt a good energy vibe from this talk.. Peace and love to you and your inventors.. swag that full spectrum amigo - your fan -surge
These molten salt batteries have been around for a while. Some may remember experimental EV's with the ZEBRA battery, that used nickel and molten sodium aluminum chloride. Sill though, someone had to take the first step towards developing inexpensive storage, tailored for the grid. Lots of technical hurtles. I congratulate the whole team!
Found it, though different chemistry. www.forbes.com/sites/natalieparletta/2019/04/03/new-thermal-battery-could-be-a-game-changer-for-storing-renewable-energy/#48ab080d4f95
Great closing line. Unfortunately these batteries didn't pan out. My guess is that there are too many differences between the way these batteries work and the way more standard solutions work. The biggest hole that I found in this is the idea that these batteries would be used for short term. Basically as a capacitor, it is used only for brief periods when it is not being charged. The problem there is that a battery in it's penultimate form would take a charge and be able to keep that charge for weeks or even years. This battery can't continue to operate long without input. How long I don't know.. but something has to keep it hot. My guess is that "something" is electricity. There is no free lunch here. Molten salt "batteries" are already in use in a more pure form.. solar to to heat. My guess is that doing it that way is many orders of magnitude more efficient for short term storage than the idea he presented. When I was first seeing this video, I thought he was talking about a flow battery. In a flow battery, electricity is used to plate zinc. When called for, the Zinc is allowed to lift off the plate back into solution.. creating electricity. Elegant, fairly simple. The problem with flow batteries is the mass. You don't get a whole lot of current per plate, so you need a lot of them to provide useful power. But it IS possible. Anyway, I did enjoy the final quote. That part is true and worthy no matter if the idea panned out or not. Sometimes we do things because it's worth while to try them.
Seems they did pan out or are at least extremely likely to. They achieved certification last month and will likely ship product to their first commercial customer this year. They also seem to have changed their company name to Ambri as well.
That has been done in Portugal for more than 40 years. It is called gravitional potencial energy (GPE). In the hours when you have low consumption, at night and weekends, this energy is pumped upstream in a reservoir, to be used latter when needed. In first place was to be used by energy produced by thermal coal plants that could not be stopped, now it uses all the excess energy in the grid. This let us to have days only on renewable energy.
6:26 I like your concept of liquid salt, however I would use a thorium molten salt reactor to produce electricity. Only because that, there would be byproducts, that would be more valuable. Molybdenum 99 for cancer therapies and cancer research, xenon for interstellar space travel, excess heat for water desalinization, etc. your plan produces none of these byproducts. Build a model, too many moving parts, in concept to production. The field application is brilliant. However, for mass consumption, mass generation is workable. In my model you just have thorium reactors on a grid, the grid sends power to where it is necessary. In your model mining, manufacturing, and distribution of your batteries is too many moving parts. Military and government applications, need your battery.
Very nice advertisement for the privately owned company Ambri Inc. (formerly LMBC). As of 2019 it is still in the development stage and expects to start high volume manufacturing from partner production facilities in 2023.
what if there is no current going through the batterie, is it going to cool down and become solid because i think that would be a problem. good idea but not gonna happen if you could loose all your batteries just by 1 shortcut
An inventor thinks out side the box, the box that is completely imaginary. the boxy that says no^3. That one has to have his watch under his shirt is an imagined wall. It makes so much more sense to put the bulky and informative item over the thin constraining item.Thus another proof his thinking is not bound by others imagined limits. So you are are left in the dust with your lack of trust we are gaining trust to break this crust.
12:29 ok, let's see: 16 inches, meaning 4 dm. volume of device: 2^2*3.14= 12 dm^2. the height seem to be slightly more than half the radius, like 1.2-1.3 dm, so volume=15 dm^3 more or less, or 15L. meaning that the Volumetric energy density is 1000Wh / 15L = 67 Wh/L. for a lithium-ion battery it would be 250 to 620 Wh/L so best case scenario it's 4 times less energy packed (per unit volume). not the greatest but if it's scalable and versatile enough it doesn't really matter. we have twice as much anthimony as we have lithium, so that's something. i'd like to know how reversible it is though, and how difficult it is to keep the phases separated, not to mention charge loss at rest (self discharge), i can't imagine this construct being too good at actually storing energy for long periods of time.
