[Tanada]

I consider this deflection to say only that man is not capable of destabilizing the oxygen balance, by using this bar. Think about the concept, though, and imagine how man can change all of those numbers by innovating one thing or another. Plus, we have demonstrated the very real capacity to observe something going wrong and do nothing about it. We could very well watch the numbers go the wrong way and just keep watching them.

Look, it's not that we will, but that we could. What I am really saying is that we need to think about these sorts of things before we act. Otherwise, it sounds a lot like how they wanted to clear the mountains out of the way to build I-70 by using atomic bombs in the fifties. As long as it remained a statement of pride it was ok. As soon as the idea began to be taken seriously, though...

Look, I didn't say it was impossible. I implied that given the numbers:

1). It's highly unlikely.

2). That AGW is in our face and needs to be dealt with ASAP. Vs. spending lots of time and energy worrying about things that aren't close to being proven yet, and given the numbers, look like small order effects.

If plenty of good science and math shows that destabilizing the oxygen balance looks like a serious problem, THEN I'll get much more concerned about it. Just like I did with AGW as the evidence (and my understanding) grew.

I don't see why that's unreasonable, given that we can't possibly BEGIN to seriously address every potential problem we face. Hell, we aren't even very seriously addressing most of the proven and obvious and very serious problems we face.

No, but you say my ilk. Obviously, I've come across to you as some sort of conspiracy theorist or alarmist. That's not what I was doing here.

Here, I was pointing out something that ought to be obvious. There are two different sources you can get your hydrogen from. If you are always getting it from something that is not systemically tied to the source, though, you run the risk of destabilizing the oxygen balance. Yes, it sounds crazy, but so did global warming.

No, it's not something that I think is inevitable. I think that's where you misunderstand me. I'm not saying it will happen. Nor that it is necessarily probable.

I'm not predicting it. I should have been more adamant about saying that. The way I can go on, that's misleading. It's just that it's not all that hard to see the economic pressure to continue into what might be a really bad policy.

If people can make money off of it, they will. And that can drive these sorts of things. Such a practice would increase the amount of water in the world, and decrease the amount of oxygen. Every two hydrogen atoms gotten from nat gas would bind to an oxygen atom, taking it out of the system, unless, later, it too was electrolysized. But that balance relies upon human recognition and endeavor. Electrolysis doesn't take place naturally.

We would be talking about entering a new human managed world. A new sort of management that we would have to get mostly right. We can, and most probably would. I am only saying that we need to think about it or we could just go the way we always have and try out what isn't good for us well before we try out what is. Like global warming, that might not be the best path.

First, when you use electrolysis on water the Oxygen is released to the atmosphere where it is available later for burning the hydrogen back into water vapor as a closed loop cycle.

Second, all hydrocarbon fossil fuels from Methane right up to Anthracite coal is a mixture of hydrogen and carbon along with sulfur, nitrogen and lots of other trace chemical elements. From the day the first ancient blacksmith or metal smelter threw chunks of coal in with his biofuel wood/charcoal/dung that he had been using before that time the carbon and hydrogen gathered from the water and atmosphere of the ancient ecology by the photosynthesizing plants and formed into carbohydrates that over geological time periods were converted into hydrocarbons those long stored carbon and hydrogen molecules had been converted into carbon dioxide and water vapor.

In those times the locking up of ancient hydrogen and carbon into carbohydrates/hydrocarbons for geologic periods caused the oxygen in the ancient atmosphere to be increased. On geological timescales burning those fossil fuels today is technically reducing the free oxygen content by a very small amount in a reversal of that ancient sequestration. However lets think about that for a moment. In the last 250 years more or less humans have increased atmospheric CO2 from about 280 ppmv to about 420 ppmv. That is around a 33% increase in Atmospheric CO2 decreased the atmospheric oxygen content by 0.14%. It is estimated that if all fossil fuels, even the heavy residual oil in the reservoirs and the coal left behind in room and pillar underground mining atmospheric oxygen could be reduced all the way from its current 20.95% all the way down to 17% which is still well within the human survival limits.

The funny thing is we also release a lot of oxygen from things like aluminum smelting reducing bauxite from aluminum oxide to pure metal and the process of converting most other metallic ore materials from oxidized to pure.

