[Scott] Next on "Energy Switch," we'll look again at battery technology and how it may impact our future.

- Let's be realistic.

The scaling of the batteries, even if we do it at exponential rate, we are facing the supply chain shortage, the mining challenges and all these issues, right?

We need alternative solutions to come in place to play together.

- At the same time, that opportunity is galvanizing researchers to make batteries that are suitable for the grid.

And so I expect that you know, these goals and the reality that you identified to drive innovation in all sorts of complementary areas.

And that's the excitement.

[Scott] Coming up on "Energy Switch," we'll conclude our episode on Batteries for Cars and Grids.

[Announcer] Funding for "Energy Switch" was provided in part by The University of Texas at Austin, leading research in energy and the environment for a better tomorrow.

What starts here changes the world.

And by EarthX, an international nonprofit working towards a more sustainable future.

See more at earthx.org.

- I'm Scott Tinker and I'm an energy scientist.

I work in the field, lead research, speak around the world, write articles and make films about energy.

This show brings together leading experts on vital topics in energy and climate.

They may have different perspectives, but my goal is to learn and illuminate and bring diverging views together towards solutions.

Welcome to the "Energy Switch."

In part one, we talked mostly about batteries for electric vehicles.

Now, we'll discuss how they might be integrated into the power grid to store electricity at scale mostly to back up intermittent solar and wind.

Lithium ion batteries may not be well suited to this task.

Instead, we'll need new battery chemistries and technologies to meet the rapid discharge, cost, safety and reliability requirements of the grid.

I'll talk about all this and more with Dr. Shirley Meng is a battery scientist and researcher, a professor of molecular engineering at the University of Chicago and a chief scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory.

Dr. Lynden Archer is also a battery scientist and researcher and director of the Energy Systems Institute and professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Cornell University.

We'll conclude their thoughts on this episode of "Energy Switch" Batteries for Cars and Grids: Part Two.

Let's just start by thinking about how we meet electricity demand today.

What done today to get us all this?

- Well, it's a combination of things, right?

So we, and mostly things that are based on combustion of fossil fuels to generate steam and using this steam to do mechanical work that then ultimately, in a magnetic field, produces electricity.

And so that's what we've done for at least the last 150 years.

The other relatively established technology is using water, right?

To generate electric power.

And in some countries, in particular France using nuclear energy, right?

As a way of, again, producing steam.

The steam then drives the turbine.

The turbine then generates electricity.

- Mm-Hmm, and those all feed a grid.

- Those all feed a grid, yeah.

- Yeah.

Which has been... - Over a hundred years old.

Yeah.

- Yes.

[Scott] Pretty stable.

Not bad.

- Well, but let's be reminded, the back hundred years ago Westinghouse and Edison, you know, it was not that stable for them.

So one of the question to ask really is that are the current grids good enough?

So it is an golden opportunities for us to reimagine how the future grid should look like.

So we are not, I guess not trying to put down on whatever achievement the established technology have done.

Those really served as a historical purpose and it's still powering our houses and our buildings now.

It's the future part that we worry because we have this need to decarbonize and we have to reinvent our grid.

- Yeah, and I think the reinvention, I mean someone said something to me about two years ago that I knew, but I didn't know, right?

That every single electron that you use, to power a light, to power a camera, was produced the instant.

- Yes.

- Before you use.

- That's right.

- And so there is a dispatchability issue that is sort of fundamental to the grid that you know when- when you call for power, right?

It's gotta deliver it.

And I think, you know, as we think about a future where you know, renewables are part of the grid thinking about the instability they might provide is it's actually pretty important.

[Scott] It is.

- Right.

- In fact, that's where storage comes in, right?

- Absolutely.

- This is the critical part of either storage or something that can follow that load.

- So if you look at the pie chart of storage solutions, you'll see that the oldest technology is the one that still dominates the so-called pumped hydroelectric storage, right?

Where you basically use excess electric power to pump water uphill and then at night, you basically take the water, run it through a turbine and generate electricity right when you need it.

It's like 98% of all storage of electric power is in pumped hydroelectric storage.

It relies on things we know pretty well from just, you know hydroelectric power generation and it's inexpensive.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So here is where you're gonna hear a lot of argument here.

It's because the pie chart is misleading because there's only less than one percent of the total electricity in the world being stored.

- Correct, yes.

- So that's, I think, you know, I think we are limited by geography about the pump hydro even though there are creative ideas about how to do pump hydro locally.

- So, how do batteries and storage, what do they do for the grid today?

- Right now they can manage intermittency.

In the long term, we hope they can manage seasonality.

To get there, we need bigger batteries that cost less.

- Okay, and Shirley.

- So sometimes we need weeks of storage.

- Yep, yep.

- Department of Energy just launched the Energy Earthshot.

One of the shots is this long-duration storage Because-- - Because right now we have hours, right?