The question is how many kWh per Kg can this store, compared to lithium? This might need many more times the antimony to store a unit of energy than lithium. I don't have the numbers. but that doesn't matter. As much energy storage as we need as a nation, NO technology is off the table. Think terawatt hours. I don't think there's enough of any resource, for any one technology to meet the demand by itself. We need everything we can get our hands on!
Not really anywhere. As far as I can tell, despite a $50 million investment by Bill Gates and some others, they seem to have only a single order for a 250 MWh calcium-antimony system that they haven't delivered yet, plus a bunch of glossy PDFs on their homepage (ambri).
I have been following this video for more than 5 years now. It is a total of 8 years since this Ted talk. Where are the batteries? A press release and a fancy website does not count.
A M E R I C A N S ! The people of the Earth have your ATTENTION. Let´s build batteries&Solar/Windmill Combos and blast those energy cooperations back to the stone age ! Best wishes from Germany.
Well...I'm a 3rd year Photovoltaics Engg and Computer Science student, and I agree. Vast energy sources such as thorium and LFTR generations can make renewable energy seem redundant: it is so easy to say "hey, check this amazing new thing called LFTR" and so on and ignore the huge increase in efficiency and cost reduction in renewable energy technologies. Also, we need better energy storage regardless of which source we use anyway.
I think the answer is a convergence of efficiency of buildings, business, transportation with new storage devices, making renewable doable. I like the concept, but wish we could make do using more common elements (how common is antimony?)..
His opening argument that the missing link in renewable energy is power storage is correct. The problem with his solution is that it relies on chemical reactions. It is becoming trite, but now we have the same power density as a common lead acid battery (60 W/L), due to graphene supercapacitor development. What he is talking about may have some really great applications, but for most applications, including grid storage, supercapacitors built with graphene will best this solution.
you realize that's exactly what energy is right it's the constant change in potential and kinetic energy. Infact storage of energy is the problem with alternative energy we can create a ton of it but the logistics of moving that electric/chemical energy to those who need it when they need it is the missing link. A giant UPS is exactly what we need.
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This Ted talk needs a "where are they now" episode
So true!!!
lmao :)))
Right here. www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190923005201/en/%C2%A0NEC-Develop-Energy-Storage-Systems-Cells-Ambri
Yes, where are they? I only stumbled onto this today. Everyone going on about Wind farms and other renewables and no mention of this. Certainly a worthwhile alternative to others being spruiked.
@@gerrymcguire2648 Thanks Gerry
I Googled it, the liquid metal battery company's name is Ambri, and they are still developing their batteries. They had a serious problem with the high temperature battery seals and have had to invent a new chemistry for their batteries. The new chemistry is less expensive than the old one, and they project the cost of a commercial battery facility using their process will cost five times less than a lithium ion battery facility of the same size. They hope to have a working unit in 2020. They are still alive.
the audience should have laughed more when he was naming the parts like why did it fit so perfectly!
Dr. Sadoway is beyond brilliant and creative enough to put that potential to practical use. He's a national treasure.
This video is 2.5 years old. Where are the batteries??????
it is here www.iflscience.com/technology/new-liquid-metal-battery-will-make-renewables-competitive
Most technology take on average 5 to 10 years to even become public consumer products from development. I feel that the rising energy needs have expedited this process. Only 2.5 years in and they have already released their findings to the public. Pretty good if you ask me. Where this technology will really shine is high energy demands for things like solar, wind, or other renewable energies for homes and big businesses. This technology won't have much use in mobile fields.
bugs181 Cars didnt, after people saw (and heard) automobiles for the first time, everyone wanted one and it just took off ever scince. Cars back then were dangerous, slow and clumsy. Eventually they even had lead in the fuel and people STILL paid for them.
Ilir Kumi Actually, it's not well known that the first automobiles were invented far before they become popularized. The first propelled steam automobile was invented in the 1700's.
It's true that cars back then were dangerous, however that still holds true today. Fun Fact: You're far more likely to get into an automobile accident than in any other mode of transportation, including walking through a high crime neighborhood.
