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Harvard researchers recently made a game-changing breakthrough that could transform rechargeable batteries.
Experts specializing in lithium metal battery research at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a new solid-state battery that can be recharged in just 10 minutes. According to Electrek, the new battery can be recharged over 6,000 times, more than any other pouch-shaped battery.
The new battery is formulated with a lithium metal anode, a high-quality material favored for rechargeable batteries due to its capabilities for long-term energy storage.
Xin Li, professor of materials science at Harvard SEAS, stated in the development team’s published research paper that the battery innovation “could drastically increase the driving distance of electric vehicles.”
“Lithium metal anode batteries are considered the holy grail of batteries because they have ten times the capacity of commercial graphite anodes,” Li wrote, as quoted by Electrek. “Our research is an important step toward more practical solid-state batteries for industrial and commercial applications.”
In addition to their extended charging power, rechargeable batteries are more eco-friendly compared to disposable batteries. A 2018 study published in the International Journal of Management and Commerce Innovations states that “rechargeable batteries consume up to 23 times less non-renewable natural resources than disposable batteries.” Rechargeable batteries are also more cost-effective in the long run due to their longer shelf life.
Although the Harvard SEAS team’s battery design is still in development, investors are eager to bring it to the global market. The Harvard Office of Technology shared in a press release that it will lease the battery to Adden Energy, a spinoff company founded by Li and three Harvard alumni. As Adden Energy specializes in “next-gen battery technologies,” the company plans to develop a smartphone-sized version of the SEAS project.
Following their breakthrough, Li and his team at Harvard SEAS plan to continue researching alternative materials for rechargeable battery development.
“Our research explains one possible underlying mechanism of the process and provides a pathway to identify new materials for battery design,” Li told the Office of Technology Development.
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In 2023, the top five economies in Europe earned over €150 billion ($163 billion) in fuel levies, representing as much as 2 percent of the countries’ total taxes, according to Bloomberg. In the United Kingdom, gas and diesel duties are predicted to amount to £24.3 billion ($31 billion) between last year and this year—or more than alcohol and tobacco taxes combined.
Many of these taxes go toward important societal needs such as hospitals, schools, and road maintenance, highlighting the need for the income to continue, even as electric vehicles (EVs) take over the market in the coming years. Instead of allowing this revenue to disappear as battery-electrics become the new norm, it might be time to start planning for replacement options now.
There are multiple potential options for ensuring this revenue remains with the transition to EVs, including the fact that these sectors could generate funding elsewhere, like through income taxes. However, some also argue that this approach, not unlike the option of taxing car sales outright, wouldn’t account for how much a person uses their vehicle, potentially increasing congestion, and removing incentives to buy more efficient vehicles.
As such, taxing driving specifically may be a better alternative. Still, taxing electricity rates would require some houses to add meters for this purpose, and it may risk offering wealthier households, who can afford to install home-charging equipment, lower taxes than those charging at public charging stations. Add in the element of the increasing rollout of residential solar power, and this could even further exacerbate the issue.
Instead, taxing as fairly as possible on the actual road use would be ideal, which isn’t unlike many areas’ use of toll roads. Whether using annual checkups and registration practices to determine how many miles a given vehicle drives per year, or using something else like GPS, this approach seems like it could offer a more level playing field across socioeconomic lines.
In any case, beginning to consider these options now will be imperative for government officials to avoid losing this funding in the future, and delaying this process could result in a tougher transition period.
ChatGPT & DALL-E generated panoramic image that visualizes the concept of Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) through the metaphor of a balance scale
Energy Return On Investment Rears Its Misshapen Head Again
Over the past year or so, energy return on energy invested (EROEI) has shown up multiple times for me as an attack on technologies that are now superior. A nuclear shipping advocate tried to gotcha me with that for biofuels for shipping. Others reasonably asked about it for biofuels in general. And there’s a lot of disinformation floating around about fossil fuels vs renewables, being spread by the fossil fuel industry.
It’s time for some disambiguation.
Let’s start with what EROEI is. Pretty simple, actually. It takes energy to get energy into a form usable by us, whether that’s extracting and refining oil or building a wind turbine. The ratio between the energy you get out versus the energy you put in is the EROEI. And to be clear, it’s over the lifetime of the production from the asset, whether it’s an oil well, a hydroelectric dam or a wind turbine.
