battery storage

MIT's Donald Sadoway presents the liquid metal battery as a design for grid-scale stationary electricity storage, at an Imperial College London event in 2018. He covers the grid benefits of massive-scale storage.

MIT professor Donald Sadoway argues that grid-scale storage is the missing piece for renewable energy. He sketches at the blackboard how large, cheap liquid-metal batteries could store wind and solar power.

Tom Scott visits Dinorwig Power Station in Wales, a pumped-storage hydro plant often called Britain's largest battery. He explains how it works and how its role has shifted from TV pickup spikes to balancing wind and solar.

Practical Engineering explains pumped storage hydropower, which makes up most grid-scale electricity storage. It covers how it works and why it fits only certain geographies.

Big Clive does a complete teardown of a lithium phone battery, taking apart the protection circuit, case and the cell itself. He notes it was risky because the cell was not discharged first.

Fully Charged episode where Elliot drives the NIO ES8 SUV and visits a battery swap station that replaces the pack in about three minutes. It covers the ownership model of swapping and what it could mean for EV charging.

A short South China Morning Post report on Nio's second-generation automated battery-swap stations for electric vehicles. It notes that Nio had built more than 800 stations in China by early 2022.

Short HD closeup of a Tesla Model S battery swap, showing the pack lowered out and another pushed into place.

A 2019 Android Dev Summit session on the scoped storage model in Android 10. It gives a plan overview and best practices for apps adapting to the new restrictions.

Tom Scott borrows a Nio electric car in China and shows its automated battery swap station replacing the whole battery in minutes. He explains how swapping serves as an alternative to charging.

Adam Something argues in four minutes that gravity batteries like Energy Vault, which lift concrete blocks with cranes, are a poor energy storage idea. He draws on a longer Thunderf00t debunk.

A short NOVA excerpt in which David Pogue abuses a Tufts-developed battery by cutting and damaging it, and it keeps working without catching fire. It comes from the documentary 'Search for the Super Battery'.

Dave Jones of EEVblog debunks the marketing claims of the self-charging nano nuclear diamond battery from NDB Inc. He argues it is no better than existing 100uW betavoltaic batteries, with an added graphene supercapacitor.

Tesla's 2020 Battery Day event, with a company update and a keynote on new cell design, manufacturing, vertical integration and cheaper lithium and materials. It ends with the Plaid Model S and a Q&A.

Tom7 (suckerpinch) builds and evaluates a series of absurd hard drives, including storage made from ping packets across the internet. The video accompanies his paper and mixes deep technical hacking with comedic storytelling.

Bryan Cantrill of Joyent presents Manta, an internet-facing object store that lets you run compute directly on the data. The talk is peppered with ZFS history and Cantrill's trademark commentary on the industry.

Bill Gates at Stanford's Global Energy Forum argues that cheaper solar, wind and storage are not nearly enough to stop climate change. He discusses natural gas, a carbon tax, nuclear, battery costs and the responsibilities of developing versus developed economies.

Real Engineering examines the efficiency of hydrogen as an energy carrier. It follows production, storage and fuel cell conversion losses and compares hydrogen cars with battery electric vehicles.

Real Engineering looks at the numbers for running California on renewables, focusing on the large energy storage needed. It argues about the cost of batteries and the role of other sources.

Kyle Hill explains what nuclear waste actually is and how it is stored, arguing that the problem was effectively solved decades ago. It covers solid shielded waste and deep geological storage.

Professor Jeff Dahn lectures on why lithium-ion batteries die and how chemistry changes could make them last decades.

Stanford futurist Tony Seba argues that electric vehicles, battery storage, solar and autonomous vehicles form a 10x exponential disruption that will make fossil fuels obsolete within about a decade. It draws on his Clean Disruption book.

Quint BUILDs tests a rooftop water storage setup in which solar power pumps water up to the roof and a turbine generates power later. He works through the numbers to show how much energy it actually stores.

GreatScott! tests ProLogium lithium ceramic batteries, a solid-state design. He measures their volumetric and gravimetric energy density, compares them to Li-ion and LiPo, and runs durability tests at the end.

Fully Charged visits Janus Trucks in New South Wales, Australia, which converts diesel trucks to electric with swappable battery packs. The truck carries 620 kWh of batteries and a 540 kW drive.

An LGR Oddware episode looking at Sony's MDH-10 MD Data drive from 1995, which used MiniDisc for computer storage years before Hi-MD. The host tries out the drive with its original drivers and software.

A Thunderf00t video debunking Energy Vault, a gravity-based energy storage scheme that stacks concrete blocks with cranes. He argues it is impractical and compares it to pseudoscience.

Bryan Cantrill's Uptime 2017 talk on the engineering challenges of the stateful data path, including storage, firmware and hardware bugs. It uses the 'zebras vs. horses' diagnostic heuristic to explain why rare failures keep appearing.

Zack Freedman introduces Gridfinity, his free, open-source modular workshop storage system of 3D-printable bins and baseplates. The video walks through the design, the parametric templates and the many module types that fit parts, tools and accessories.

Physics Girl compares hydrogen fuel cell cars and battery electric cars after driving 1800 miles in a Toyota Mirai. The video was part of a series sponsored by Toyota.

A short IBM behind-the-scenes documentary on how researchers moved individual atoms to make the world's smallest movie. It introduces the scientists and their work on atomic memory and data storage.

A satirical 'Honest Government Ad' from The Juice Media that mocks Australian carbon capture and storage policy. It lays out the fossil fuel industry's influence and the weak results of the technology in a comedic format.

Technology Connections explains how a home can act as a thermal battery by pre-cooling or pre-heating when electricity is cheap or abundant. He shows how this shifts load off-peak and eases strain on the grid.

Linus Tech Tips explains how Windows Modern Standby causes laptops to drain battery while asleep, arguing it makes Windows laptops hard to recommend compared to MacBooks.

Fully Charged rides a 100% battery-electric ferry across the 4 km strait between Helsingborg, Sweden and Helsingør, Denmark. The ferry crosses up to 46 times a day and charges for a few minutes at each side. The video shows the charging setup, including the robot arm that couples the charger.

A TEDx talk arguing that battery electric vehicles are not as environmentally friendly as commonly believed and that the rush to adopt them is misguided. TED flagged it as containing claims that lack scientific support.

A CBC The National investigation into Apple's business practices, including undercover work on repair pricing and the battery slowdown scandal. It examines allegations of overpriced repairs and misdiagnosis.

A short University of Washington demo of ambient backscatter, where battery-free devices communicate by reflecting existing wireless signals. It shows devices powered and linked by ambient RF.

Engineering Explained works through whether electric cars are really worse for the environment than gasoline cars. It covers battery production emissions, the electricity mix used to charge, and how long an EV takes to break even on lifetime emissions.

An Autoline After Hours episode with teardown expert Sandy Munro and a panel of auto journalists. It covers his Tesla Model 3 teardown, including the battery, drive modules, build quality and manufacturing automation.