Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
Could the future of electric power lie in your kitchen?
For years, lithium has been battery royalty.
But now, a humbler contender is stepping out of the kitchen and into the spotlight.
Sodium, the key element in plain old salt.
It's cheap, abundant, and surprisingly powerful.
Is it just a backup plan or could salt truly reshape the energy world?
Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm He Yang. For today's program, I'm joined by Steve Hatherley and Ding Hung in the studio.
First on today's show, imagine zipping through city streets on an electric scooter powered by something as common as table salt.
Sounds like science fiction?
It's already reality in China, where sodium batteries are fueling everything from millions of e -scooters to massive energy stations.
The salty solution is gaining serious ground.
We discuss why China is so excited about it, or why should everybody be excited about it, how it stacks up against traditional lithium, what it means for vehicles, grid storage, and the global race to power up with salt.
Well, lithium batteries have been the darling of the energy world.
How does sodium batteries compare with lithium?
And why has the world been obsessed with lithium batteries?
Yeah, lithium batteries are the current kind of energy champions because they're lightweight and they can hold a lot of power.
And they use lithium as their primary energy storing component, which allows them to hold a large amount of energy in a really small and light package.
And that makes them ideal for electronics like your phone or your laptop, right?
So you get a lot of power in there in a little tiny package.
and also it's used for powering the majority of electric cars today.
I think you can think of lithium batteries like high -performance sports cars.
I think that's a good example.
They're fast, they're powerful, but they're also expensive, just like high -end sports cars are.
They're expensive to maintain.
They have got this really great energy density.
And what that means is that they can store a lot of energy for their size.
They have long range, meaning that they last for a long time.
And the performance for electric vehicles with lithium batteries is really good, but it comes at a cost, both in terms of production expense and also supply chain.
The supply chain is quite complex for lithium batteries.
And it seems to me that lithium is increasingly becoming a limited resource.
resource. That's why it is often called by some people as the new oil because the supply chain is controlled by a few limited countries like 70 % of the world.
Lithium comes from a number of countries.
So that's why I think sodium battery is now becoming coming onto to our table, because instead of relying on rare lithium, these batteries, these sodium batteries can utilize sodium, which is readily available from our common table salt.
And this fundamental difference between these two categories of batteries in terms of the raw materials, I guess it's arguably a game changer for cost and supply.
Yeah, and you asked why the world has been, air quotes, obsessed with lithium.
It's because for years, no other battery chemistry could compete with its ability to provide the amount of power that it provides, and also the range or the amount of time that the battery can last. And that's what's made it, up until this point, the go -to choice for advancing electric mobility and also for portable tech. Yes.
So what are sodium batteries then?
You guys, we all mentioned table salt.
It can't be as easy as putting salt into a battery, right?
So explain to us. Yeah, well, I mean, it's not far off.
Sodium batteries, they're called salt batteries, and they utilize sodium from ordinary salt as the main component instead of lithium.
And that means that they can be manufactured using materials that are way cheaper and way more widely available all around the world.
And that would reduce the reliance on specific mining regions.
You can think of it like this.
You could swap gold for copper in a circuit.
Now, copper isn't very sexy, right?
It's not very exciting.
Gold is much more exciting.
And sodium isn't as fancy, or sexy if you will, in terms of raw energy density, but it is a lot cheaper and it's a lot more accessible.
And that lower cost of the raw materials makes sodium ion batteries a highly, highly, highly attractive alternative, especially when you're looking at applications where that extreme energy density isn't a top priority.
And there we're talking about things like electric city scooters and things like that.
Well, scooters is something that in China I know a lot of people would hop on for everyday transportation.
And tell us, why is China excited about sodium batteries?
Yeah, I think China is particularly excited because China has extensive salt deposits, giving China a strategic advantage, let's put it this way, in terms of developing this technology without depending on foreign lithium supplies.
It's like having a giant salt shaker for energy, and this would offer unparalleled energy security, I guess, because China really boasts vast salt lake resources domestically.
