Please don't hurt our cobalt miners

This Washington Post has a story about cobalt, perhaps the most expensive element in a Li-Ion battery, shows how we actually get the element that is inside our batteries.

About half of the cobalt in the world is obtained from the Congo. Demand has risen as batteries have become more prevalent. This makes prices go up, which has lead more miners to dig for cobalt ore to cash in on the rush.

But a lot of these new miners are not those that work for the mining companies in the Congo. The mining companies are expanding, but not at the rate that allows for independent diggers to all work for them. These independents are finding their own way, cutting through the rock by hand and moving 2 tons of ore a day.

But it's dangerous work, and hard. And after the ore rises from the ground, children will frequently be employed to carry it to a stream for processing. Processing that the women do by hand. And this is hard on the children, but if they live through it, and pretty much all of them do, they will grow big enough to make their own holes and make $3-$4 dollars a day pounding the ore from the rock they pray will not fall down on them.

And the women will have to deal with water full of tailings. Those traces of metal in their water where they process the ore is the same water they use for the rest of life.

Seems like a harsh way to live. But if you ask them if we in the comfortable United States could remove this life from them and close their private mines, they'd tell us they'd rather we not do that.

Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winning economist wrote "In 1993, child workers in Bangladesh were found to be producing clothing for Wal-Mart, and Senator Tom Harkin proposed legislation banning imports from countries employing underage workers. The direct result was that Bangladeshi textile factories stopped employing children. But did the children go back to school? Did they return to happy homes? Not according to Oxfam, which found that the displaced child workers ended up in even worse jobs, or on the streets -- and that a significant number were forced into prostitution."

Sure, we'd love these workers to have better lives at the same time we get better batteries. But please don't just close down the option they've chosen as the best option they have available today.

First, have a better option for them, and then close down their current lifestyle. But obviously, you realize that if you could make a choice for them that they can see is better, they would close down their dangerous work themselves before you had the chance.

Freezing Lead Acid batteries

 Freezing a Lead Acid battery, whether it be a sealed type or not, depends on the state of charge. The electrolyte is mostly water, and the expansion of frozen water is what damages the battery when it freezes.

When a Lead Acid battery charges and discharges the properties of the electrolyte change. When the specific gravity is high it is harder to freeze. The sulphuric acid becomes much less dense in the water as the battery discharges. And the acid is at its highest density, and the electrolyte at its highest specific gravity when the battery is fully charged. As the electrolyte gets closer to the specific gravity of water it's easier to freeze.

So a fully charged Lead Acid battery probably won't freeze most places on earth, while a fully discharged battery could freeze just a little bit below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. And freezing doesn't just potentially crack the case, but there can be internal damage to the plates and mounts that can ruin the battery.

So the best thing to do with Lead Acid batteries is to keep them charged when there is a potential for temps to get below 32 degrees F.

And if you think a Lead Acid battery has ice in it but hasn't fully frozen, warm it up before you charge it or further damage can occur. This is because the ice will not combine with the acid, which is part of the charging process. Also, the water that isn't ice will gather a higher concentration of sulfuric acid that is far too high for the materials in the battery. And further, the battery has a risk of overcharging because without the right amount of active electrolyte, the charge cycle will end prematurely. And then the battery will be left in a somewhat discharged state even after the charger has completed its cycle which can set up more problems later.

Flying batteries!

Making the battery part of the structure of a vehicle to save space and weight isn't a new idea. But the numbers haven't exactly worked in the favor of making these vehicles. It usually has more to do with cost than engineering. Although some argue that cost is just a part of engineering, what I mean is that making the structure be the actual battery has taken some engineering skill, but that work is complete. It turns out a battery installed into the structure is just better when it comes to cars, small electronic devices, and grid battery installations.

But the cost factor changes somewhat when one talks about high-end aircraft, and Luke Workman thinks the numbers work out.

In fact, Luke thinks it works out better the bigger and higher-end one makes the airplane.

And electric airplanes are certainly of interest. There have been electric planes for almost 50 years, but there hasn't been an advanced enough battery to make them anything more than a curiosity. There were 2 prototypes that flew over the English Channel last year. And there are some other private ventures making kits today.

With today's best technologies, a human-carrying craft is almost useful. But maybe we just aren't thinking big enough.