My point was also not directed to any one technology specifically. That's generally how long it takes for technology to go from the lab to becoming consumer products. Some more, some less.
according to Ambri's website, they are testing some batteries in 2015 and, if everything works fine, expect to have a commercial "for all" product by 2016
I could listen to this man for days. Wonderful way of speaking and presenting the matter.
I'm no expert on this, but I would guess some of the complexities are: 1) Molten salt is highly corrosive. The correct stainless alloy needs to be selected and tested for the container. 2) How do you handle thermal expansion/contraction? You can't exactly have air bubbles in there. 3) One of the toughest engineering challenges for any design is low price. You can't throw a bunch of exotic nickle based metals at this problem for the container. 4) How do you re-heat to a molten state?
This is why no one thought of it before. At first glimps, the problem looks very hard and expensive to solve. Also, size matters very much. Heat content is a product of volume which is a cubic exponent. Cooling is a product of area, which is a square. The volume needs to be sufficiently large so that the heat loss thru the case is minimal compared to power. This is why the ocean takes millions of years to change temperature compared to a glass of water. You are never going to see liquid metal AA cells. They would cool down in seconds.
NathansHVAC Your thoughts show a level of understanding that the man in the street does not have.
+NathansHVAC 1) Use layers of ceramic that is naturally non-reactive to corrosive materials, outside layers can be stainless alloy 2) Because the battery runs at 700 degrees the expansion and contraction is limited 3) ceramics and the materials used in the battery are abundant and relatively cheap (at this industry scale, when compared to conventional techniques) 4) the process is reversed
Bottom line:
The reduced operating temperature (and hence, cost) simplifies the design and extends the battery’s working life, without compromising its desirable performance characteristics. The antimony produces a high operating voltage, and the system returns about 70 percent of the power that’s put into it. Also, testing has shown that after a decade of daily charging and discharging, the system should retain 85 percent of its initial efficiency.
Sadoway tells Nature that a large-scale, molten-metal unit might cost around $500 per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced. “Now we understand that liquid metals bond in ways that we didn’t understand before,” he adds in a news release. The team is looking into other metal combinations that might provide even lower-temperature, lower-cost, and higher-performance systems.
No stainless is involved. Ceramics are require for the casings. Expansion is calculated and sufficient room left at the top
Heating to temperature requires the input of electricity during the 2 phase charging process.
How do you feel about using concentrated solar light to make chemical fuel?
That's what I'm studying, and it seems like a really practical solution for our farm equipment and trucks.
It's been 11 years and this battery still haven't hit the market.
This guy fire me like a star, has passion, determination, knowledge man we need More people like him to improve the world!!!
Great talk. The problem is your locally-sourced dirt-cheap magnesium costs around a buck per pound and antimony actually costs a few bucks per pound and uses Chinese ore:P
What a great approach to one of the major issues the world faces today. It certainly sounds like a battery like no other. Presumably these batteries would be industrial rather than the sort you might have in your home, given the high temperatures needed, but maybe they could be part of new home designs somehow. Look forward to hearing how they develop!
You're right. These are specifically targeting grid scale electrical energy storage. They may not be practical for home rooftop solar, and definitely not for electric vehicles. think of this in the same category as redox flow batteries.
Articulated lorries and heavy vehicles are potential candidates: they would withstand the very high cycling rates needed.
I came here from school. There was a newspaper assignment where we were supposed to read an article about better batteries. We were supposed to find the main ideas. I saw it say something about Don Sadoway having a few TED Talks. I recently watched some TED Talks, so I knew I should come here.
One of the most important issues today. I hope you succeed Dr. Sadoway.
HE IS SUCCEEDING. He is getting very rich!
We are now in the last quarter of 2019. Where are the batteries???
Tied up
Ambri partnered with NEC in September 2019 to start producing their batteries at higher scale. Technologies like this take a long time to come to the market, but I'm seeing this deal as a positive sign that they're still on the right track.
the battery is mainly for industry use due to the high temperature requirement. Its advantage over lithium battery is on number of life cycle health retenation, and larger power.
