Study: lithium has lower energetic cost than lead acid

zoneblue

"The Stanford team looked at several emerging technologies, including five battery types – lead-acid, lithium-ion, sodium-sulfur, vanadium-redox and zinc-bromine.

In a previous study, Barnhart calculated the energetic cost of building and maintaining each of the five battery systems for grid-scale storage. Lead-acid batteries had the highest energetic cost, lithium-ion the lowest, he found.

We calculated how much energy is used over the full lifecycle of the battery – from the mining of raw materials to the installation of the finished device," Barnhart said. "Batteries with high energetic cost consume more fossil fuels and therefore release more carbon dioxide over their lifetime"

-- http://phys.org/news/2013-09-scientists-energy-required-solar-power.html

Cariboocoot

Re: Study: lithium has lower energetic cost than lead acid

"Energetic cost".
*sigh*
We no speaky English?

john p

Re: Study: lithium has lower energetic cost than lead acid

Ah yes its the old energetic cost. 99. lets see where this plot takes us.?

westbranch

Re: Study: lithium has lower energetic cost than lead acid

Well the first thing any field of Experts do is to create their own language to prove they and only they know what they are talking about... think about it.... We foresters have a language all our own.. engineers etc


this is Stanford-ese for total life cycle costs.

"Our primary goal was to calculate their overall energetic cost – that is, the total amount of fuel and electricity required to build and operate these storage technologies. We found that when you factor in the energetic costs, grid-scale batteries make sense for storing surplus solar energy, but not for wind."

waynefromnscanada

Re: Study: lithium has lower energetic cost than lead acid

Or - - it could be energetic, as in: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcREK624Ifb_L5Z6vdT8V6TElooiDBRt5LyxVQj_7ISywZLcCOLf
Hahahaha

westbranch

Re: Study: lithium has lower energetic cost than lead acid

It gets a bit murkier.
Another article http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2014/ee/c3ee42125b#!divAbstract
by one of the original authors, which shows that the comparison for PV storage vs Wind storage is done over different time periods, see chart.

Sure makes it hard to make some of those 'simple' statements stand up to scrutiny..

ps look for the PDF a bit down the page (near the vertical midline of the page) to get the full article..

zoneblue

Re: Study: lithium has lower energetic cost than lead acid

Journalised yes, my reading is that they are talking about embodied energy per Wh delivered. Questions like how they factor for things like lead recycling etc, are all unstated.

Probably their math boils down, in essence, to cycle life. On balance longer life compensates for energy embodied in construction. In construction, its like concrete: uses lots of energy to make, but lasts proportinally much longer then other materials.

Jury still out on lithium life, so who knows? Use in satellites starting to clock up some serious hours so maybe answers not too far away.

westbranch

Re: Study: lithium has lower energetic cost than lead acid

Hi ZB, dont know if you looked at it but the link to the full article is on the page you linked to, same as before look for a PDF mid page under the OPEN ACCESS symbol , in the lite blue area...

I am still wading through it

EDIT

here is the direct link http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2013/ee/c3ee41973h#!divAbstract