Posted on 10/01/2022 2:02:40 PM PDT by FarCenter
The world's largest vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) has been connected to the grid in Dalian, China, where it was built using technology patented in the United States.
With a current capacity of 100MW/400MWh and plans to double it, the Dalian VRFB will reportedly be able to meet the daily energy needs of 200,000 people, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said. The battery will be used to manage supplies during peak power demand periods, and could allow electricity companies in the Dalian region to adopt more renewables to feed the system.
VRFBs are free of lithium-ion and are far safer than traditional batteries, instead relying on mixtures of liquid electrolytes and acids. VRFBs can hold a charge for far longer than traditional batteries as well, and are also designed to be charged and discharged for decades without degrading.
The Dalian VRFB dwarfs other projects – Australia's largest VRFB only boasts 2MW/8MWh of capacity, and a similar test project in the San Diego area recently stood up a similarly sized battery. Other large VRFB projects are still far smaller, like the Sumitomo battery in Hokkaido, Japan, that was brought online earlier this year. It has a capacity of 17MW/51MWh and was described as one of the world's largest VRFBs.
American tax dollars at work
As reported in August, the VRFB built in Dalian appears to be one designed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) that cost US taxpayers $15 million dollars to develop, and for which the US government owns the patent.
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.com ...
What will they steal next, the Flux Capacitor?
So, did China pay for using the patent?
I’m all for letting China test gigantic batteries.
That way they blow up over there 👉.
It looks like our Defense Department dropped the ball.
Our Defense Dept is OWNED by China.
Will we see the flames from here when it catches fire ?
Slap a 2000% tariff on it. Until the pay the patent holders royalties
Hopefully the US technology came from graduates with diversity and gender studies degrees, so the batteries will catch fire shortly after firing them up.
And meanwhile, the USA, Europe and Russia destroy each other’s economies.
Well, done - neocons and globalists!
Wonder what the potential (bad pun) for such a large battery to catch fire, as the batteries of a Tesla frequently do. It’s not a lithium battery but redox... seems like the “ox” part of it would have a downside, oxidation and heat etc.
You betcha— my thoughts as well. Heat from storage always an issue.
Joe Biden.
USA burned twice.
>>So, did China pay for using the patent?
The U.S. made a breakthrough battery discovery — then gave the technology to China
When a group of engineers and researchers gathered in a warehouse in Mukilteo, Wash., 10 years ago, they knew they were onto something big. They scrounged up tables and chairs, cleared out space in the parking lot for experiments and got to work.
...
But that’s not what happened. Instead of the batteries becoming the next great American success story, the warehouse is now shuttered and empty. All the employees who worked there were laid off. And more than 5,200 miles away, a Chinese company is hard at work making the batteries in Dalian, China.
The Chinese company didn’t steal this technology. It was given to them — by the U.S. Department of Energy. First in 2017, as part of a sublicense, and later, in 2021, as part of a license transfer. An investigation by NPR and the Northwest News Network found the federal agency allowed the technology and jobs to move overseas, violating its own licensing rules while failing to intervene on behalf of U.S. workers in multiple instances.
...
Gary Yang, the lead scientist on the project, said he was excited to see if he could make the batteries outside the lab. The lab encourages scientists to do just that, in an effort to bring critical new technology into the marketplace. The lab and the U.S. government still hold the patents, because U.S. taxpayers paid for the research.
In 2012, Yang applied to the Department of Energy for a license to manufacture and sell the batteries.
The agency issued the license, and Yang launched UniEnergy Technologies. He hired engineers and researchers. But he soon ran into trouble. He said he couldn’t persuade any U.S. investors to come aboard.
“I talked to almost all major investment banks; none of them (wanted to) invest in batteries,” Yang said in an interview, adding that the banks wanted a return on their investments faster than the batteries would turn a profit.
He said a fellow scientist connected him with a Chinese businessman named Yanhui Liu and a company called Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd., along with its parent company, and he jumped at the chance to have them invest and even help manufacture the batteries.
At first, UniEnergy Technologies did the bulk of the battery assembly in the warehouse. But over the course of the next few years, more and more of the manufacturing and assembling began to shift to Rongke Power, Chris Howard said. In 2017, Yang formalized the relationship and granted Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd. an official sublicense, allowing the company to make the batteries in China.
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/03/1114964240/new-battery-technology-china-vanadium
It’s a battery. It still has to be charged by something. Likely a coal fired power plant.
There was a WSJ article about this a few months back.
I admit I knew nothing about this tech prior to that.
Still we should have spent some money looking into it.
There is a big for lease sign in front of their office now.
This is why America will ultimately fail. Seeking short term gains over long term prosperity.
Will we see it burn up from orbit ?
Two things to look for moving forward.
1) The Great Wall of China
2) The Great Fire in China
This is a huge factory.
See picture.
Yet, it holds only about $50,000 of electrical energy when fully charged. If fully loaded, it will provide 4 hours of power.
It has to be quite expensive as Vanadium is quite expensive.
China consumption of energy is apparently very low per capita, that gives the 200,000 household number.
Basically another waste for a hoax problem.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/flow-battery-china/
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