Agriculture makes energy in the form of calories which we consume. The agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago resulted in a more positive EROEI than hunting and gathering, so civilization arose. A positive EROEI is pretty good for us. The Green Revolution doubled EROEI to about 4:1, so now we have a lot more food for a lot less work. In fact, we make so much food these days that we throw away a third of it globally, about 2.5 billion tons, something which is a major climate headache because waste food ends up emitting a lot of methane which is a lot worse for global warming than carbon dioxide.
It used to be that oil had really good EROEI, from 18-43:1. When it just bubbles out of the ground, all you have to do is cap it. Conventional gas was good as well, from 20-40:1. Stick a metal straw in the ground and cheap gas came out. Coal has an EROEI in the 40s as well.
That’s a big reason why the Industrial Revolution occurred, because there was an awful lot of cheap, easily extracted fossil fuels lying about the place. What’s that? Cheap, easily extracted fossil fuels aren’t as readily available as they once were? We’re using unconventional extraction techniques like shale fracturing for oil and gas, and steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) for oil sands crude. Those techniques use a lot more energy. What does that do to their EROEI?
Well, shale oil’s EROEI plummets to 1-2:1, below antiquated agriculture. Oil sands SAGD plummets to 3.5-5.4:1, about the same as modern agriculture. Fracked gas has an EROEI of 5-10:1. Coal remains high, mostly because we’ve stopped mining for it and started just disassembling mountains from the top down with heavy machinery.
There’s a game the fossil fuel industry likes to play with unconventional fossil fuel extraction to pretend the EROEI is higher, by the way. What they do is use lots of the fossil fuels that they are extracting to power the process of extracting fossil fuels. This, of course, is completely unabated meaning much higher greenhouse gas emissions, and it’s a fallacious economic argument because they are clearly paying the opportunity cost of not selling the fuels. Burning the house down to heat it isn’t exactly wise, and they are doing that in two different ways.
And then there’s the problem of oil and gas well lifetimes. Natural ones have long lifetimes with low annual percentage drops, but shale and fracked wells for oil and gas see declines of 15% to 20% per year. That can substantially throw off EROEI calculations.
To be clear, there’s also something called the energy cliff. Below an EROEI of about five, the cost per unit of energy starts shooting upward making a lot of once economic things deeply uneconomic from a systemic perspective. Yes, shale oil and the oil sands are in the zone of economic doom. And the converse is worth considering. Above about 5:1, returns are marginal. The difference between an EROEI of 10:1 and 40:1 is only about 7% more benefit. Big numbers don’t matter as much as being above the 80% mark, or 5:1.
As we’ve seen above, there are multiple ways to play with EROEI to get the results you want. A classic one for the fossil fuel industry is to ignore unconventional oil and gas, which are pretty much every marginal barrel and gigajoule of oil and use only legacy oil. But we are increasingly using unconventional techniques because a lot of the high-EROEI wells have dried up and that’s continuing every year.
That’s why we are drilling in the Arctic, under the North Sea and deeper than ever. The same technical innovation that has made Hubbert’s Peak Oil Supply merely a frightening story before bed has also decreased the EROEI of every marginal unit of energy we extract now.
And then they like to ignore the more rapid declines of fracked wells too, pretending that they are going to last longer, spreading their initial fracking energy over vastly more barrels or gigajoules. Yeah, not so fast.
And then the same types, for example Goehring & Rozencwajg Associates, LLC (GRA), a hardcore fossil fuels investment firm which likes to refer to itself as contrarian, spread massive disinformation about renewables.
So lets talk about wind, water and solar.
Hydroelectric, because dams last so long, have the best EROEI going, often over 100:1. Can’t beat a good dam, but you also can’t build one with solely private money. The USA’s biggest ones were all built by the federal government during the New Deals and are still owned and operated by it through the Bureau of Land Management. China’s Three Gorges Dam and the dam in Nepal they are building that dwarfs it, as well as the smaller dams they have built over the past 20 years, are all national projects, not entrepreneur’s projects. When an asset is expected to have a lifetime over 100 years, it’s hard to get pure markets interested in it.
There are a couple of easy ways to game renewables’ generation down, and disinformation vendors like GRA use every one they can. Let’s start with wind energy. Let’s pick wind energy from the 1990s or 2000s instead of modern wind farms that are much bigger and have much better capacity factors. Let’s pretend that wind farms don’t last as long as they do. Play those silly games and pretty soon you have crappy EROEI’s for wind energy.
What’s the modern reality? 19-20:1. Hmmm. Isn’t that a long, long way above all unconventional fossil fuels? I mean, a really long way? And a really long way above any concerns about humanity falling off of a cliff?
