Mass production of first solid-state EV battery

 From The Electric Viking

Solid-state batteries have no liquid electrolyte.   They have a much greater energy density than conventional lithium-ion batteries, and even greater than sodium-ion.  This particular battery has a lower energy density than other solid-state batteries which are still in developmental mode.  But the company developing these batteries (Chery) expects to double their energy density by 2027.  They can also be charged 6 times faster than conventional batteries (fully charged in 5 minutes), and will likely end up being much cheaper too.

The energy density of these batteries will be high enough to power heavy duty "diesel" trucks.

The commercialisation of solid-state batteries appeared to be half a decade away, or more.  And here they are.  

Step by step, we move closer to the point where ICE vehicles will just be unsellable, and all cars will be EVs.

Our ancestors were lovers not fighters

The reconstructed face of Krijn, the oldest Neanderthal found in the Netherlands, displayed at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden on September 6, 2021.

 

Bart Maat/ANP/AFP via Getty Images

I've always wondered about the grim history of our species: how we eliminated our competitors at the dawn of history and emerged as the only human species left. But that depressing view of our origins may be quite wrong.  We're like the bonobos, who when different groups meet in the forest immediately make love instead of killing each other.

From Scientific American

At the heart of scientific questions about the origins of humanity lie questions of human nature. Are Homo sapiens intrinsically lovers or fighters, predators or prey, lucky survivors or inevitable conquerors?

The friendlier answers to those queries keep coming, seen in a spate of genetic findings and some recent fossil discoveries. They also underline how tough life was for our prehistoric ancestors. Despite the eight billion people on Earth today, and counting, just surviving was winning for most of humanity’s history.

Not everyone did. Only 200,000 years ago, our ancestors lived on a planet teeming with varied human relatives: Neandertals lived in Europe and the Middle East. Denisovans, known today only from bone fragments, teeth and DNA, dwelled across Asia and perhaps even in the Pacific. “Hobbits,” or Homo floresiensis, a diminutive species, lived in Indonesia, as another short-statured species, called Homo luzonensis, did in the Philippines. Even Homo erectus, the grandparent of early human species, was still running around as recently as 112,000 years ago.

Now they are all gone. Except in our genes. Denisovans interbred with Neandertals, and both mated with modern humans. Genes from “an unknown hominin in Africa” also mark modern humans’ genomes. The initial discovery of these admixtures, starting in 2010, shook up the once-conventional “Out of Africa” picture of human origins, which saw a small, singular group of human ancestors developing language and then replacing all others worldwide within the last 100,000 years.

Instead, the emerging picture of our origins is less of a family tree, and more of a tangled shrub, one whose winding branches wove distinct human groups together into today’s broader human population. People today largely derive from interbreeding between modern-looking humans in Africa and the disparate human populations littering the wider world. Those African expatriates themselves first arose from scattered, intermittently admixtured populations found across that continent.

Neandertals’ genes illuminate the extent of this intermingling. Rather than waging a war of extermination, modern humans and Neandertals co-existed for at least 10,000 years in Europe and Asia some 50,000 years ago. Or maybe even earlier, with evidence hinting that Homo sapiens lived in Greece 210,000 years ago, then ceded Europe to Neandertals. Genetic studies suggest this gene-swapping peaked twice, at about 200,000 years ago and again 50,000 years ago. Even some of the bacteria in our mouths, ponder that, appear to have a Neandertal origin. Because of that early mixing, Neandertals themselves averaged 2.5 to 3.7 percent Homo sapiens DNA, a contribution that confused the family tree later.

The demise of the Neandertals, who vanish from the fossil record after 40,000 years ago, instead appears more a matter of demographics. In a 2021 survey, the paleoanthropological field largely agreed that Neandertals’ small population size led to their disappearance. A Science report this summer backs this up. For that study, Princeton University researchers looked at recurrent gene flow between humans and Neandertals over the last 200,000 years. They found 20 percent fewer Neandertals were running about than expected. There just weren’t that many of them. They interbred and melted away into the larger populations of modern humans arriving from Africa.

Neandertal numbers also took a hit as their larger prey—woolly mammoths, bison and woolly rhinoceros—dwindled during the Ice Ages. A September report of a 100,000-year-old Neandertal from France nicknamed “Thorin” suggests our cousins were less likely to migrate than modern humans, leaving them vulnerable to climate and landscape changes. Thorin descended from a population genetically isolated for tens of thousands of years, despite living near other Neandertals, ones who appear to have later mated with modern humans.

A similar picture of shuffled genes and small populations is shaping up for Denisovans and other archaic human species. All this genetic shuffling leaves humanity itself looking like a bit of a mess. A July 2021 analysis for example found that “only 1.5 to 7 [percent] of the modern human genome is uniquely human.”

That’s not a lot. In a review of humanity’s scattered genetic history, scientists, including Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London, once a champion of a strict Out of Africa view of human origins, looked over the patchwork of human and archaic fossils and genes. Stringer and colleagues concluded in Nature in 2021 that “no specific point in time can currently be identified at which modern human ancestry was confined to a limited birthplace.”