That's a geographical advantage that China is enjoying.
And I think this technology really offers China a path towards enhancing its energy security and reduce its dependence on imported critical minerals like lithium.
Because nowadays, when we talk about trade or international supply chain, things are really securitized and politicized.
Sometimes it's really beyond our own control.
In China, for everyday applications, we know very well that the electric vehicle market is well established, especially scooters.
It is a main way for people to get around on their electric scooters.
And the market here is becoming a real -world testing ground and a major driver for sodium battery development.
development. You've got Chinese companies like Yade, am I saying that correctly?
Yadi. Yadi, thank you for the correction.
They make electric bicycles and motorcycles and scooters.
They're at the forefront, and they're testing electric scooters powered by these salt batteries.
They have live test drives being conducted in cities like Hangzhou.
The efforts are really significant, given that there are 55 million scooters, two -wheeled scooters, that were sold here in China in 2023 alone.
And there are hundreds of millions of scooters on the roads, it feels like, and it's a trend here, and it's a part of everyday life.
And if you could have that applied at scale, this could, as you mentioned before, be a real, real game changer.
Yes, indeed. And also we're seeing that not only is this technology being utilized at home, And it can even be exported.
According to a recent report by Fujian Daily, a batch of sodium iron power battery packs for vehicles produced by CATL, a leading company behind this technology, was successfully exported after passing inspection by Ningde Customs and under Fujio Customs on January the 3rd of this year.
And this marks the first ever export of sodium -ion automotive power batteries from China.
Yeah, really cool, right?
And there are a lot of advantages to these.
And like I said before, the cost -effectiveness is a primary driver for the adoption.
And for consumers, it could mean more affordable electric vehicles like scooters and even city cars.
ours. You could say a sodium ion battery could be likened to choosing one humble vehicle maker over a luxury vehicle maker, if you will, in terms of the material cost savings.
So that's really exciting.
And that's one big advantage.
Another one is that they're safer.
They're much safer and they're less prone to thermal runaway compared to lithium batteries, some lithium batteries.
Yeah, thermal runaway.
This is a dangerous condition where a battery overheats uncontrollably.
This could potentially lead to fires.
I think it's happened in the past. And sodium ion batteries, they have this superior thermal ability, stability, and that makes them a lot safer, especially when you're looking at mass market vehicles like scooters, where safety, of course, is the number one priority.
What are some of the other advantages or maybe disadvantages that you see for sodium batteries?
Yeah. According to the information I have gathered, one more advantage it seems to be enjoying is that it can perform particularly well in extreme weather, especially in very cold weather.
Some types of sodium batteries are said to be capable of operating across a wide range of temperatures.
Because in the case of those lithium batteries, they can actually lose a significant amount of capacity.
In the case of cold temperatures, that's not the case with regard to sodium batteries.
They are capable of operating from minus 40 Celsius to 70 Celsius.
So this makes them really ideal for use in colder climates, especially in northern or northeastern part of China during the winter season.
Or at extremely hot temperatures.
I wouldn't personally plan on using them in those extreme temperatures, but apparently they are capable of functioning quite well.
Well, one of the downsides is that they can't store as much energy, right?
They have less power per unit of weight or per unit of volume.
So that term is energy density, right?
It's the amount that a battery can hold relative to its size or to its weight.
And for practical purposes, that means that your electric vehicle is going to be traveling at a shorter range than it would be with a lithium battery.
A lithium scooter, for example, might go 100 kilometers on a single charge, but a sodium battery might only achieve 70 kilometers.
So there would be a significant disadvantage there in terms of distance traveled.
So it makes so much more sense to have it on a scooter than in a car.
Yes. Yeah, right, especially if you live in, let's say, a smaller size Chinese city, or maybe a village, then this sounds like such a great option for those folks.
But if you live in Beijing, and let's say just coming to work, it takes me one hour driving one way, and I think I'll probably stay away from the sodium battery powered vehicles, just because of the range anxiety.
Well, yeah, exactly.