VIEWS on BATTERY NEWS: Ultracapacitor gets close to prototype. Samsung S7 replacements come with questions. LG building another factory.

A capacitor maker, UltraCap Ltd., is set to bring their new energy storage device into final testing. They plan to replace Sealed Lead Acid batteries, which are mostly used to start cars.

That means this capacitor will probably have a large leap in capacity over current versions. It probably will have a low self-discharge. And the cost will probably be only 2-4 times as much as SLA. This is probably the only way a capacitor can replace the robust starter battery.

But since a comparison to SLA is being made, capacity is probably not near Li-Ion, while cost is probably near the same.

Samsung has been replacing S7 units as quick as they can. And now that people have gotten a hold of the new devices, there are new reports of excess heat. This might be nothing, but we suggest Samsung move fast to get to the bottom of the new reports to make sure this doesn't turn from a jab into a knockout 1-2 combination.

LG is building another factory. This time in Poland. LG has battery factories outside of S. Korea, notably in Michigan, United States. That factory has not been running at capacity. Still, the factory is paying for itself, so the company is betting on the future and breaking ground in Poland to have a leg up in European markets.

And when the US EV market picks up, they won't have to build a factory but they'll just turn up the speed on their factory in Michigan.

Don't eat batteries

Coin cells look a little like shiny candy.

But take care because a swallowed battery doesn't just pass through. Lithium is very reactive chemically and it will burn a person's insides. And even though a coin cell starts sealed, it will quickly fall apart in stomach acid especially if it gets even a single chew before going down the throat.

Obviously, this is more dangerous for children than for adults. Consumer reports put out a great video a few years ago driving this home.

So what can we do to protect our children from this? Treat batteries like medicine. Keep them in a place that is hard for children to get to. And watch out for places where lithium batteries are used that are easy to open.

Although lithium batteries are the greatest threat, swallowing silver oxide or alkaline button cells should be cause for an immediate doctor call. Swallowing a lithium battery is cause for an immediate trip to the emergency room.

Although there haven't been as many people killed by batteries as have been struck by lightning, a number of battery ingestion incidents could have been prevented. It just takes some knowledge of what a swallowed battery can do sometimes and a willingness to do something about it.

The effect of current low Solar Panel prices

Solar panel prices have come down a lot in just the last few of years. It's not hard to get the average solar panel for less than $1 per watt. And because of the low cost, it's becoming a less major cost to a solar system - which means further reductions in the cost of the panels themselves will have less impact on the cost of a solar installation overall.

The cost of the associated electronics and installation will be between $1 and $5 per watt depending on how much of this installation you do yourself and how much energy the associated equipment needs to handle and what is done with it. And those prices should come down somewhat, but probably not at the dizzying rate that solar panels came down.

So let's take a look at the non-panel part of a solar system. Right now the inverters and controllers are not mass produced because we don't need so many of them. But because the price of solar panels has come down so much, the 'break even' time of a solar installation can easily be near a dozen years. And with 20 years of life on an installation, that is appealing enough that there are a lot more installations than there used to be making mass production of associated equipment more appealing. And consolidation is happening and the equipment is becoming standardized which means installation is simpler and thus will cost less.

But everything we've been talking about so far is with either a small battery backup or no battery. If one does not use a battery they can, in many places, connect to the grid and sell back electricity to the power company when their solar panels produce more energy than they are using. So there is no need for energy storage.

Having small installations of grid connected solar is well and good as long as there aren't too many of them. Because every grid connected system cumulatively adds to what the grid has to react to. If everyone gets a grid connected solar system the grid will not be able to handle it without an upgrade in equipment at the very least.

The straightforward way to solve this problem would be batteries that even out what is fed into the grid. But currently, batteries are expensive which makes non-grid-connected solar systems a rather small niche and grid connected battery systems less appealing. But we know that battery prices are getting better in little ways all the time and eventually it should add up to a system that people can use in a home or small business. And even if a majority of people don't buy a system like this, they will be able to reap the benefits of the advantages this kind of installation would provide.

Is Formula E going to be a big thing?

Formula E is the world's first mass appeal all-electric racing. The cars are fast and they look similar to the ultra-cool engined counterparts. But there have been a number of detractors.