Our origin therefore does not appear to be a particularly tidy one, but a complex one that involved a lot of mating across time and space. We weren’t so much conquerors as wanderers, and potential in-laws, in our new neighborhoods. Something to consider the next time you hear someone going on about their family history, or how other people are unwanted outsiders.

Exposing Trump and Defeating the Authoritarian Loop

From Meidas Plus 

I’ve coined the term “authoritarian loop” to refer to how people will support authoritarians against their own self-interest because they (1) are conditioned by the authoritarian to feel worthless and expendable, and (2) are told that the suffering they feel, which is caused by the authoritarian, is actually caused by “the enemy” or the “other.” Let me describe this in more detail and then tell you how we combat it with Trump.

Take a look at this map from the 2024 election.

 

This may as well be the chasm between North Korea and South Korea. Oklahoma is the only state where every district voted for Trump, and Massachusetts is the only state where every district voted for Harris. Yet, Massachusetts leads the country in quality of life and in almost every category of wealth, health, and education, while Oklahoma, on the other hand, is last or almost last in those same categories.

So why do people in states like Oklahoma consistently vote against their own interests and keep electing people who are causing their suffering? Why do people in places like Texas elect those who can’t even keep the electricity on and who vacation during mass casualty events?

It’s the authoritarian loop.

The people in these states have been conditioned to believe that their pain and suffering are caused by an “enemy within” and not their actual subjugator: their corrupt MAGA leadership.

In red states, “governance” is actually shorthand for trolling or “owning the libs.” It’s not focused on improving lives.

The same way people in North Korea have been conditioned to be in a perpetual war against their neighbors in the South—who they are told live in subhuman conditions—the language used by Trump and MAGA about liberals, Democrats, and Democratic states is virtually identical.

Democrats are not just another political party. To the modern-day MAGA GOP, Democrats are actually “the enemy within.” They are “scum.” They are “vermin.” This audacious dehumanization is repeated on a loop—an authoritarian loop—every single day on Fox, on right-wing media, and now on X (formerly Twitter).

Dehumanizing the “other” while the dictator and oligarchy reap the riches from exploiting the uneducated is the toolbox of the authoritarian. Make people feel they are worthy of only breadcrumbs, and if by the grace of God you throw them half a loaf of bread, they will rejoice in you as their savior. Saddam Hussein built himself palaces while his people lived in slums. Trump has Mar-a-Lago, while Trump-appointed judges strike down overtime pay for millions of workers. It’s sad, but this is the paradigm through which we must view things now.

My friend David Pepper was prescient when, several years ago, he wrote about how red states were becoming laboratories of autocracy. He was exactly right. They were cooking up and stewing the formula for the “authoritarian loop” to be used on a national level. The final ingredient was billionaires fully embracing their role as authoritarian-style oligarchs.

So what do we do about it? How do we stop it? Is it too late?

First, as of the writing of this post, it is not too late. Yes, we’ve crossed the Rubicon, and America has elected an overtly authoritarian regime that has announced its main goal is inflicting hardship and retribution. But we are not so far past the Rubicon that these devastating, self-inflicted wounds cannot be healed and fixed. I fear that if we give up now and our resistance is non-existent or weak, then things may become unfixable. The good news is there is still time.

Until Trump shuts down the media—or tries to shut down us, which he will attempt—everything Trump and his oligarchs do must be reported on and amplified by citizen journalists every minute of every day.

Every promise Trump breaks must be amplified by citizen journalists. Relentlessly.

For example, I did a video today showing that the stock market was down because of Trump, and now economists say there is a 75% chance of a recession under Trump. Make this a major story.

Trump said he would stop wars as soon as he was elected, even before he stepped foot in office. He has failed to do so. Report it.

Every factory layoff, every anti-worker labor decision, and every time the deficit balloons—report on it. Trump will become defensive, erratic, and spiral. Stop over-intellectualizing things. Use basic, clear language, and repeat it over and over: Trump hates workers. Trump hates workers. Trump hates workers.

Trump’s entire life has been about scamming people. Now he’s captured America in perhaps the biggest scam in world history. For Trump’s other scams (albeit on a smaller scale), his victims eventually woke up and recognized they were played.

If we can be relentless advocates of truth and if we do not submit, there is an opportunity in two years and in four years to take America out of the authoritarian loop. That’s the crossroads we find ourselves at. We will either be forever defined as a Trump idiocracy, or we will be defined as a nation that persevered and reclaimed its soul and democracy.

It’s not too late.

Join us and consider subscribing now.

I've been pointing out for several years that all the culture wars fomented by the Right have little to do with genuine values and animosities.  They are distractions designed to draw attention away from the real goal, which is to siphon up wealth from the poor and the middle class into the coffers of the ultra rich.  Any Party which openly states that that's its policy will of course not be elected.  So they pretend to care about the "battlers", while distracting hoi polloi with baubles and fake "enemies".  We should not engage with this.