This talk is full of optimism and promise, the kind of thing you need to keep attracting research funding. Of course you try to use cheap materials, that's nothing new that's just how to maximize profits! Prof Sadoway makes it sound like it's problem solved here and that they have found the perfect battery chemistry but magnesium-antimony isn't cheap. Actually, a year later they publish a research paper saying that further research is needed both to overcome "enormous challenges" in this becoming economic, and also to explore "rich , new battery chemistries". Don't get me wrong, I wish him the best of luck but there is a race on for energy storage technologies, and it seems that thermal energy storage has many advantages over batteries: for example, allowing offices to run electric chillers at night to produce ice and move their electricity demand for cooling away from peak times. There are also power generators that can switch the balance between heat and power production at short notice without compromising efficiency in order to help balance intermittency through storing hot water in heat networks in countries that have them like Denmark.
Three years on, couldnt agree more.
Nuks are a good example of where your hypothesis fails. They went from non-existent to disrupting in 4 years.
OK, this was in 2012. I just saw an Video and he updated that it will be on the Market in about 3 Years.... 2012+2018+3= 9 Years.... So it's 6+ Years so far.... We have to wait 3 more years! :((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( Here is the Video: th-cam.com/video/ImqmMOkANgg/w-d-xo.html
Magnesium seems pretty readily available, but what about Antimony? In deep cycle lead acid batteries, antimony is used as an alloy in the grids of the plates. Only about 5%. that amounts to about 2% of the overall materials in a finished lead acid battery. This battery uses 100 percent antimony as one of its electrodes. That's a lot!
Im happy that he never give up even 8 years after this TED talk. I hope the project with TerraScale will be succssesful.
He didn't give up because he is still making money from this.
watch his lectures at MIT about solid state chemistry, they're gold
A forty foot shipping container for every 200 homes sounds super expensive.Antimony is
almost run out of supply.And all those batteries in a container would melt them selves.
My favorite is pumped water storage.This is cheap efficient and can match loads easily.
Capital cost is high but operating costs are very very low.
Nothing is "almost run out of supply." Do you know how much seawater there is in the world. Me neither, but lots.
Use of the word "shortage" without a price should be a Federal felony.
Its pretty crazy how much technology has changed things. Aluminum being as precious as silver is a huge understatement. At one point it was even more valuable than gold.
Next step: capture lightning and store it!
I have a can of light. Every time I look in the can it is still there.
aka Black Magic
This is how all TED talks should be! Chalkboards and hard science rather than fruity ideas and bogus emotional pleas... Verbally documenting an actual scientific experiment is much more entertaining than listening to mere words. Adding a great speaker is icing on the cake!
Science as that simple.! All brother and sister around the world, welcome to a new era of renewable energy.
This was not a formal speech at a scientific convention this was a speech to the general public...BIG DIFFERENCE! This was a spectacular TED Talk as far as TED Talks go & that is why it has overwhelming praise! Having said that, your comment suggest you did not listen in terms of whether this is a reality he showed in great detail what he has already achieved & where he intends to go...Watch the talk again all the way to the end.
Lets "Invent" our way out the old-fashioned American way. I love his practical and analytical mind process.
"For inventing inventors"!! That was a beautiful line for humanity!!!!
More than 7 years now.What happened to these batteries?
He keeps saying "i made...., I made,...." so, where is this battery YOU made?
Search online for Ambri. The technology is still being developed.
Ajay:
Taxpayer subsidies disappeared when the TRUE cost of the system became known!
Wow, this guy is damn proud of his invention. He should be! Thank you Donald Sadoway and involved students for making our future look a bit brighter! :)
2019, still no batteries. There are clearly issues with his theoretical batteries.
That's not how technology works paw, the research is still ongoing.
How can they get grants if they actually deliver?
@samdee pride What did this have to do with that the batteries are still not there?
Wrong - huge battery in South Australia supplied by Tesla. Works really well. reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-big-battery-in-south-australia-is-about-to-get-bigger-54935/
I never saw any research that didn't have "hiccups". We need to cooperate.
thank you very much for explaining it well.... learning more about renewable is amazing..
"And the way he structured this presentation!"
Honestly curious, how did he structure it?
You are correct, sir. Entropy is the killer. It is inevitable, but can be delayed. Conceptually and principally, the problem we have is more of a consumption problem. The common person is not motivated to change that, though. I think this presenter is right to try to improve storage, but to your point, much more should be done to reduce consumption, and to teach people how to capture it at points of application (houses, buildings, cars) in low-cost, simple ways.