- Yes, we can, at best, do hours.

- Yeah.

- If you are really pushing it, maybe days, however we are imagining what the batteries can do and also realizing maybe there are certain things we will need that the molecules to do its job.

- Okay, good.

Is it gonna be lithium ion, you know, why or why not?

And what are some options to that?

- So right now lithium ion is the front-runner for grid storage.

In part, because there is a supply of lithium ion batteries.

There's a deep bench of knowledge and expertise about the technology.

It's hit price points where, with a little bit of subsidy, it works for the two, three hour storage options we've got.

But I do believe there's gonna be an evolution.

I do believe that as solar and wind total plus storage are demanded to perform, I think we are gonna need long-duration storage.

And I don't know that lithium ion could have the cost characteristics to get us there.

- Okay.

Options to that or-- - I'm less optimistic about lithium in the grid.

- You're less than that.

- Less than this.

- Yeah.

Less than that.

- I think scaling of the alternate chemistry has to start now.

And also we have to bring alternative solutions like nuclear.

It has to start.

And because, for me, the-- we don't want to do the bandage solutions - Right.

- for grid.

We need a visionary leader reimagine the future grid how it should look like.

And no doubt the batteries will be a very important part.

And I think lithium will be a very small portion of it, in my opinion.

- So you have two things, alternative to batteries-- nuclear and other things-- but also alternative chemistries, different metals.

- Different metals.

And I hope all the lithium will be reserved for transportation.

- Because it's just so fit for purpose - Yes.

- for that.

- And there's so little of it, right.

- But coming back to this, this interesting point though that Shirley raised.

You know the thing that I have found to be characteristic of the sector is conservatism.

- That's true.

- And part of it is because a grid is just so complex and the customer on the other end is just so unforgiving when it's off, you know?

The longer it's off, the more annoyed you get.

And so I think that the interesting question would be what would be the right format to begin to, you know basically prove these new technologies at scale to, you know, allow the scientists to test their new things in some safer form of the grid that ultimately allows it to scale faster.

And I've not seen that yet.

I see it in Germany.

They have this really beautiful Fraunhofer Institute Network where they do this quite well.

Where they bring together, you know, the companies that have the questions with the scientists who think they have the answer.

And there's an openness in information flow that we lack actually in this domain.

- Interesting.

We talked about batteries, what they could do for the grid and why don't we have more today?

- Personal experience is the underestimate of the complexity of grids.

That will be number one.

Number two is actually the batteries operate on the grid experience more severe and demanding duty cycles compared to transportation.

But, you know, we realize how demanding the grid can put the batteries are, subject the batteries to.

Third one is really, yeah, when we start to put the batteries in the field, we realize the temperature can get very hot.

So all the thermal management, you know, at least for the early generation where UC San Diego put some of the first batteries in, we realize we have to put iron conditioning around the batteries to manage the thermal.

- Does environment have to do with that as well?

Really cold climate, it's are really hot.

Would that change the safety?

- The battery is just like our human body.

They're not happy if it's above 40 degrees Celsius.

They're not happy if it's below minus 20 degree Celsius.

On that front, I think there are few directions of the research that are trying to enable electrolytes for ultra low temperature.

- So in defense of the battery again.

- Yes.

- It's an interesting point.

You know, there's an interesting, I would say compliment to the advancement in battery technology and use and that is the miniaturization of sensors.

And we can know a lot about our batteries now that we couldn't even two years ago.

- Sure.

So for me, the problem learned from engineering and the science side is very clear.

We have to do better.

And on the other side, we would like to invite more of the industry leaders and the financial companies to work together with us because we can educate them about how much improvement has occurred and where we are going for the future of the batteries.

- Yeah.

- And I think there's, you know, you know, I think in part, Shirley, we are a bit of a victim of our own success, right?

That it is so relatively straightforward to take the batteries that worked in our portable devices and then put them in transportation and more or less, they worked.

The grid is different.

And I think what I'm hearing is exactly right that there is a need to basically rethink what sort of batteries that are ultimately needed and to begin to design them for the end use.

- When are we gonna see it?

When are we gonna see large scale batteries on the grid?

- I think the biggest one now is already over a hundred megawatt hour.

Several places in California, in Australia but they are lithium ion based technologies.

For the other largest scale, I think lithium iron phosphate, I heard that is the chemistry of choice because of its long life and safety.

- Correct, Correct.

[Shirley] Not energy density.

- Correct.

- So when is it five years?

Is it 10 years?

I mean these are solutions that we haven't really even tested yet, right?

- I'm very stressed out.

Everybody think batteries will solve all the problems for the grids.

Let's be realistic.

- Yeah.

- Right, the scaling of the batteries, even if we do it at exponential rate, we are facing the supply chain shortage, the mining challenges and all these issues.