And we're going to get to that point a little bit later.
But that's what I was talking about before when I said that when energy density isn't really the top priority, then it doesn't matter.
Right. And that's a perfect example.
If you're if you're using your electric scooter or your electric vehicle to commute to work and back or to go to the grocery store and back or just everyday life things, then you wouldn't have that concern at all.
Can I also please just highlight one mega advantage here?
That is, sodium is generally so much less polluting and less resource intensive than lithium.
Just think about the, you guys mentioned the abundance of salt, and especially in a country like China, I guess we're lucky that way, then extracting the sodium from the salt, it doesn't require destructive mining, like lithium or cobalt.
And there's no need for rare earths.
And we know this is something that's a coveted resource that countries could be competing for.
So that just makes sodium a lot, using it a lot sense.
sense. But also when you look deeper, refining sodium still requires energy and it involves high temperatures, which means you'll probably still need to use fossil fuel to get that done.
And that's a downside of the environmental argument.
But all in all, if you look at this aspect of things, sodium is the clear winner here.
Yeah. Well, there is one more pretty pretty significant disadvantage and that's that they generally have a shorter cycle life compared to their lithium ion friends cycle life refers to the number of times that's the number of times that a battery can be fully charged and then discharged before its capacity significantly degrades we see it happen right you buy a phone and then within a couple of years the battery just isn't the same as it used to be so that's what we're talking about here there is ongoing research to improve this, but current sodium batteries may not last as long as the best lithium
batteries in terms of overall charge cycles.
That's another downside to the salt batteries.
So I guess the reality is that significant challenges remain for sodium batteries, especially with regard to its immature manufacturing process.
For example, due to the underdeveloped technology in terms of electrode material production, that's a technical term.
But anyway, the de facto rate in the manufacturing process of these sodium batteries can reach somewhere between 15 % and 20%.
That's very high, actually, from an industrial point of view.
So the cost will be pushed up as a result.
So although there have been reports about, say, sodium batteries being used in some vehicles, no official sales data has been disclosed so far, meaning that the technology is still in the early phase or the experimental phase and far from large -scale industrial or commercial use.
Well, that being said, I think that's a really key point you made there, Ding Hung, that for commercial use, maybe we're still seeing there's a big gap.
But in terms of energy storage, we've already seen in actually 2024 that China has put its first large -scale lithium -sodium hybrid energy storage station in operation.
So it's not one or the other, but in the technology world, in the energy world, there are some exciting innovations happening and putting into use.
Yeah, you're right.
It's not an either or situation, right?
This is just an advancement in battery technology that didn't exist before.
Coming back, we'll get to some effects on the environment in a moment, but another challenge I think that it faces, We talk about the distance that you can travel, right?
A lot of electric car owners would have, or potential owners, would have, I would think, a pretty high expectation of how far the battery can take them on a single charge, right?
But sodium batteries yet cannot deliver anything in the 500 kilometer range and consumer expectations for high end electric vehicles that might give them, and this is the point you made earlier, that consumer anxiety, which might lead to a lack of trust for salt batteries versus lithium batteries, which are already really well established in terms of what they can do and how far they can go.
Yes. And what else has China been doing in terms of battery related news, particularly regarding grid storage?
The grid storage is, yeah, the advantage environmentally.
This was a global first, actually.
China launched the world's first grid forming sodium ion battery energy storage plant.
This is in Fuyang in Anhui province.
And that's a lot of difficult words, right?
So basically what what it is.
It's a salt battery power plant.
And it's this giant facility that stores excess electricity generated from renewable sources, things like solar or wind farms. And they're using sodium ion batteries rather than lithium ion.
And they've also established grid forming capability.
Now, what that means is that it can stabilize the electricity grid by basically mimicking the inertia of your traditional power plant.
This is a major, major, major development because this allows China to integrate much more renewable energy into its grid without needing as many coal or gas power plants to back them up.
This makes the grid cleaner and more reliable.