CATL's second-gen sodium-ion battery

Photo by: InsideEVs

From Inside EVs

China is reaching new heights in diversifying the battery chemistries used in electric vehicles. The country is already leading in subcategories of lithium-based chemistries, like nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC), nickel-aluminum-cobalt (NCA) and lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP). Earlier this year, state-run utility company China Southern Power Grid even deployed sodium-ion batteries for stationary energy storage. Now CATL, the world's largest battery maker, claims to have unlocked new levels of extreme weather performance with sodium-ion batteries.

The role of sodium ions is similar to lithium ions, where charge-carrying ions travel between the positive and negative electrodes during the charge and discharge cycles. Studies suggest that sodium-ion batteries could eliminate the pesky traits of lithium-ions: There’s less risk of thermal runaway, they can operate at varied temperatures and crucially, the cost of sodium hydroxide, a key raw material, is far lower than lithium-hydroxide. (Although battery companies have reached better economies of scale with lithium-ions.)

Sodium-ion batteries have already entered production in China. Cars that use them include the Yiwei EV produced by Volkswagen-backed JAC and the JMEV EV3. Speaking at the World Young Scientists Summit, CATL chief scientist Wu Kai said that its second-generation sodium-ion cells can discharge normally even at -40 degrees Celsius, as per several local Chinese media reports. That means EVs with such batteries won't lose range under frigid temperatures, which could help address some of the lingering concerns regarding the extreme weather performance of batteries.

They will launch in 2025 in China, with mass production expected to begin in 2027.

Tesla's 4680 NCM cells present in some newer Model Ys have an estimated energy density of up to 296 watt-hours per kilogram, as per some early teardowns. Sodium-ion batteries are less energy dense. While CATL has not disclosed the energy density of the new cells, it reportedly aims to reach a figure of 200 Wh/kg—a tough goal given that even LFP batteries have only recently hit that mark. That would only be appropriate for low-range EVs or entry-level trims. Some reports also claim that sodium-ion batteries are expected to replace 20-30% of LFP batteries in select applications.

A study published in the U.S. government’s National Library of Medicine calls sodium-ion batteries a “rising star.” Battery giants like CATL, BYD, and Sweden’s Northvolt are already investing in and developing these next-generation cells. So either way, one thing is clear: the future of battery chemistry isn’t headed in a single direction but will likely embrace a mix of chemistries tailored to specific use cases.

In principle, sodium-ion batteries should be cheaper than lithium-ion, because sodium is far more common and far cheaper than lithium (salt is sodium chloride, and the sea is full of it).  But production is still limited, so they are not cheaper yet.  As volumes expand, though, they will fall in cost just as fast as lithium-ion batteries have fallen, cutting battery pack costs to below $35/kWh.  At that price, the average EV battery pack will cost between $2000 and $3000, making EVs cheaper to buy as well as to run than petrol cars.   For reference, in 2010, lithium-ion batteries cost $1392/kWh.  Expect EVs to rapidly move to 100% of all sales, as costs continue to plunge--except of course in the US, where tariffs will stop this happening.  They already make up more than 50% of sales in China, the world's largest car market.  

Because of lower energy density, initially battery-packs will combine sodium-ion and lithium-ion cells.  But cheaper cars, with shorter ranges, will be the first to get 100% sodium-ion batteries.  

United we stand

 By Alfred Twu

Carbon-neutral jetfuel

 

From RenewEconomy

British synthetic fuels developer Zero Petroleum is exploring the possibility of building a low-carbon sustainable aviation fuel production facility in the South Australian city of Whyalla, in collaboration with Qantas Airways.

The feasibility study is expected to take six months and will evaluate the technical, economic, and environmental viability of a facility which would be capable of producing up to 10 million litres of synthetic aviation fuel, gasoline, and diesel each year.

It will seek to tap into the state’s huge wind and solar resources – which already account for around 75 per cent of annual demand, and which are expected to reach 100 per cent net renewables by 2027 – and its emerging green hydrogen production facilities in the same city.

Zero Petroleum was founded in 2020 by former F1 racing engineer and executive Paddy Lowe and subject expert Nilay Shah, a professor of process systems engineering at Imperial College London.

Their company has developed and manufactures whole-blend and 100% fossil free synthetic fuels – including gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel – through a process utilising direct air capture (DAC) carbon dioxide and hydrogen from water electrolysis, all powered by renewable energy.

This is designed to create fuels which are intended for use in an array of hard-to-abate sectors – including the aviation industry and motor racing series such as Formula 1.

DAC is the process whereby CO2 is extracted from the atmosphere.  DAC is expensive, costing over $1000/tonne, although as its usage increases, and learning curve effects strengthen, it is likely to fall in cost.   DAC may be the right way to go for removing CO2 from the atmosphere, but it is prolly not the best way to make synthetic hydrocarbons.  The process used by Prometheus Fuels will (if it works) be much cheaper.  We are just at the beginning of learning how to make carbon-neutral fuels, so it makes sense to try several technological possibilities, to see which works best and which is the cheapest.  We shall see which process wins out.

Flattery will get you anywhere

 By Steve Sack