The Vanadium Battery: The Ultimate Energy Storage Solution
by TreeHugger on 04. 1.05
Many of us are feeling that this generation has passed on a heavy burden to our kids especially regarding the ever increasing energy needs of society. It's not all doom and gloom however, the Vanadium Battery might just return a little spring to your step and a bigger smile on your face when you next see your grand kids.
A new mass energy storage technology is on the cusp of entering mainstream society. The Japanese are currently using it on a grand scale, the Canadians have comprehensively evaluated it and soon Australians will have the opportunity to replace their old lead-acid batteries with a Vanadium Redox Battery alternative. There are no emissions, no disposal issues, no loss of charge, the construction materials are 'green' and the battery can be charged and discharged simultaneously. So, is the Vanadium Battery as good as it sounds and more importantly, is it the solution to our energy storage problems?
Quite simply...Yes.
The potential of this system can be easily summed up in one word: 100% recharge/discharge. Well that's slightly more than one word, but still it is an impressive group of words. I'm a little excited here, so let me back track a little and explain the importance of Vanadium Batteries to our very existence.
It has been possible for quite some time to successfully gather energy through a variety of renewable energy sources, in particular solar and wind. The main problem however, which is also true for fossil fuel energy generation, is the storage of the energy. There is no point in generating surplus uber-watts on one sunny and windy day to find the next day is still and raining and worst of all there is no power to play the new DVD of Stainless Steel Rat on your suped-up 80 inch LCD screen (sorry...just wishful thinking). If the energy cannot be stored on the day of bountiful bliss than a renewable energy system is useless.
In small scale alternative energy systems usually found in off-grid houses, lead-acid batteries are commonly used to store energy. The main problem with this storage system is that lead-acid batteries aren't too efficient. In order to obtain the most cycles possible (300-1500), the batteries are designed to only use 10% of their storage capacity - that's like only being able to use your iPod for one hour instead of the battery's 10 hour capacity. If more energy is sucked out of them, the amount of times they can be recharged and discharged is drastically shortened. Large scale power companies also have a little problem with storage.
Basically, they can't be bothered. It's cheaper for them to estimate the daily power needs of a city and make sure that they produce enough electricity to satisfy all vested interests - that usually takes the form of direct support for industry not individual consumers as many North Americans are finding out on an all too regular basis.
Because a powerhouse can't instantaneously lower or raise output, at night there is usually surplus electricity and the crazy situation occurs where it is pumped into the ground. For all the skeptics out there mumbling conspiracy theory, treehugging pinky, just look it up in any dictionary under 'colossal waste'. Which brings me back to the amazing invention of the Vanadium Battery.
This battery, as the name so intelligently suggests, uses a metal called Vanadium. The soon-to-be Nobel Prize recipients (if there is any justice in this world) from Australia and Europe, have found a substance that can store energy indefinitely. On top of all that, it is possible to use 100% of the stored energy without any side effects. The number of times the Vanadium Battery can be recharged/discharged is also a tad worrying for other battery makers (over 10,000 plus cycles), who must be searching desperately for new employment opportunities - possibly in the oil industry .
In all honesty the word 'battery' falls a little shy of an accurate description of this epoch-creating invention. In very basic terms (which is all I can manage after trying to read the manual) the Vanadium is stored in two separate containers in liquid form - one is charged with energy and one has a depleted energy charge. When new energy is gathered, non-charged Vanadium gets spinached-up and popeye's your uncle, you have lots of energy to expend on a 30 inch Cinema Display connected to 17 inch Powerbook playing Doom until your fingers hurt...um and ah all those other things that use power in a normal household, like lights, fridges, blah, blah, blah.
If you decide one day that you need a little more storage capacity, perhaps for that air-conditioner or hairdryer (for the uninitiated, the banes of lead-acid batteries), no worries, just get bigger storage tanks to hold more Vanadium and all of a sudden you have storage to spare. Try that with a lead-acid battery system.
On a final and semi-serious note (which is the best I can do after thinking about my dream Mac setup), Vanadium Batteries have profound implications for normal households that don't have an alternative energy system supplying power to their house. As Japan is demonstrating, the amount of energy that their power stations produce can be cut by 1/3 simply by storing their previously dumped excess nightly energy into huge Vanadium Batteries. This form of load-levelling can be utilised by every power station throughout the world.
So the next time your power has been cut on your desktop while you are smack in the middle of a frag-fest...or should I say, thesis...or perhaps while buying Vanadium stock on-line, remember that your saviour Vanadium is just around the corner and who knows, if all goes well, perhaps your next car might be using charged Vanadium as fuel, which has been the case for a few University of New South Wales professors on their local golf course.
written by Gavin Leiminer
::Pinnacle VRB
::VRB Power
::Pinnacle VRB
::Potential Nobel Prize Winners-Australians
::Potential Nobel Prize Winners-Europeans
That will be Vanadium salt, Vanadium being an expensive and relatively inert metal.
Time now to look into which nations hold the mineral and whether mining and benefaction are relatively clean operations (we hope).
John,
you might want to look at the posting date
Got me.