What’s another silly game that the industry likes to play? How about pretending that a barrel of oil’s 1,700 kWh of heat energy is equal to 1,700 kWh from a wind turbine? Are they? Not a chance.
Let’s take an internal combustion car versus an electric car. Let’s take 1,700 kWh worth of petroleum out of the ground and get the energy to the wheels of the car. How efficient is that process? About 20%. About 80% of the energy gets thrown away, mostly as waste heat along the way, although clearly a lot of energy gets thrown away for unconventional gas and oil long before it gets to a car.
Meanwhile, let’s go wind turbine to an electric car’s wheels. How efficient is that process? About 80%. Waste heat again in the form of moving through wires and in and out of the battery, but still, four times more efficient than well to wheel.
How about gas well to gas furnace? That’s pretty good, after the gas is extracted. It’s a pretty easy molecule to put through pipelines and modern furnaces are pretty good. Well to heat efficiency is about 70% on average, much better than if you were trying to get work out of it.
But what about solar panels to heat pumps? Solar EROEI is 10:1 and sharp eyes will note the non-coincidence that the ratio between solar capacity factors and wind capacity factors is about the same as EROEI to EROEI for the forms. One of the games the fossil fuel industry likes to play is using rooftop solar EROEI, 5-6:1 instead of solar farms’ higher EROEI. Apples to apples is worth remembering and looking for. No one has a oil well and refinery and gas pumps on their couple of acres, but lots of people have solar panels on their rooftops.
Transmitting and distributing electricity is even more efficient than natural gas, about 5% losses from solar farm to heat pump vs 7% of well to furnace. But heat pumps get an average of three units of energy of heat out of the environment for every unit of energy you get into them. That means with the relative efficiencies, you get four times as much heat from electricity from solar panels as you do gas from a well.
GRA and others use the primary energy fallacy, that heat energy is equal to electricity, when you can get vastly more work out of the same amount of electricity, to make renewables look bad and fossil fuels look good. And of course they ignore heat pumps entirely.
An electrified world powered by renewables is a vastly more efficient world. I replicated something that many have done, just because I like to run the numbers myself. The USA, as an example where the data is available and well explained enough to work with, would require about 50% as much primary energy in the form of low-carbon wind, water, solar (mostly) and nuclear and geothermal, as they pump into the system today, if they were fully electrified.
The doom and gloom degrowth crowd tend not to like these types of analyses either, although some realize that when we stop extracting almost 20 billion tons of fossil fuels to mostly burn every year, that is actually a massive economic shift. The rural agrarian fantasists certainly don’t like it.
But the fossil fuel industry just hates the reality of this. What it makes clear is that the transition is much easier than they are pretending. It makes clear that the developing world can leapfrog a lot of the high-inefficiency energy flows that the developed world went through, and the developing world is, with lots of electric vehicles and renewables springing up around the world.
Did you know two and three wheeled electric vehicles have avoided more barrels of oil than all of the rest of the electric vehicles in the world combined? That’s what BNEF reported last year. Where are those small electric vehicles? Well, lots and lots of them are in the developing world, where cars are much less common.
As for biofuels? Well, meta-analyses of a bunch of biofuels projects find that they have an EROEI below agriculture’s 4:1, but above 3:1. That makes sense. Creating biofuels requires mostly really old technologies like fermentation and distillation. The EROEI isn’t great, but it’s good enough as long as we preserve it for places where it’s really needed, like long haul shipping and aviation. We’ll use battery and grid tied electric for the rest of transportation.
But what about synthetic fuels made with green hydrogen? Well, we’re taking electricity with is really efficient at doing work or absurdly efficient at delivering heat through heat pumps and instead throwing vast amounts of it away to make consumable fuels which run through internal combustion engines that operate at 20% efficiency with high EROEI fossil fuels. We’re well under biofuels, and a long way under where considering the merit order of what else we could be doing with green electricity.
It’s pretty easy for people who should otherwise know better to be caught by this. The fossil fuel industry has had decades to figure out how to fool people with this stuff. Very bright, well educated and well meaning people who don’t spend much time look at renewables, transmission, storage and electrification are easily fooled into thinking that the industry’s disinformation is credible.
The reason I was triggered to dash off this article was because one of those people was ensnared by the bad arguments and amplified them today. Don’t be that person.
Arecently announced project by General Electric to transform a power plant in Morocco is set to bring revolutionary environmental benefits to Africa.