[Shaved Monkey]

CSIRO (Australia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSIRO
Says wave energy will prove way cheaper than battery to stabilise a grid
The CSIRO report modelled the affect of deploying 1MW-sized wave plants like the unit at King Island(near Tasmania) at three locations: Cape Nelson and Warrnambool, both in western Victoria, and Carpenter Rocks in South Australia.

Adding wave energy to a power grid with solar, offshore wind and batteries halved the capital cost of the system, it found.

Dr Peter Osman, an engineer and honorary fellow at CSIRO and a co-author of the report, said adding wave energy to grids with lots of solar and wind made the system more reliable and stable.

But he said, as electricity grids pushed out fossil fuels, adding wave energy drastically reduced the amount of money needed to be spent on batteries “by a factor of four or five”.

“As you approach 80% or 90% renewable energy, you will be thinking more and more about how to make your energy reliable,” he said. “That’s when people will be thinking about the costs of battery storage. That’s when wave energy will really come into its own.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... csiro-says

[Tanada]

The Next Big Silicon Battery Breakthrough

The startup NEO Battery Materials set the Intertubes humming earlier this week when it announced a new mashup with a yet-to-be-named “Top U.S. University Spin-Out.” The agreement is aimed at ratcheting up the performance of NEO’s low-cost silicon battery anode. If all goes according to plan, there will be a huge impact on the cost of electric vehicle batteries. That’s all we know for now, so let the guessing begin: what university did NEO hook up with?
Silicon Battery Technology Good

Silicon batteries are lithium-ion batteries tricked out with silicon to replace graphite. Graphite has long been the go-to material for lithium-ion batteries, but silicon offers the allure of longer life and faster charging times along with lower costs, compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries.

The US Army, for one, is silicon-curious. It has been scouting new silicon battery technology on account of the potential for a significant savings on weight, which is an important considerations for soldiers who are loaded with an increasing amount of electronic gear.

Weight savings is also a consideration for the electric vehicle makers. BMW and General Motors are among the list of automakers staking a claim to silicon-based energy storage.

There being no such thing as a free lunch, silicon battery researchers have had to overcome some significant challenges. In a 2017 state-of-play report the US Department of Energy described the main culprit, which involves the instability of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI).

“The SEI is a film that forms on the anode active particles that inhibits or stops further reactions between the extremely low voltage lithiated anode and the electrolyte,” the Energy Department explained. “Without this film, or with a film that is not sufficiently passivating (as in silicon), these reactions proceed continuously, consuming Li [lithium] and leading to rapid capacity fade and short cell life.”
Silicon Battery With Polymer Electrolyte Technology Better

NEO’s contribution to the field is a set of three silicon anode materials fabricated through a proprietary fabrication process they call “single-step nanocoating.”

“NEO’s products have all achieved an initial coulombic efficiency (ICE) greater than 86%, and high specific capacity (>2500 mAh/g),” NEO expalins. “In addition, an ICE of 92% or higher can be attained when NEO’s silicon is mixed with existing graphite anodes.”

NEO also adds that its technology “significantly improves the life span and cycling stability compared to conventional metallurgical silicon-based particles.” The production line is still phasing up, and as of this writing NEO’s website indicates it is on track to produce its new anode materials at “semi-commercial scale.”

Meanwhile, the newly announced agreement with the yet-to-be-named university is aimed at achieving additional performance improvements by pairing NEO’s silicon anodes with the mystery school’s advanced polymer electrolyte.

NEO also points out that polymer electrolytes are non-flammable, providing for safety improvements.

Though apparently there is more work to be done, NEO is cautiously optimistic. “NEO and the Developer acknowledge that creative, yet fast-paced R&D and collaboration must occur to scale both Parties’ technologies into commercial-level products and outputs,” the company stated in its announcement.

So, who is the lucky top university spin-off? If you have a guess, drop us a note in the comment thread.

There is plenty to guess from. For example, in 2019 a team of researchers at Penn State University reported on their work towards a “supremely elastic gel polymer electrolyte” designed to help stabilize silicon anodes and prevent them from cracking.
Who Will Be America’s Next Top University Spin-Off?