We need alternative solutions to come in place to play together.

- Yeah.

- What I hope is in 10 years we will really see all the alternative chemistries at scale.

- Okay.

- Compared to lithium.

But you know, at the same time, I'm just an academia person.

So sometimes the realities can be quite harsh.

- Well let me ask you this way, if it, as we ramp up solar and wind, if we don't have battery storage solutions for 10 years, shouldn't we keep something online?

Gas peakers, you know?

I mean we're actually legislating gas out of the world.

- So in my opinion, the game changer here is carbon capture technology in general, right?

So the second the Earthshot was on CO2 capture.

I think if we can figure out something in that area at scale and reasonable cost, the equation is gonna change.

- I'm just worried are we gonna be putting serious grid instability in here?

We don't have solutions for batteries for a while.

- But like, you know, I hear you.

And I think it's, what you're saying is quite real.

But I, I would argue that you know, at the same time that opportunity is galvanizing researchers to make batteries to make batteries that are suitable for the grid.

I mean, these are things that were not imaginable, you know, even five years ago.

[Scott] Sure, sure.

- And so I expect that, you know, you know, these goals and the reality that you identified to drive innovation in all sorts of complimentary areas.

And that's the excitement.

- Scott, let, let me add one more point.

So I think all the anxiety comes from the request of knowing when, right?

So some folks had the timeline of 2030.

I don't think we'll do it.

- Yeah.

- Some folks had it at the 2040.

- Yep.

- You have to be super duper optimistic and all technology work out.

And some of us had the timeline of 2050.

Right, so I think the... - 2050 for?

- For carbon neutrality you know, to realize, and a lot of people disagree with that.

You know, we can, we should put the timeline that off that much.

But it's really a balance between people who are optimistic or versus more realistic.

But I want to remind everyone, when I was a graduate student in 2001, I was told if I managed to do some research that battery cost come down to $200 per kilowatt hour, the world will change.

That was 10 times reduction and the battery field people actually delivered.

So for me in the grid is really important.

Let's say if we have 10-year plan, we should develop a really proper each year.

I think that is lacking right now.

- Yes.

- So, regardless it's 2035 or 2040 or 2050, it's very urgent for our entire field to work on this roadmap right now.

How to get there.

- And that roadmap though, the part that really does confound me is just the, you know, the need for so many people to be at the table for that roadmap to work whether the decision makers, the investors and so forth will really be willing to take the risk and, you know, at the right scale right.

To make this transition.

I'm less pessimistic about the technology.

I think we'll get there especially if we take this perspective that, you know, it's not necessarily gonna be lithium.

- Yep.

- Investability scalability.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Let's talk to the metals then, besides lithium for grid, what are they, what do you see coming, some of them?

- So sodium and zinc probably more on the forefront going to demonstration large scales.

And then new ideas like magnesium battery, organic flow batteries, those are relatively new.

I just worry about if they have enough time to realize.

So for me personally I think sodium and zinc are the two, top two runner.

- So I would add to that the dark horse for me is- is aluminum, we never knew how to make it reversible to work in a battery.

And I would say in the last decade or so, we've now learned how to do that.

But by virtue of its abundance, relatively low cost, chemical inertness, meaning you don't need a dry room to make aluminum batteries, and the progress the technology has made in the last decade or so, I think there are gonna be a surprise there.

So interestingly, you know, the voltaic pile and people in your audience may know, this is the first battery that was made.

And it basically was a simple battery that used zinc and copper.

Those are the electrodes.

And there was cardboard soaked in seawater basically as electrolyte.

And that was the first demonstration of an electrochemical cell.

And that's roughly what, about 200 years ago, right?

- Yep, 200 years.

- That was 200 discovered 200 years ago.

And zinc has had a bit of a resurgence because in the last few years, researchers including my group, I guess I can say that on the show, have discovered, you know, how to make the zinc batteries rechargeable.

So they're intrinsically cheap because zinc is intrinsically cheap.

The viewers might know that roughly about 98% of the material in a penny is zinc.

- Zinc.

- So it's really dirt cheap.

- Right.

- So the point is that now we've discovered through really interesting chemistry and chemical engineering how to engineer zinc.

So it is reversible.

And in laboratory studies, you know, we have zinc batteries that run 10,000, 20,000 cycles.

- And then besides batteries, chemical batteries what are some other things that could help keep our grid of the future reliable, resilient?

- So if green hydrogen or those hydrogen made from water splitting can be actually used as base loads, I think that will be an ideal place where the hydrogen can make a huge impact.

And for this reason, actually I'm quite supportive of hydrogen research because if you use it as a centralized base load... - Correct.

- Applications, the efficiencies are quite good.

- And having a grid that allows you to move the electricity generated across state lines, I mean my goodness, that would be amazing, right?

