Ultra High Voltage DC Power Transmission.

We would have had sufficient nuclear power generation were it not for the Greenies throwing a spanner in the works. You know better than anyone how much pressure there will be on UK generating capacity if electric car ownership really takes off.

The greens are screaming their opposition.

Don't worry, it wont. The Guardian reading Wankerati will all have one as a second car, then we will run out of lithium and that will be that.

Then anyone who pronounces a Green opinion will get their bollocks kicked in.

Not seen it, but then I cannot go back very far in this newsreader. Brian

These converters must be huge I'd have thought. I guess the only time we can use ac over a long run underground is if they perfect room temperature superconductors. I doubt under current tech if that is achievable, though, since its the untidy, random structures of conducting substances that gives them resistance and takes away some of your power. Brian

Would not dc also make some magnetic anomalies though. Brian

Indeed, there are photos showing them with tiny looking people standing underneath, I'd post a photo but ...

Sodium-ion batteries seem to be coming down the track ...

I don't see how they are going to match the power/weight, given that sodium has nearly six times as many nucleons per free electron as lithium.

CATL are no small player in Li-ion EV batteries, so if they consider it's worthwhile to branch out into Na-ion, there has to be something in the technology?

Maybe sodium's not for drop-in EV use, maybe it makes more sense for grid energy storage, but that would mean less lithium used for that ...

The lithium makes up only a small fraction of the total weight of a battery so the total doesn't scale.

F*ck lithium. It doesn't have nearly enough energy density for my liking. There must be something better coming down the pike and it had better be an order of magnitude better than lithium. Whoever develops it will be King of the World and richer than Croesus.

Much heavier. Even less range.

that is more likely, but in ten years time there will be no need for 'grid storage' as the whole thing will be nuclear and renewable will be a word you don't say in front of the children

The problem is that actually in terms of electrochemistry, lithium is simply as good as it gets.

There might be a quantum level breakthrough, but not a chemical one.

Yet it tends to get a bit flamey when abused

Doesn't the difference in electronegativity between the elements of the anode and cathode determine that? Recent improvements seem to be about moving down to nano-scale to get better interactions between them and closer to theoretical maximums?

The lithium makes up a very large proportion of the total weight.

Why must there be?

Surely you will still need storage unless new nuclear is switchable?

Perhaps Wales and Scotland will let us flood a few more valleys:-)

I have a nice storage site. Roadside access, 11kV overhead to underground. No flood risk...