Some say the noise, or lack thereof, removes a lot of the defining ambiance that F1, Nascar, Indy cars, and all the other styles of engined racing offer. You cannot get distracted by anything when the noise of the cars passing you is so loud that demands your attention by force. You can have a conversation and read a book if you like at a Formula E race.

And new technologies are sought to make the cars even quieter. Because in the world of electrics, efficiency is so much a part of the design that noise is a measurable waste.

And there are other problems in that the cars can't be refueled because to keep the battery in a car whipping down a bouncy road at over 100 miles per hour they had to secure it far too tightly to allow a battery quick-change during the race. Instead, two cars are used and the driver switches between them. They put the pit stop under a roof so spectators don't see how hokey it is.

Each car has enough battery power to last for 20 minutes or so. Which makes the races rather short. And this is with cars that reach only a little more than 1/2 the speeds that F1 racers do.

With all this, you'd think the sport might not be what the masses want. In the end, even if magnetic drive does become the norm, we'll keep those loud fast F1 cars around because they are the pinnacle of racing. But I'd beg to differ. If battery technology becomes good enough, it solves the last 3 problems. With higher battery capacities we can use bigger motors, and have longer races. And with better competition that faster and longer brings, the engineering problem of a battery quick change will be solved.

And noise? I imagine we'll get used to quiet. In fact, I expect a whole new crop of spectators will want to see these speed demons when they were not apt to witness the cars that assaulted their ears.

Will "everyone" have a grid battery someday?

Grid batteries in the home aren't a big thing yet. But will they ever be? Will it seem like everyone has a battery in their house?

It's hard to say. If batteries get so powerful and so inexpensive that used, but still useful ones, are put on the side of the road with a "free" sign on them... I tend to think just about everyone would get one just on principle.

But short of that kind of price point, I tend to think only a minority of households will sport a backup battery even at the lower prices we expect batteries to be at in the coming years. The reason for this is that most people would prefer the kind of peace of mind that comes with a battery back-up as a service rather than handle it themselves. It all comes down to cost.

No matter how inexpensive batteries get, the utilities will always have the advantage in scale and transfer equipment. By transfer equipment, I'm talking about the chargers, inverters, and switches. Since their cost-per-house will be less expensive for these parts, they will be able to sell the battery backup service at such a reasonable rate that a majority won't go to the trouble of buying a battery and wiring their house for battery backup.

Let's say we achieve batteries that get 5 times more capacity and 5 times less cost than our current cells. Compared to the number of people that have a generator now, how many would get a home-battery? At those prices, I imagine a lot more. But relative to all households, not many have a generator now.

Using batteries to offset peak rates

All the consumer grid batteries and many of the commercial versions tout their ability to save money by charging at night when electricity rates are low and discharge during the day to avoid using grid electricity when the rates are high. And this makes sense.

But we need to be careful. If the grid is ever maintained in such a way to make it more robust, or if there become enough grid battery installations, then this price disparity between night and day will be lessened. And consequently, using this disparity in price between night and day to pay off the battery installation would take longer.

There is no doubt that grid batteries are a good idea. If nothing else, when solar and wind power become cheap enough to compete with coal and nuclear we'll need a battery to make them useful. And even if the disparity between night and day is lessened, with an inexpensive enough battery even a longer pay-off time will still make financial sense.

There are also people that say rate-shifting is a regulation problem and not an engineering problem. And if that's true it means that rate shifting could become fiscally unviable at the stroke of a pen. And this is true to some extent. But even if the regulations could change overnight, a lot more would have to change before it was politically possible. And it would not make grid batteries a bad idea in the context of renewable energy or simply as peace of mind that comes with a battery backup.

It's all about energy

Perhaps you remember, or perhaps this will be a bit of a history lesson; an icebox used to literally be ice in a box. Before there were refrigerators powered by electricity to compress freon, there were iceboxes that would fit a huge chunk of ice and that would keep the refrigerator cool.

But where did the ice come from? Initially, it came from places that would freeze in the winter. There was a huge industry to cut ice off of lakes and move it around by horse and steam-powered ships to keep refrigerators cool.

If you didn't live at a time where it was happening, or if you aren't old enough to hear about it from those who lived during that time, it might sound a little crazy. We've come a long way since then.