And what I mean by that is with renewable energy, solar, sun, wind, it can become unstable, right?
if it's cloudy or if the weather doesn't cooperate.
If mother nature doesn't cooperate, then your traditional grid is going to become unstable.
But with the sodium ion battery system, it can immediately step in to provide stability and reliable power, and it can help to smooth out those bumps, if you want to call them bumps, and this can ensure a consistent electricity supply.
And like I said, when you can use sodium instead of your typical coal or gas power plants to back them up.
This is a major win for the environment.
And we've established that here in China, basically, this is one area that a lot of research has gone into.
And we see some really promising examples of it being used.
What about in other countries?
If it's so good, then I suppose everybody's researching on it.
Yeah, it's not only China that is doing experiment and a pioneering work on this particular front.
Several other countries are also actively investing in and doing research about sodium battery technologies.
And I guess this global interest, let's put it this way, in this category really stems from this desire for more sustainable, cost -effective, and a secure alternative to lithium.
In Europe, for example, there is a growing interest in those batteries for various applications including low voltage vehicle segments and starter batteries present a compelling opportunity for sodium adaptation thanks to their cold cranking capability according to some industrial experts.
I guess the European Union is reportedly planning a significant financial push to try to increase the financial incentive for the relative development.
Yeah, I was going to say there's a big push.
There's the European Union, the United States.
There's also exploration for sodium batteries for stationary energy storage applications like home power walls, things like that.
India is also making significant strides with their plans to build their own domestic manufacturing manufacturing capacity.
The thing is, though, is that these countries are big companies.
They've invested a lot of money into lithium already.
Already. And this is part of the problem, right, is that they've put so much money into it.
This new alternative comes along.
You know, what what do you what do you do at that point?
Right. So there there is going to be another big challenge.
Definitely. And with all the exciting discoveries here in China and also the examples we've provided for you, how lithium battery excuse me, sodium batteries are being used in various ways.
But the market remains quite niche, even in China.
What does the future hold for sodium batteries?
And could they replace?
How can they influence the market for lithium batteries altogether?
together. Yeah, I guess you've already given the answer with regard to your question.
I mean, it's unlikely that sodium batteries is going to completely replace the lithium battery for all applications, because at the moment, I think lithium batteries are still way more superior in terms of their energy density, and they remain our preferred choice for application.
So I think a more likely scenario we're going to see is that in the future, these two types of batteries will complement each other, or the sodium battery will play a complementary role to the lithium battery Because I think these two technologies will likely to coexist, each serving their specific respective niche markets, and this will be the best -case scenario.
That's what I was thinking when I said it isn't an A or B situation.
You don't just choose lithium or sodium batteries.
You can have both, right?
You can have your cake and eat it, too.
too, I suppose, if you want to say it like that.
Because it is going to be niche.
And that's what the experts say, is that this is where sodium ion batteries could really be successful, with that niche application, based on their unique performance traits.
Being able to function very well at extreme temperatures, that's a major advantage.
You ever see that message on your smartphone?
You're out in the sun, maybe you're suntanning or something, you're at the beach and you check your phone and it says overheating, remove it from the sun immediately, probably wouldn't have that with the sodium batteries.
Also the abundance that we talked about, right?
It's just, there's more of it and it's more readily available.
So it's not going to replace, the performance isn't good enough to replace lithium batteries.
It's just not good enough, but yet there is a place for it in this world.
Well, sodium, lithium, cobalt, Nickel, why should we care about this energy world?
Well, I would say because what powers our phones, cars, and cities is no longer just about tech. It's about geopolitics, sustainability, and access.
Lithium is scarce, expensive, and geopolitically sensitive.
Sodium, by contrast, is cheap, abundant, and apparently everywhere, even in your salt shaker.
If sodium batteries can scale up, while we've established there are many hurdles, they could provide a different picture for the clean energy world.
Lower the cost of electric vehicles, reduce global resource tensions, and give countries more control over their energy future.
And that we know. If you're decision makers in a country, you are definitely thinking about that.