Hi guys:)
This isn't an April fool's joke.:) Please check out the websites below, if you still don't believe me. The first one (Pinnacle VRB) talks about the vanadium substance in the 'What is it' section. If you look at the VRB Power website, you can read about case studies in Kangaroo Island Australia, as well.
Hope this clears things up.
gav:)
so if these are real and as nice as the article makes them out to be, where can I get some. If Japan is using them, then couldn't someone import some to sell on ebay or here on treehugger? Let me know if anyone finds some.
Vandium market highlights (dates from 2003).
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Primary production of vanadium is centred on the activities of the Xstrata group. In South Africa the company produced a total of 7,700t contained vanadium in 2002, plus a further 3,100t from its Windimurra operation.
Most vanadium is produced as a vanadium-bearing slag as a co-product of steel produced by smelting vanadiferous iron ores. Highveld Steel and Vanadium of South Africa is the largest producer of vanadium in slags, accounting for almost 9,600t contained vanadium in 2002. In the same year, Russia accounted for almost 5,900t contained vanadium and China for 16,000t, although Chinese vanadium production could be higher if all the potential vanadium was recovered from slags.
An increasingly important source of vanadium is secondary materials, including spent catalysts, ashes and residues. The vanadium largely originates from heavy crude oils, such as that from Venezuela. These secondary sources account for at least 4,000tpy V2O5.
Demand for vanadium has largely stagnated since the mid-1990s. After a peak of over 37,000tV in 1998, consumption fell to around 34,700tV in 2002. Over 85% of all vanadium is consumed in the manufacture of special steels, therefore demand is largely determined by the underlying trends in the steel industry - which in turn are affected by the prevailing global economy.
There are potential medical uses for vanadium in the treatment of diabetes and as a contraceptive, but the most significant potential new use is the vanadium redox battery (VRB). The VRB is said to have many advantages for energy storage and could provide a market for up to 10,000tpy V2O5. However, it is unlikely that this market will be realised in the immediate future.
I read about these about a year ago. Some big army base here in the states is using one. Colombus Air Force base.
MIT Technology Review
These are perfect for solar/wind application. Ive been waiting for them to become more readily available. Good post!
My HTML link didnt work in the last post here is the URL to the MIT Tech review article on the Air Force base and vanadium fuel cells
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/03/03/fairley0303.asp?p=1
Hi All,
Some interesting links to Vanadium related sites below - looks like an economical 'minor' metal, that is currently easily mined and extracted - as far as 'sustainable' and 'mining' can ever be anyways.
see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium
and
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/vanadium/
I think this storage solution is very exciting...
Sparky
Sourcing lookis OK, assuming we don't anger the Dragon and the Bear over oil struggles. Move on to toxicity effects. If a vanadium salt is biologically active enough to offer a birth control effect (per the above item), we have every reason to be concerned. First map out chronic and acute hazards, exposure comes next (what happens when the vanadium salt is spent due to contamination?)
I check a bit. Vanadium toxicity is not well studied. What is known for certain is that breathing a vanadium salt containing dust is dangerous. For a good overview: http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/evm_vanadium.pdf
Heck, breathing any dust isn't too healthy. Did you know nutrasweet (aspartame) is considered a toxic substance if breathed and materials handling documents say it should not be handled without particulate masks and full body suits?
Correct you are. However, there apparently are several valence states for vanadium; each valenced salt has a sharply different color in solid state, and hazards may not be uniform. A more circumspect understanding is needed to determine which if any prospective exposures may pose a serious risk. I would tend to use PCB's as an analogy (a really good one I think given the potential appications cited), because places where PCB filled transformers once were found, like building basements, city utility manholes, in above ground power transfer/regulation stations,in utility floors of high rise buildings, and eventually in back 40's, are exactly where the vanadium based power storage devices will end up being deployed.
Note: this analogy is not a criticism of the new vanadium power storage technolgies per. se., but offeres a glimpse into how a risk management plan and any needed design modifications are realized before marketing gets too far along.]
THinking down the road a bit, such applications have the potential to create high human exposures from building fires, during building demolition, during electrical surges, and also from tornadoes, hurricanes and earth quakes. What happens when a large amount is liberated following these events? Is it friable? Will a fire loft it upward and disperse into a community or not. I could got on through the next steps of new product risk management decision making, but I think I have made my point. The challenge for TreeHuggers is to push for fair and open risk management decision making so that we don't "get fooled again" by early optimism. I too find this technology extremely exciting, by the way.
Am I right to assume that the weight of these is considerably less that lead acid? I'm thinking I should hold off on an electric car conversion until these are available.
If you're interested in these, you should "see also" the small-scale ultraflywheels from Beacon Power.
What is the energy density of this battery?
On the Australian website they are talking 25Wh/kg.
Even if they doubled it, I doubt the this thing will be widely used
Nice call on the flywheels Colin - I was just going to mention those myself. Anyone have any idea what's happening with those? They seemed to get a lot of attention a few years ago, but I haven't heard anything lately...
So what companies in North America should one do some speculative investing with?
I don't know if there are any companies in North America worthwhile investing in, John.
The inventor of the Vanadium battery is currently working with the Chinese to make a viable Bus system. The battery is currently 50Wh/kg but they are trying to get this to 80.