"The electricity powering the lights in this theater was generated moments ago."
Electricity is a type of energy and most of the electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels. They release chemical energy and in power plants we first transform it to mechanical, then with generators to electricity. Most of the power plants don't store energy. They send along transmission lines as it is generated, but is not stored. That's why he is right.
correction: a moment ago. Electricity travels quite quickly. Moments, in this context, are measured in micro seconds!
Right, but wouldn't that require that the battery always be connected? (Is there current inside a disconnected battery? I googled the question, and nothing popped up immediately) And for that matter, how do you start the battery up? Presumably after shipping it would be solid. Heat it? How?
Thumbs up if you came here after watching Real Engineering.
yes i do
Absolutely. Love that channel
And if you haven't, you should go now watch it
This video has NOTHING to do with real engineering.
Wow, this was a fantastic talk. Innovative, informative, and humorous.
Asking the big G for "liquid metal battery" showed me this: (wikipedia) Sodium-sulfur batteries.
with ~160MW installed on wind farms inJapan
I'm glad to be living alongside such remarkable people.
It has been more than 3 years since this speech. We were supposed to have something in 2014. Nothing!!
Maybe next year. Or the year after that, or the year after that, or the year..........
jimstand They are making progress. Refer to the link www.ambri.com/
It may take quite some time to come into large scale commercial production.
Yuvarajaa S When? When? This is nothing more than a money hole.
Tesla's batteries have arrived .
Philip Hunter Calling something "Tesla's batteries" does not make them so.
Thien Dinh Next year, it is always next year.
We got federal government funding... and built it without subsidy. Also the shotglass 1Wh is bigger than an 18650 LiIon Cell which has 5Wh.
it's research money....
This isn't for your cell phone
Rather than trying to store electricity, we should store water. A water reservoir can store water either from natural water flows or pumped up a grade and then release the water when energy when needed.
small town prerequisite: dig a hole large enough for to be filled with rain showers, then and only then may this town be acknowledged Into the state.
: Inventor of AC. A man 90% responsible for our way of life. The person that could have but is still somehow propelling us into the future, exponential bounds at a time.
+lepantzeus1 Hydroelectric power is extremely inefficient and takes up such a massive amount of space to produce such a low energy output.
+Ryan Kenway True, but hydroelectric reservoirs also provide reliable water supplies for homes, businesses, manufacturing and agriculture as well as recreation, in addition to reliable electrical power.
The fundamental problem with solar and wind energy is that they aren't reliable. Solar can't work at night. Wind can't work on a still day. Hydroelectric provides both water and power, reliably. If you want biofuel crops, reliable water supplies are critical. ;-)
you sir, are a hero
if this gets real or not
just because of your way of thinking
The problems with the batteries is the same as with solar and wind: energy density.
reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-big-battery-in-south-australia-is-about-to-get-bigger-54935/
@@hariseldon3786 You've pointed to a horribly inefficient and expensive installation.
That's only a problem for mobile applications. The power grid does everything big, so a battery the size of a shipping container is no issue at all, if it works
This is why I subscribe to TED. Videos like this
And no batteries to show for it.
Seven years, no sign... if alt energy worked, it wouldn't be alt energy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium%E2%80%93sulfur_battery
Great job Professor. I think you and your team will crack this soon...
"we are going to invent it... the american way"
5 seconds later
"the battery was invented by an italian"
YOU know, outsource it. Learn Chinese, get a good job. DUMP TRUMP NOW.
And made in China
He's Canadian
Lol isnt that the american way? Get the smartest people from all around the world and get them to build stuff as "American products"
Don sadaway teach us electronics addition &
Division technology
Simply multiplication
This TED talk was 6.5 years ago... where are we now with this technology?
This guy rules!
Meh only in theory
This is a spectacular step in the right direction. Interested in what temperatures they operate at.
There hasn't been any real breakthroughs in battery chemistry the last one hundred years. In packaging and manufacturing yes, but we still have only the same basic technology.
This guys major talent is probably fund raising, going on for eight years now with no product. A lot of that going on in the battery business.
Not true.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery
True. Musk is another one raking in the investors
,
Its not bragging if you can do it. This guy is solving some of humanities greatest challenges, I admire his courage and pride.
