this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
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Citation needed.
Sodium-ion and maaaaybe iron are promising, with sodium-ion making the most headway.
https://batterycouncil.org/battery-facts-and-applications/about-sodium-batteries/
Not quite widely commercially available yet, but I wouldn't invest heavily in lithium is it was me.
Ehh.... Lithium batteries are going to be around for quite a while even if sodium ion batteries take off. It's just more energy dense than sodium ion, so it's always going to be better for things like portable electronics.
Sodium ion might take over the market for heavier batteries like stationary power banks.
Sure, not saying they're going away, just that investment in the new option would be how I would spend my money.
Consult a periodic table. Lithium will always out perform sodium. Sodium batteries only exist because lithium costs more, but these large deposits are being found worldwide every few months and lithium will drop in price as a commodity. At some point, recycling will require much less new lithium to be mined.
A periodic table doesnt dictate marginal rate of return on mining the element.
Consult a periodic table on which element conducts electricity best and then explain why copper is the most commonly used metal for wires.
Sodium is better in the more important ways than lithium.
Either state WTF you are talking about or find a better way to waste people's time.
I wrote it on other comments. I’m not here to summarize the internet for you.
Fair, but how about you instead justify your point? That seems like a more reasonable ask.
I’m not here to aggregate your content for you.
Wood is cheaper than steel. Which apparently is the most important way to be better in. But I wouldn't build a skyscraper out of it.
Saying that energy density is not important in energy storage technology is as stupid as saying that material strength is not important in building materials.
You know there are skyscrapers built out of wood, right? And they're kind of awesome.
I searched for "tallest wooden building" there actually is a list in wikipedia of the tallest buildings.
The tallest of the list is not even a building, it's a radio tower. At ~110m.
The closest city to me that has a skyscraper has a single skyscraper, and it is >150m tall.
I would not build a skyscraper out of wood.
Wait wait wait WAIT. I said skyscrapers can and ARE built out of wood. And your response was to IMMEDIATELY move the goal posts to bUt ThEy'Re nOT tHe TaLLeSt.
To that I say, not yet.
Taller "plyscapers" are being built. Oakwood Timber Tower is currently under development in London and will be 300m tall when it's completed. A proposed 350m tall project is being designed for Tokyo. Just because something isn't what we are used to doesn't mean we shouldn't try new and innovative things. Trees literally grow wood solely for the purpose of growing UP. They aren't limited in size because the wood isn't great at getting big, but because pushing water to the top gets harder and harder. Skyscrapers don't have that issue. Why would a material that literally evolved to grow tall be a bad for building tall buildings. Concrete is fragile, heavy, and slow to dry, but we still make it work. Saying we can't make skyscrapers out of wood is both factually untrue and unimaginative. Saying: "we've never done it this way and I refuse to consider any alternatives" is how we end up with stagnant outdated dull as dirt infrastructure.
I guess the Mjøstårnet isn't a skyscraper.
Nor is Ascent MKE.
I'd rather live in a world where we try new things and architecture evolves and FACTS ARE FACTS.
I apologize for pointing out wooden skyscrapers exist, are being built, AND ARE REALLY FUCKING COOL.
Again, those 2 are smaller than half the size of the random steel skyscraper I'm comparing it against. I could make a 1m tall sandcastle and claim sand is great at building castles. IDK if skyscraper has a formal definition, but I think you're missing the point.
Something being cool does not make it objectively better. Of course, we don't have to do everything the same way. Maybe the builders of the buildings had unique constraints that made wood better than steel in their case. Or maybe they did so for artistic reasons, which they deemed worth the cost or not using steel. Or maybe they just put an arbitrary constraint of themselves of "we must use wood because we want to".
Tall buildings made out of wood existing does not mean that it is a good default choice for building skyscrapers.
Sure, you claim that there are actual skyscrapers planned/being developed. But I wonder what sacrifices, if any, they had to make.
Maybe we have been using steel all this time because nobody ever thought of wood. But I find that unlikely.
This is HIGHLY dependent on use case
CATL claims an energy density near Li-ion with a definite advantage on cold and hot weather environments, no thermal runaway and 10,000 cycles. Also, it’s supposed to cost less because materials are much cheaper.
175Wh/kg very
Doubt (x)
Lithium is currently in a temporary dip in prices. It's going to go back up
Yes you may quote me, if you really need it.
Or leave it. For reasonable people, it is obvious anyway.
I already quoted you. I don't need your permission to do it.
If you're not gonna even try to defend your position you're just spreading misinformation.
LMAO
Have you not been paying attention to the development of sodium batteries? They are already surpassing LithIon batteries in energy density and cost.
Cost, yes, energy density, very much no.
So good for grid storage, bad for vehicles?
Yes. Chinese manufacturers are using sodium batteries in some low-range cheap city-cars, too. But fundamentally there is less energy storage in a charged sodium atom than a charged lithium atom so it seems sodium batteries must always be bigger and heavier than equivalent-capacity lithium batteries.
Well the battery chemistry will always include much more than just the loose charge carrier of Na+ or Li+ or whatever cation floating around. It's always a suitable cathode material made from other elements, too. Lithium ion batteries in cars today have cathodes mostly of high performance lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxides (NMC) or cheaper/more stable lithium iron phosphate (LFP).
The dominant sodium ion chemistry hitting mass production now uses Prussian Blue Analogues for the cathode (made from a 3d matrix out of sodium, plus a metal like iron/manganese/nickel, plus cyanide made from carbon and nitrogen).
Plus even separately from the raw chemistry of the battery, built in mechanisms for durability or longevity or charge cycles or thermal management or safety or other material properties may change the overall weight of the battery for any particular performance characteristics.
In the end, the performance of the entire battery is what matters, and lithium's head start in less weight per cation may one day be overcome if the overall materials involved can be lighter in some as-yet commercialized sodium ion chemistry.
Not exactly, they work better in cold temps for northern countries.
That doesn't stop sodium batteries from being fundamentally bigger and heavier than lithium batteries for the same capacity. That just means the tradeoff can be more worth it in some regions
And awful for phones
Not necessarily bad for cars. Some vehicles can use just sodium batteries. Some companies are looking at making battery packs with mixed cell types in different ratios to get a best of both worlds for their use case. Sodium sucks for personal electronics though