A sneak peak at NEO’s silicon battery science advisory board could provide some more clues.

Board member Dr. Jinhyuk Lee, for example, holds degrees from MIT and UC-Berkeley among many (many, many) career achievements. He is currently an assistant professor at McGill University.

Following the trail of academic connections, we see that the Balsara lab at UC-Berkeley specializes in polymer electrolytes.

“Based on our patents, group alumni have cofounded two battery start-up companies: Seeo (founded in 2007) and Blue Current (founded in 2014),” the lab states on its website.

CleanTechnica caught wind of Seeo in 2014 but its energy storage tech hasn’t crossed our radar since 2015, when it was acquired by Bosch. If you have any idea what happened to it, let us know.

Blue Current is new to the CleanTechnica radar, so we have some catching up to do. “The company manufactures 100% dry, safe and high performance silicon elastic composite solid-state batteries to power the new energy economy including electric vehicles, grid storage and consumer electronics,” the company states on its website. It is also hiring, by the way.

The plot thickens when you consider that Blue Current is partners in the Energy Department’s energy storage research hub JCESR, which is short for Joint Center for Energy Storage Research. The consortium launched in 2012 during the Obama administration with Argonne National Laboratory at the helm. In a 2017 recap, JCESR highlighted three startups that leveraged JCESR energy storage properties, including Blue Current as well as the polymer membrane specialist Sepion and the long duration energy storage company Form Energy, which is setting up a new factory in West Virginia.
Many Roads To The Silicon Battery Of The Future

Still more thickening of the plot occurred last December 22, when Businesswire distributed a press release that apparently speaks for JCESR, Argonne, and Blue Current all at once. The release credits JCESR for enabling Blue Current to “develop a safe, solid-state battery that is ready for megawatt-scale manufacturing.”

The press release notes that Blue Current’s composite electrolyte eliminates the need for metal plates and bolts, and that the target market is electric vehicles.

“As part of rigorous safety testing, the company subjected its cells to harsh conditions that electric vehicles could encounter in the real world. Thermal runaway — an overheating event that can lead to fires — never occurred,” the release emphasizes.
Woke, Schmoke

To be clear, all of this is speculation. Take a look at NEO’s scientific advisory board to see more connections with other top universities in the US, any one of which could have a spinoff in play.

On the other hand, it would be deliciously ironic if Blue Current actually is the to-be-named spinoff hooking up with NEO. That’s because a branch of Koch Industries has put up the big bucks to launch Blue Current’s first factory, a 22,000-square-foot facility to be located in Hayward, California.

That would be the same Koch Industries upon which CleanTechnica has spilled plenty of ink, along with many other news organizations, involving the sprawling company’s fossil energy activities.

Various Koch family members have earned a reputation for fueling right-wing policy making up to and including the US Supreme Court. Koch Industries and its various other branches have also been reportedly funneling money into a multi-state effort to keep “woke capital” from funneling money into renewable energy ventures.

Nevertheless, last year Koch Strategic Platforms announced a $30 million investment in Blue Current.

Blue Current’s proprietary battery maximizes safety and performance, stabilizes temperature, and enables greater scalability across uses,” KSP noted in a press release dated April 22, 2022. “The fully dry high silicon elastic composite battery combines the mechanical properties of polymers with the ionic conductivity of glass ceramics.”

The announcement also cited KSP managing director Jeremy Bezdek, who said, “Solid-state battery technology will play a pivotal role in global energy transformation.”

“Our extensive diligence indicated that Blue Current has an advantaged intellectual property position that has the potential to be disruptive in the solid-state battery space,” Bezdek added.

It all makes sense when you consider that KSP has also invested in the startup REE, which plans to make waves with a flexible, skateboard-style electric vehicle platform.

Silicon Lithium Battery

[theluckycountry]

[b]The Next Big Silicon Battery Breakthrough

The startup NEO Battery Materials set the Intertubes humming earlier this week when it announced a new mashup with a yet-to-be-named “Top U.S. University Spin-Out.”

Hmmm, very... nuvotechietalky. I think I'll leave this one for the millennials, or whoever has replaced them at the gaming consoles.