I honestly dont understand the opposition to renewable energy. Beyond the obvious beneficial environmental impacts, we complain about the economy(which is actually doing just fine) but anyways I have to imagine an energy infrastructure overhaul on a national scale would be a colossal economic stimulant. You would have large quantities of engineers, technicians, construction workers, and everybody else associated gainfully employed. Im totally open and curious to feedback about the opposition to renewable cleaner energy. I just honestly dont understand it
+Will Parsons Agreed with everything else you said, but the economy is doing terribly.
I and my friends are paid less now ($8 an hour) compared to what we made in the 1980s: $14 an hour.
+Will Parsons Will, there was a time when I used to share your enthusiasm for so called renewable energy, the problem with wind and solar etc is different depending who you are talking to, some argue against the economics, others against the clean label given to them, both of these arguments are quite valid I think, but for me it boils down to NET ENERGY. That is, the energy "profit" of the technology after a thorough accounting for all the energy inputs to deploy and maintain it for it's complete life cycle. Net energy is a concept that should be front and centre in any discussion of energy production but sadly it is usually not considered at all. In the case of wind and solar, net energy is way too low to run a techno-industrial-consumer culture like the one we have running right now.
+brett rasmussen It is not considered because Net-energy does not account for the limitations (abundance, effect on the environment) of the resource that is consumed. If we wanted the highest 'net-energy' we would still be digging up local coal for coalplants.
+Will Parsons Try cost. Plain and simple. Renewable energy will never gain widespread public acceptance until it can be shown to be a more cost effective alternative to fossil fuels. Maybe this could happen in 20-50 years. But it hasn't happened yet.
Will Parsons whats to understand ? any threat to the status quo of the huge gouging and profits . the dumbing down of the public with antiquated technology promoted and innovation suppressed is also key in controlling the minds of stupid oppulent masses of sheeple
Nice :) Well done, Students and teacher to the power XD
I hope universities come up with programs like this with a clear leader and a clear goal
would make the world a favor
Hahaha you gotta love his sense of humor 😂😂
No commercial products after 7 years with such a straightforward and simple design? How many hours have your team been working?
The professor sounds more salesman-like than professorial.
there is no contradiction between salesmanship and professionalism
salesmen are practitioners of a profession
He's both
I feel like he mostly sounds enthusiastic about his and his students invention.
My distaste for a talk increases each time the speaker uses the word "I"
@@GuyBrushThriftnood The 'word' I ?
rock on Prof D! dont want to sound too much like a hippie but felt a good energy vibe from this talk.. Peace and love to you and your inventors.. swag that full spectrum amigo - your fan -surge
The video is quite old. Would love to see the product being used in real life. Where is it?
Kristiāns Karlsons It doesn't exist and won't come out as a product. Colleges use scams like this to get funding. 99% of funding goes down the drain.
jimstand Does kind of come across that way, a bit too much theatrics.
Adam -亚当- It is ALL theatrics. There is nothing even close to a product. It is all about getting more money to do the "research".
jimstand Yea its a sad state of affairs that they have to resort to theatrics and deception to get cash for 'science'
Kristiāns Karlsons notice how everything is "I" this "I" that. Not my team. Not our industry.
great story, presentation and inventions
This man appears to me to be more hype than true science & engineering.
Albert Jackson just another guy that ant got crap.
AMBRI
These molten salt batteries have been around for a while. Some may remember experimental EV's with the ZEBRA battery, that used nickel and molten sodium aluminum chloride.
Sill though, someone had to take the first step towards developing inexpensive storage, tailored for the grid. Lots of technical hurtles. I congratulate the whole team!
March 2012 preaching a new battery??
February 2019...where is this magical battery???????
This liqiude metal is not good Technology. I am starting soon with 90 % H2O2 Batteries in Graphene.
Found it, though different chemistry. www.forbes.com/sites/natalieparletta/2019/04/03/new-thermal-battery-could-be-a-game-changer-for-storing-renewable-energy/#48ab080d4f95
reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-big-battery-in-south-australia-is-about-to-get-bigger-54935/
"We are not gonna BOMB our way out."
Great closing line.
Unfortunately these batteries didn't pan out.
My guess is that there are too many differences between the way these batteries work and the way more standard solutions work.
