But reading the brine discharge always makes me wish that grid based sodium ion batteries would be researched more. But can’t have that because oil companies already put large deposits into lithium mines.
Its light on specifics but China is already producing Sodium batteries which makes sense for a nation that is technologically advanced, but resource poor. Since China doesn’t have any entrenched petroleum interests, and is geopolitically distant to most of the proven cobalt and lithium supplies, it makes sense for them to use what they have plenty of.
Honestly, I’m excited about this. Sodium batteries aren’t very energy dense, but they should be very cheap. Lots of applications don’t need physically small batteries (like grid or solar tied).
MIT’s New Desalination System Produces Freshwater That Is “Cheaper Than Tap Water” (scitechdaily.com)