What comes after Lithium-ion?
THE FUTURE OF ENERGY STORAGE - WITH GEORGE CRABTREE
What comes after Lithium Ion batteries? It’s one of the most important energy questions in the world! Everything in the future of electronics, road vehicles, renewables, the electricity grid and even commercial aviation hinges on the answer.
And it’s another tough one to navigate when not a week passes without some start-up claiming they’ve a new miracle solution in the works, usually based on some new combination of elements from the periodic table, which they promise will beat all-comers in high energy density, reliability, price, recharge cycles, storage capacity, and everything else we ever wanted in a battery.
So who to go to for a grounded, pragmatic and truly expert vision of our energy future? I wanted a deep thinker at the absolute global cutting-edge of energy storage science and engineering, and I found the perfect person: Dr George Crabtree, Director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) at Argonne National Laboratory.
ARGONNE: INVENTING THE FUTURE OF ENERGY
Argonne National Laboratory has a blue-ribbon pedigree in reinventing energy. This Federally-funded lab came out of the Chicago-based component of the Manhattan Project led by the legendary Enrico Fermi, with a mission to extend non-weapons nuclear science and design and produce the first power-producing nuclear reactors. You cannot get more pedigree than that!
Today it is home to a broad portfolio of fundamental science and engineering projects spanning renewable energy, superconductivity, energy storage technologies and much else besides. Fundamental is an important word here. Argonne scientists are given more freedom to explore the raw science (whereas commercial organisations are typically tied to the shorter commercialisation timeframes demanded by investors). They then build on their work by partnering with the best commercial and non-commercial research organisations around the world.
Passing through the Argonne security gates on a typically cold and windy November day, I felt like I was arriving at the centre of the energy universe.
MEETING GEORGE CRABTREE
How to do justice to all George has achieved? Member of the National Academy of Sciences, four times winner of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Award for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment in Solid State Physics, winner of the Kammerlingh Onnes Prize, winner of the Energy Systems Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Co-chair of various programs for the Undersecretary of Energy, testimony to the U.S. Congress on the hydrogen economy and … Here’s that link to his bio again so you can read the rest!
Perhaps most importantly, George Crabtree is a living personification of multidisciplinary. Everything about JCESR is multidisciplinary. Has to be, to tackle the multi-faceted challenges involved. So too, it’s Director.
His wide-ranging research interests really came out in our conversation as we talked superconductivity, minerals supply, long-haul trucks, aviation, ultracapacitors, and more. And what a wonderful host he turned out to be! In his modest office with only a small presidential photograph giving hint to his considerable standing in his field, George immediately put me at ease with his friendliness and genuine enthusiasm for sharing his work, not to mention making us cups of tea – one of which you will hear me occasionally slurping during the podcast (sorry!)
You’ll find the recording and full transcript below. Enjoy!
CHECK OUT THE PODCAST TRANSCRIPT →
DEFINITE VIEWS ON THE FUTURE OF BATTERIES
Having listened to the podcast and/or read the transcript, wasn’t it great how definitive George was on big long-term questions? Not much in the way of equivocation, was there? I especially enjoyed this because scientists habitually acknowledge the challenges and uncertainties, and while George took care to do this, especially with respect to the timeframes, he was also able to clearly express confidence about the anticipated breakthroughs in battery technology research.
He is an optimist. He can, as I like to phrase it, ‘see the pathways’ to the step-change replacements to Lithium-ion. This confidence was my biggest takeaway from the meeting.
And while we might expect various incremental and interim technologies to hit the market along the journey, Argonne is looking beyond those and aiming BIG.
When I challenged him again on his confidence after switching off the recorder, he gave me a knowing smile and reminded me that it took twenty years to develop the lithium-ion battery. Translation: that step-change might take time, but we’ll do it!
Oh, and the paper he referred to is Thermodynamic analysis on energy densities in batteries, by Chen-Xi Zu and Hong Li, published in Energy & Environmental Science, August 2011
OTHER ELEMENTS OF OUR ENERGY FUTURE
Other highlights of the conversation I particularly enjoyed:
George’s definitiveness on the next decade for Li-ion in electric vehicles, where it works and where it doesn’t, and his detailed breakdown of all the looming challenges of the Li-ion ramp-up, from minerals sources through mining and refining methods to manufacturing.
We were in agreement over some of the misunderstandings about hydrogen, and I especially loved his way of illustrating the weaknesses of hydrogen by doing a side-by-side comparison with fossil-fuel hydrocarbons. I remain convinced that H2 has a vital and specialized role to play in our energy future, but that this role is MUCH smaller than its proponents would have us believe and that ‘doubling-up’ on the complexity of powertrains is the death of H2 in passenger vehicles. Sorry Toyota.
Finding out that George is as excited as I am about the prospects for electrifying short-range aviation – although he differed on the energy densities required – more homework for me when I present on this!
His observations about ammonia for replacing heavy fuel oil in ships. This one has been coming thick and fast lately and I haven’t been able to provide good answers. It was fun listening to George’s comments.
Those organic molecule flow-batteries that JCESR is working on for the grid – how good do they sound? Not only long duration storage systems, cheap and scalable, but self-repairing too! And how about borrowing new tools from the biosciences, and using AI to select candidates from the vast ‘whitespace’ of unexplored organic molecules!
His warm words for high-temperature superconductor guru Paul Chu, a truly great scientist and a truly remarkable human being, who is also doing his utmost to reinvent the future of clean energy for the better! I wrote about my 2019 visit with Paul here.
WORKING TOWARDS THE NEXT BREAKTHROUGH
What a joy this visit was, and what a learning experience to absorb George’s insights and to hear his confidence! From now on I’m looking past all those ‘quickdraw’ announcements and keeping close tabs on the big battery targets being pursued by Argonne and its partners.
Thank you, George. And all power to you and your colleagues as you strive to do your part to save this beautiful planet!