The biggest hole that I found in this is the idea that these batteries would be used for short term. Basically as a capacitor, it is used only for brief periods when it is not being charged.
The problem there is that a battery in it's penultimate form would take a charge and be able to keep that charge for weeks or even years.
This battery can't continue to operate long without input. How long I don't know.. but something has to keep it hot. My guess is that "something" is electricity. There is no free lunch here.
Molten salt "batteries" are already in use in a more pure form.. solar to to heat. My guess is that doing it that way is many orders of magnitude more efficient for short term storage than the idea he presented.
When I was first seeing this video, I thought he was talking about a flow battery. In a flow battery, electricity is used to plate zinc. When called for, the Zinc is allowed to lift off the plate back into solution.. creating electricity.
Elegant, fairly simple. The problem with flow batteries is the mass. You don't get a whole lot of current per plate, so you need a lot of them to provide useful power. But it IS possible.
Anyway, I did enjoy the final quote. That part is true and worthy no matter if the idea panned out or not. Sometimes we do things because it's worth while to try them.
Seems they did pan out or are at least extremely likely to. They achieved certification last month and will likely ship product to their first commercial customer this year. They also seem to have changed their company name to Ambri as well.
They did work out, Ambri is the rebrand they have more staff than ever and have been certified.
That has been done in Portugal for more than 40 years. It is called gravitional potencial energy (GPE). In the hours when you have low consumption, at night and weekends, this energy is pumped upstream in a reservoir, to be used latter when needed. In first place was to be used by energy produced by thermal coal plants that could not be stopped, now it uses all the excess energy in the grid. This let us to have days only on renewable energy.
6:26 I like your concept of liquid salt, however I would use a thorium molten salt reactor to produce electricity.
Only because that, there would be byproducts, that would be more valuable.
Molybdenum 99 for cancer therapies and cancer research, xenon for interstellar space travel, excess heat for water desalinization, etc.
your plan produces none of these byproducts.
Build a model, too many moving parts, in concept to production. The field application is brilliant. However, for mass consumption, mass generation is workable. In my model you just have thorium reactors on a grid, the grid sends power to where it is necessary. In your model mining, manufacturing, and distribution of your batteries is too many moving parts. Military and government applications, need your battery.
Awesome! Puzzling to me why nuclear power isn't more widely used.
Very nice advertisement for the privately owned company Ambri Inc. (formerly LMBC). As of 2019 it is still in the development stage and expects to start high volume manufacturing from partner production facilities in 2023.
Now its 8 years where' s my flying car?
what if there is no current going through the batterie, is it going to cool down and become solid because i think that would be a problem.
good idea but not gonna happen if you could loose all your batteries just by 1 shortcut
It's 2016, four years from the date of this video. So where are the liquid batteries?
+valhala56
This guy reminds me of Howie Mandel. Also where is the battery he promised?
+valhala56 Bad economy happened: fortune.com/2015/09/11/liquid-metal-battery-layoffs/
Bill Gates happened.
The men in black took them/sarc
th-cam.com/video/4OHstY_kKUY/w-d-xo.html A different, but totally viable and consumer ready, liquid battery.
Just watched you on Colbert!! and also watched some MIT vids in the past ,Big fan!, You are a very smart man! great upload!
this guy wears his watch over his shirt, can't trust him
+Gabe Barouh How insightful of you. I agree with you, that's freaky and a little scary too.
lol
He want to save time
What he talk suit him, not the clothes...
An inventor thinks out side the box, the box that is completely imaginary. the boxy that says no^3. That one has to have his watch under his shirt is an imagined wall. It makes so much more sense to put the bulky and informative item over the thin constraining item.Thus another proof his thinking is not bound by others imagined limits. So you are are left in the dust with your lack of trust we are gaining trust to break this crust.
Wonderful talk, and a wonderful invention!
And nothing to show for it.
12:29 ok, let's see: 16 inches, meaning 4 dm. volume of device: 2^2*3.14= 12 dm^2. the height seem to be slightly more than half the radius, like 1.2-1.3 dm, so volume=15 dm^3 more or less, or 15L. meaning that the Volumetric energy density is 1000Wh / 15L = 67 Wh/L. for a lithium-ion battery it would be 250 to 620 Wh/L so best case scenario it's 4 times less energy packed (per unit volume). not the greatest but if it's scalable and versatile enough it doesn't really matter. we have twice as much anthimony as we have lithium, so that's something.
i'd like to know how reversible it is though, and how difficult it is to keep the phases separated, not to mention charge loss at rest (self discharge), i can't imagine this construct being too good at actually storing energy for long periods of time.