Because then you generate the hydrogen institute in a place that's rich with solar energy, for example in Arizona and you, you know, you generate the power there in that state and you sell it just say the Canadians sell hydro electrically generated power.

- I think, Lynden, the topic is so good because yeah, I learned so much about how fragmented that the grid is in US.

That's what I mean that the reimagining the grid has to happen because the connectivity is between the different... - While we're waiting for a solar and hydrolysis to become affordable, nuclear with methane wouldn't-- would be interesting too.

Just capture the carbon.

- That is, you know, I think carbon captures come a long way.

There was a really nice competition that the carbon XPRIZE ran over the last few years.

And the idea was not just to show you can capture the carbon from a power plant but to demonstrate that you could convert it into a product that can compete in the market.

And you know, there were some interesting entries and one of them that I really like, they discovered a way of basically reacting the hydrogen with CO2 to make the fuel, a sin gas, that is very similar to jet fuel.

[Scott] Interesting.

- And so that's style being commercialized in collaboration with the airline industry.

So the, the capture piece I think is it's something we can't ignore especially when it's coupled to capture and conversion.

[Scott] Right?

- Yeah.

[Shirley] Yep.

- We've talked about sodium, aluminum, zinc... you gotta put your money on a rank order.

What are the top three?

[laughing] What's gonna happen first at scale?

- So my money's on zinc.

I think aluminum is a surprise.

Sodium is there but sodium is-is even more unsafe than lithium.

And so I'm a little, it's high natural abundance but the safety issues I think will-will, it's time yet... especially, you know, when we think about customer acceptance and insurability.

- Okay.

- Yeah, so I will put sodium on the top 'cause we have a solution for the safety concerns.

[Scott] Okay.

- Zinc next.

And I think I have to learn more about aluminum but very happy to hear about the progress on that topic.

- Okay.

So we have two high level experts and they have a different, what's the status of each one?

How long to market for each of those?

- I think with sodium, there was a huge injection of excitement when last year China's top battery companies announced their prototypes of sodium ion batteries.

And there were also a couple other startup companies in Asia talked about the kilo-- hundreds of kilowatt hour demonstration.

So I see the scaling is happening which means they also secure the sound supply chains for building the sodium ion batteries.

I'm hoping in United States we have also had a similar track record.

So we are hoping in this year or two next year we will see the, some news about okay sodium ion batteries being scaled.

[Scott] Interesting.

Okay.

- And zinc it's a, as I said, 200-year-old technology.

So there are companies that are using it successfully for backup power supply, including by the way, for the San Diego supercomputer using aqueous zinc batteries.

The electrolyte is water and it's catching on.

I think just in the last year, I saw about four or five new startup companies secure funding for zinc technology.

And so I think, you know, as the community has looked at the very questions that are driving this discussion you know, cost, reserves and so forth, they're coming to the conclusion that we need to invest in this technology.

- Right.

What do these mean for the future of energy?

How do you see this playing out?

- I guess we're both engineers and we are trained to solve hard problems.

We really do look at problems for what they're worth, opportunities to find solutions.

And I do believe we live in really interesting times.

People wanna see us get to carbon neutrality.

The answer is really one of sort of responsibility that we can afford to demonstrate decarbonization at scale.

We can afford to do it.

And so we should be the living laboratory that demonstrates these things at scale.

Some will feel, some will not and then provides the example.

- So for me, I think with the encouragement from public, from you know, the industry, I will just be very blunt here.

If we don't provide the solution for battery storage, we won't be able to reach our carbon, the decarbonization goal.

Period.

So it leaves us no choice, basically we have to work really, really hard to make it happen.

Even we have about the three to four gig terawatt hour production each year.

It will take us 10 years to complete the, you know, so it's almost not solvable by battery alone.

We don't deliver, we won't be able to reach our goal.

- Right, it's one of the wedges, it's one of the levers.

But I really appreciate your candor and your thoughtfulness and the insights.

I learned a bunch from both of you.

- Thank you.

[Scott] Very good.

- Thanks, very thoughtful questions, thank you.

[Scott] Today we have to generate electricity right as we use it, because we don't have grid-scale batteries to store it.

Instead, we store electricity by using it to pump water into a reservoir, then release it through turbines when we need power.

Batteries would be a more efficient solution but the grid is much more demanding than cars requiring rapid discharge and recharge, lower cost, higher safety, and long-term reliability.

To meet those challenges, alternative chemistries based on common materials like sodium, zinc and aluminum may be required.

These technologies are in their infancy but both guests agreed, if we can figure out how to scale them affordably, batteries can be part of the solution to decarbonize the grid.

[dramatic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Announcer] Funding for "Energy Switch" was provided in part by The University of Texas at Austin, leading research in energy and the environment for a better tomorrow.

What starts here changes the world.

And by EarthX, an international nonprofit working towards a more sustainable future.

See more at earthx.org.