In a news release published Jan. 30, it was announced that GE Vernova’s Gas Power business, the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water, and the Moroccan company Nareva signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on a feasibility study that will lead to solutions to reduce carbon pollution released by the Laâyoune Power Plant.
The plant, which is powered by three GE Vernova 6B heavy-duty gas turbines, will reportedly be the first facility in Africa to use green hydrogen to power GE Vernova’s gas turbines.
The collaboration is part of a continued effort to “bolster Morocco’s energy transition towards a lower-carbon future rapidly, especially in the power generation sector,” the release stated.
Green hydrogen is a clean-burning fuel that is produced using renewable energy sources to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The process is known as electrolysis. When the hydrogen is used as fuel, it doesn’t release any harmful carbon pollution into the atmosphere.
The 99-megawatt Laâyoune Thermal Power Plant is powered by heavy oil fuel. The first step in the collaboration between ONEE, Nareva, and GE Vernova will be to convert the gas turbine to 100% hydrogen.
The study is expected to take two years to complete, but the results will provide solutions that will lead to the full-scale integration of the gas turbines with green hydrogen, which would then facilitate 100% decarbonization of the power plant.
“With ambitious low-carbon energy projects under construction throughout the country, Morocco reinforces its position among global leaders in sustainable energy. The current renewable installed capacity is 4672 MW. Further renewable projects under development and construction will add more than 5 gigawatts of installed capacity across the country,” said Abderrahim El Hafidi, CEO of ONEE.
The release noted that Morocco plans to expand renewable electricity capacity from its share of 40% to 52% by 2030.
“Nareva will build on its recognized experience in renewable power to actively contribute to the advancement of the country’s energy goals, as well as to the competitive decarbonation of the continent,” said Aymane Taud, CEO of Nareva. “We are thrilled to explore the complementary opportunities between renewable energy, hydrogen production, and efficient gas-fired combustion technologies to provide our country with efficient, flexible power plants that also produce less CO2.”
GE Vernova’s expertise with wind turbines, solar and energy storage solutions, grid systems, and power conversion technologies will be key elements to enable the green hydrogen value chain, the release noted.
“We look forward to joining forces to provide a reliable and less carbon-intense source of reserve power that will also be a major contributor to mitigating the variability of the grid,” said Joseph Anis, president and CEO for GE Vernova’s Gas Power business in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
“Rapid renewable energy growth presents system operators and energy providers with the increasingly difficult task of continuously ensuring grid stability. Highly flexible gas turbines can complement variable renewable energy and help stabilize the grid with reliable power supply,” Anis added.
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The US could soon surpass China as the world leader in rare earth minerals after more than 2.34 billion metric tons were discovered in Wyoming.
American Rare Earths Inc announced that the reserves near Wheatland dramatically surpass the Asian nation’s 44 million metric tons, saying it 'exceeded our wildest dreams’ after drilling only about 25 percent of the property.
The company has a stake in 367 mining claims across 6,320 acres of land in the Halleck Creek Project, along with four Wyoming mineral leases on 1,844 acres on the same project now called Cowboy State Mine.
The types of minerals at the site are used in smartphones, hybrid car motors and military technologies - among others.
However, China recently announced a ban on rare earth extraction in December 2023.
Don Swartz, CEO of American Rare Earths, stated following the nation’s announcement: ‘China is driven to maintain its market dominance.
‘This is now a race.’
Now, two months later, Swartz and his team are working to break China’s lock on the market.
American Rare Earths conducted the first drilling in March 2023, which determined there were 1.2 million metric ton estimates in northeastern Wyoming, the Cowboy State Daily reported.
But a second attempt in the fall uncovered 64 percent more.
These results are illustrative of the enormous potential of the project when the resource increased by 64 percent during a developmental drilling campaign, which increased measured/indicated resources by 128 percent,’ Shwartz said in a statement this week.
‘Typically, you’ll see the resource decrease as infill drilling takes place – instead, we’re seeing the opposite, with only 25 percent of the project being drilled to this point.
Decreasing access to rare earth minerals put US munition production at risk
The rare earth minerals uncovered at the site included oxides of neodymium, praseodymium, samarium, dysprosium and terbium.
Magnets made from neodymium are used in hard disc drives and mobile phones, while praseodymium is used in high-strength alloys in aircraft engines.
Dysprosium is used to make control rods in nuclear reactors, and terbium is used in low-energy lightbulbs and mercury lamps.
