Trade Tensions With China Clear Path for Salt-Powered Batteries
The idea of making batteries from sodium has been around for centuries. In Jules Verne's 1870 novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Captain Nemo drives an electric submarine powered by salt. But while researchers have experimented for years with using the cheap, superabundant material for power storage, sodium-ion batteries could never match the energy density of other battery types, particularly lithium-based formulas. Now expanding energy needs and global trade tensions mean the long-overlooked technology is finally breaking through.
Born out of founder Colin Wessells' doctoral thesis in 2012, Natron Energy Inc. is among the few companies in the world that mass-produce sodium-ion batteries and is the only one doing it in the US. Its first plant, in Holland, Michigan, opened in April 2024 at a cost of $40 million to retrofit an existing $300 million facility, and is set to produce 600 megawatts of batteries annually by the end of 2025, almost enough to power a city the size of San Diego. The company is lining up funding for an additional $1.4 billion factory in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, that would increase its production capacity by roughly 40 times. Natron says that's needed to meet demand from its customers, which include data centers and cloud computing companies, particularly as artificial intelligence sucks up more and more energy. 'Power demand is going to go through the roof,' says Chief Executive Officer Wendell Brooks.
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Bloomberg
15-04-2025
- Bloomberg
Trade Tensions With China Clear Path for Salt-Powered Batteries
The idea of making batteries from sodium has been around for centuries. In Jules Verne's 1870 novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Captain Nemo drives an electric submarine powered by salt. But while researchers have experimented for years with using the cheap, superabundant material for power storage, sodium-ion batteries could never match the energy density of other battery types, particularly lithium-based formulas. Now expanding energy needs and global trade tensions mean the long-overlooked technology is finally breaking through. Born out of founder Colin Wessells' doctoral thesis in 2012, Natron Energy Inc. is among the few companies in the world that mass-produce sodium-ion batteries and is the only one doing it in the US. Its first plant, in Holland, Michigan, opened in April 2024 at a cost of $40 million to retrofit an existing $300 million facility, and is set to produce 600 megawatts of batteries annually by the end of 2025, almost enough to power a city the size of San Diego. The company is lining up funding for an additional $1.4 billion factory in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, that would increase its production capacity by roughly 40 times. Natron says that's needed to meet demand from its customers, which include data centers and cloud computing companies, particularly as artificial intelligence sucks up more and more energy. 'Power demand is going to go through the roof,' says Chief Executive Officer Wendell Brooks.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Yahoo
Behold Rare Footage of What Narwhals Actually Use Their Tusks For
Narwhal tusks are the stuff of legends, literally. Growing up to ten feet long, they were once believed by some medieval cultures to be the horns of mythical creatures like the unicorn — not to mention the inspiration for Jules Verne's iconic nineteenth-century science fiction novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas." As prominent a fixture of public fascination they may be, scientists have long struggled to understand how narwhals actually use these long, spirally protrusions. The tusks, which are actually an elongated tooth that typically belong to males of the Arctic whale species, are known to be flaunted in mating rituals, but whether they served other purposes has escaped observation. Now, as reported in a study published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, a team of researchers from the US and Canada have used drones to capture rare footage of the whales using their tusks in the wild, including the first video evidence of the tusks being used to toy with and investigate their surroundings. "Narwhals are known for their 'tusking' behavior, where two or more of them simultaneously raise their tusks almost vertically out of the water, crossing them in what may be a ritualistic behavior to assess a potential opponent's qualities or to display those qualities to potential mates," study senior author Greg O'Corry-Crowe, a research professor at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Florida, said in a statement. "But now we know that narwhal tusks have other uses, some quite unexpected, including foraging, exploration and play." In total, the researchers documented seventeen distinct behaviors, many of which included interacting with nearby fish. In some cases, the narwhals used their tusks, non-forcefully, to influence the fish's behavior. They would tap the fish, slowly push them downwards, flip them, or knock them off-course — but not with the intent of eating them, curiously. The researchers suggest that this is a sign of "exploratory-object-play," in which the whales are simply trying to understand their surroundings, like a never-before-encountered fish, by playing with them. But when it was time to forage, the researchers observed the whales using their tusks to violently strike the fish, often in rapid succession in side-to-side slashes. This incapacitated, stunned, and possibly even killed the creatures. Sometimes, the narwhals also used their tusks to ward off food thieves like seagulls. The tusks may be lengthy but are by no means unwieldy. According to the researchers, the whales showed remarkable dexterity and speed when tracking fish with the tip of their tusks. And they'd have to be, to pull off maneuvers like "near instantaneous turns up to 360 degrees, completed in under three seconds which were achieved by rotating the body on its side and moving the head downwards towards its tail," as the researchers wrote in the study. The narwhals also exhibited social behavior. "Some of the interactions we saw appeared competitive in nature with one whale blocking or trying to block another whale's access to the same target fish, while others may have been more subtle, possibly communicative and even affiliative," O'Corry-Crowe said. "None appeared overtly aggressive." These social interactions, the researchers suggest, could accelerate how the whales adapt to the shifting conditions in the Arctic due to climate change. More on marine life: Great White Sharks Are Suddenly Washing Up Dead With Swollen Brains
Yahoo
24-01-2025
- Yahoo
German man sets world record living for 120 days underwater
A German aerospace engineer celebrated setting a world record Friday for the longest time living underwater without depressurization -- 120 days in a submerged capsule off the coast of Panama. Rudiger Koch, 59, emerged from his 30-square-meter (320-square-foot) home under the sea in the presence of Guinness World Records adjudicator Susana Reyes. She confirmed that Koch had beaten the record previously held by American Joseph Dituri, who spent 100 days living in an underwater lodge in a Florida lagoon. "It was a great adventure and now it's over there's almost a sense of regret actually. I enjoyed my time here very much," Koch told AFP after leaving the capsule 11 meters (36 feet) under the sea. "It is beautiful when things calm down and it gets dark and the sea is glowing," he said of the view through the portholes. "It is impossible to describe, you have to experience that yourself," he added. To celebrate, Koch toasted with champagne and smoked a cigar before leaping into the Caribbean Sea, where a boat picked him up and took him to dry land for a celebratory party. Koch's capsule had most of the trappings of modern life: a bed, toilet, TV, computer and internet -- even an exercise bike. Located some 15 minutes by boat from the coast of northern Panama, it was attached to another chamber perched above the waves by a tube containing a narrow spiral staircase, providing a way down for food and visitors, including a doctor. Solar panels on the surface provided electricity. There was a backup generator, but no shower. Koch had told an AFP journalist who visited him halfway through his endeavor that he hoped it would change the way we think about human life -- and where we can settle, even permanently. "What we are trying to do here is prove that the seas are actually a viable environment for human expansion," he said. Four cameras filmed his moves in the capsule -- capturing his daily life, monitoring his mental health and providing proof that he never came up to the surface. "We needed witnesses who were monitoring and verifying 24/7 for more than 120 days," Reyes told AFP. The record "is undoubtedly one of the most extravagant" and required "a lot of work," she added. An admirer of Captain Nemo in Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," Koch kept a copy of the 19th century sci-fi classic on his bedside table beneath the waves. jjr/mis/dr/bs