Energy density does not matter much for stationary batteries. Price is where it's at.
The question is how many kWh per Kg can this store, compared to lithium? This might need many more times the antimony to store a unit of energy than lithium. I don't have the numbers. but that doesn't matter. As much energy storage as we need as a nation, NO technology is off the table. Think terawatt hours. I don't think there's enough of any resource, for any one technology to meet the demand by itself. We need everything we can get our hands on!
2020 .... So where are we with this? an up date Video would be well received Professor.
Not really anywhere. As far as I can tell, despite a $50 million investment by Bill Gates and some others, they seem to have only a single order for a 250 MWh calcium-antimony system that they haven't delivered yet, plus a bunch of glossy PDFs on their homepage (ambri).
Wow! Professor Sadoway is a great motivational speaker! I bet he makes his students work to death(with passion) LOL!
Anik Samiur Rahman
Were you one of his students at MIT?
But antimony is actually rare, as rare as silver, so can it really be produced dirt cheap?
A giant battery would make wind and solar outrageously expensive.
Awesome! Totally. So be it. And may it be a template, a blueprint for future development in all fields.
I wonder if Elon Musk watched this video....
Wow. Impressive plan, good luck! I know a lady who lives off grid, but I have no idea how she stores the energy from her solar panels.
the word average is dangerous
PEAK usage is what I what to know
+brewmaster95060 You can lower peak-usage because of batteries, 'averaging' out the usage. It's not dangerous it's math.
@@dranin09 And you don't understand the application of math to this problem.
I have been following this video for more than 5 years now. It is a total of 8 years since this Ted talk. Where are the batteries? A press release and a fancy website does not count.
Did he just add another step towards T-1000?
A M E R I C A N S ! The people of the Earth have your ATTENTION. Let´s build batteries&Solar/Windmill Combos and blast those energy cooperations back to the stone age ! Best wishes from Germany.
"were not going to conserve, drill or bomb our way out, we are going to do it the old fashioned American way" LOL how ironic....
Well...I'm a 3rd year Photovoltaics Engg and Computer Science student, and I agree. Vast energy sources such as thorium and LFTR generations can make renewable energy seem redundant: it is so easy to say "hey, check this amazing new thing called LFTR" and so on and ignore the huge increase in efficiency and cost reduction in renewable energy technologies. Also, we need better energy storage regardless of which source we use anyway.
I thought batteries came from Iraq in the middle east? The Bagdad batteries.
Great teacher!
they had to invent their bombs first
Give this man the TED prize!
7 years ago now. No batteries.
news.mit.edu/2018/metal-mesh-membrane-rechargeable-batteries-renewable-energy-0122
I think the answer is a convergence of efficiency of buildings, business, transportation with new storage devices, making renewable doable. I like the concept, but wish we could make do using more common elements (how common is antimony?)..
I am in 2020. Interesting. Is there an update on the matter?
ambri.com/
now this is why i watch ted
THE GOOD OLD AMERICAN WAY GET PEOPLE FROM OTHER COUNTIES TO INVENT SOLUTIONS AND THEN BUY THEM!
His opening argument that the missing link in renewable energy is power storage is correct. The problem with his solution is that it relies on chemical reactions. It is becoming trite, but now we have the same power density as a common lead acid battery (60 W/L), due to graphene supercapacitor development. What he is talking about may have some really great applications, but for most applications, including grid storage, supercapacitors built with graphene will best this solution.
Thumbs up for 3.091 !!
bothumbs up
this guy has THE nicest black board handwriting i've ever seen!
There's quite a few useless ted talks now days, but this one's definitely not one of them!
You are falling for a com man. You don't understand the science.
you realize that's exactly what energy is right it's the constant change in potential and kinetic energy. Infact storage of energy is the problem with alternative energy we can create a ton of it but the logistics of moving that electric/chemical energy to those who need it when they need it is the missing link. A giant UPS is exactly what we need.