The extraction process would use an open pit on the surface, which is the most common method used throughout the world for mineral mining.
One example is the particularly massive Bingham Canyon mine near Salt Lake City, Utah, which is about three-quarters of a mile deep and about 2.5 miles wide.
While open-pit mining is an environmental hazard, it is still the fastest way to extract minerals - companies can pull as much as 20,000 tons a day.
The gaping hole in the ground is also safer for workers, compared to tunnels that go miles below the surface.
American Rare Earth is not the only company in the new gold rush' out west, as US-based Ramaco Resources has a stake near Sheridan, Wyoming that could be worth around $37 billion.
Ramaco Resources CEO Randall Atkins told Cowboy State Daily: 'We only tested it for 100, 200 feet, which is about the maximum you’d ever want to do a conventional coal mine.
'Much deeper than that, and the cost would be prohibitive to mine for $15-a-ton coal. But there are seams that go down almost to 1,000 feet. So, we’re drilling down into the deeper levels to see what’s down there.'
Ramaco estimated in May that it had 800,000 metric tons of rare earths, but then announced in December that amount was up to 1.2 million.
Neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium have also been found at the site - but the amount does not compare to what American Rare Earth has uncovered.
Alan Anderson heads the energy practice with the law firm of Polsinelli and says when he hears arguments against wind and solar, he thinks of bears and Bigfoot.
“Bears are real – if you have a bear in your campsite, that’s not good,” the Kansas City, Missouri-based attorney said. “But if someone says there’s a Bigfoot in their campsite, it’s not real.
“We’re burdened by having to give factual information that’s backed by science and engineering, whereas the other side’s not. So we’re at a disadvantage,” he said.
The issue: Do wind turbines kill birds and bats? The short answer: Yes, wind turbines can kill both bats and birds. But the more important question is how many they kill compared with other sources.
A study to be published in 2024 found that wind farms had no statistically significant effect on bird counts. But another kind of energy did. Fracking reduced the total number of birds counted in near shale and oil production sites by 15%.
And all of that is separate from considering the impact of climate change.
The National Audubon Society has estimated that as many as two-thirds of North American bird species – 398 species – are at risk of extinction due to changes in habitat caused by global warming.
The issue: Are solar farms dangerous for birds? The answer: Some water birds can mistake a large solar farm for a body of water and attempt to land on it, which can harm the birds. However, according to the National Audubon Society, some developers are adding special patterns to panels or using other strategies to minimize the risk of crash landings. Audubon also notes that many states require solar developers to grow native plants in and among solar farms, benefiting birds and other pollinators.
The issue: Power produced by wind and solar is just exported to people in other areas. Why should we have to produce it here? The answer: Agricultural communities have always exported what they produce, whether it’s crops or livestock. “The beef and potatoes that ranchers and dairymen produce in Idaho don’t all stay in Idaho,” said John Robison, public lands director for the Idaho Conservation League.
People in those communities see wheat and corn and soy being grown, see combines and grain bins, and know there’s money for farmers and taxes for their communities. Solar advocates and energy developers say their task is to persuade people living near turbines or solar farms to look at them and realize it means jobs and better-funded schools and repaired roads.
The issue: Will worn-out solar panels overwhelm dumps with waste? The answer: Improved standards for solar panels and wind turbines mean both have much longer lifespans today than they did a decade ago. Panels typically last 30 to 35 years while turbines have a lifespan of about 30 years.
At that point, it’s true: They must be decommissioned and disposed of. But the trash this will eventually produce pales in comparison to that produced by households, coal ash and plastic waste.
Globally, municipal waste is expected to reach 70 billion metric tons by 2050, coal ash (the byproduct of burning coal) more than 45 billion metric tons and plastic waste 12 billion metric tons, a study published in the journal Nature Physics in October 2023 found.
In comparison, even in the worst-case scenario, waste from solar panels is expected to reach 160 million metric tons globally by 2050.
*I will add that the solar developers I know assume and plan for solar recycling at end of life, and every solar ordinance I am aware of requires a bond be posted sufficient to pay for decommissioning at end of life of a project, to be reviewed every 3-5 years and adjusted for inflation. My recent interviews with experts Henry Hieslemair and Heather Mirletz addressed this issue as well.
The issue: Do solar panels contain toxic materials such as arsenic, cadmium and gallium? Will that leach out of them in the rain?
The answer: There are a couple different issues here, including questions of what’s really in the panels and also whether any of that stuff is actually risky. Here’s the breakdown.