And nowadays we can take advantage of the idea efficiently. There are grocery stores that get a salt solution down to very cold temperatures during the night when electric rates are low. Then they use the cold solution directly to keep their refrigerators cold during the day.

It's similar to the way battery banks have been set up in both commercial and consumer locations to charge at night and use battery power during the day when rates are high. And in a general way, this is used for refrigeration, too. The difference is that pumping a salt solution seems to be more efficient. Although there are some questions about how much the salt solution system requires to maintain.

The Samsung Note 7 Battery... what we know

The story that's all the rage today is the continuing saga of the burning Samsung Note 7 batteries. Here's what we know so far.

Samsung is recalling all 2.5 million Note 7's that have been shipped. Each phone will be replaced and then each returned phone will be checked for a defective battery and refurbished. The problem is in the battery itself, not in the phone design and not all of the phones have a defective battery. However, Samsung is replacing all the phones to be sure they get any possible defective one. The new phones will begin being replaced on the 19th of September in certain markets, and the replacement roll-out will continue until all markets are covered.

One might ask why Samsung doesn't just replace the defective battery with a good one. And Samsung considered that, but they say they decided a recall would take care of their customers better. The battery is not a simple pop-off-the-cover-and-the-battery-falls-out kind of construction so that probably has a lot to do with that decision.

We are working at the bleeding edge of consumer technology. And as much as people want to have a safe battery, they also want to know that a company will care about their customer if a problem arises and do everything they can to fix the problem promptly and as smoothly as possible.

The great battery drive

Despite the low oil prices, electric cars are still a hot topic. Low oil prices mean that electric cars are not selling so well. Hybrids aren't selling very well either. But the global push toward electromagnetic drive is still getting huge investments.

Samsung SDI is investing in a large battery manufacturing plant in Hungary. LG Chem is building a plant in Poland. The Gigafactory can't make enough batteries now for Tesla, and the building isn't finished yet, so they are building as fast as they can to increase the Gigafactory output as quickly as possible.

Imagine when oil prices rise and BEVs get more popular again. The rush will be on to get current production up, and new more efficient batteries into production.

Why do we keep using batteries that burn

There have been a number of incidents with Li-Ion batteries. Boeing's Dreamliners had been grounded, there are numerous reports of the batteries in vape units or their spare batteries combusting on persons, we've heard of cells phone bursting into flames while on night stands and pillows, Tesla cars run into things and damage to the battery means the end of the car after it burns to the ground, etc.

So why do we keep doing this to ourselves? The answer is because it's what you want.  The market has spoken, and it wants a battery that has the highest amount of energy for a certain threshold of price. And we are willing to risk a certain amount of safety to get it. It's nothing more than human nature.

Rest assured, device manufacturers, aerospace engineers, car manufacturers, and any other industry that uses Li-Ion batteries are working hard to find a way to reduce this risk. And the market appreciates that to a point where it will be a run-away success if a solution is found.

Solutions are on the horizon. There are electrolytes that don't burn, and there are experimental constructions that don't get thermal runaway. And of course, there are a number of different chemistries that just don't burn as readily in the labs.

Comments on 9/11

Yesterday we remembered the attacks on the Twin Towers. And on this 15th anniversary, there is still heated discussion over possible government involvement, or possible government negligence, or possible unintended consequences from other indirect actions, or possible solutions to bringing the masterminds of the attackers to justice.

This is a blog about batteries, portable power, flashlights, and energy in general, so we don't normally talk about the political implications that are so thick that they cannot be avoided when one brings up 9/11. But we are an American company and everyone wants to talk about 9/11 when the date comes up.

So, I'm sorry to those who'd like us to have an opinion on the political possibilities. It's not that we don't care, it's just that we are here to serve you with great products and opinions on the power industry, not political opinions on international intrigue; Even though great political opinions do exist in the context of 9/11.

So let's remember the citizens and first responders at 9/11 15 years ago. Every one of them carried a flashlight powered by a battery. As mentioned in our FaceBook post yesterday, there were many of them that knew they were going in to help people and they might not come back out. But they were willing to take the risk for strangers who they considered neighbors and treated them like friends.

We salute those who continue to serve our citizens as first responders. And in our way, perhaps we can serve you with the best batteries and flashlights.