Looks like sodium is one of the solutions for the energy transition

Marking a milestone in the energy transition, US company Natron Energy says it has completed the laboratory phase of its sodium batteries and is to begin mass production in the United States.

Sodium is extremely abundant in the earth’s crust, five hundred to a thousand times more so than lithium, and more importantly, it can be extracted with minimal environmental impact. The other elements in Natron Energy’s sodium batteries, which are primarily aluminum, iron and manganese, can also be obtained relatively easily and through a value chain free of geopolitical disruption, another issue of great importance in terms of production and price stability.

Sodium batteries have two very interesting characteristics: on the one hand, they charge and discharge ten times faster than lithium-ion batteries, a level of immediate charge/discharge capability that makes them a leading contender for the ups and downs of backup energy storage. On the other hand, they have an estimated lifetime of more than fifty thousand cycles, also longer than conventional batteries using lithium, and are fully recyclable without generating any toxic, hazardous or difficult to dispose of waste at the end of their useful life. In addition, their cost is lower by several orders of magnitude (a ton of lithium hydroxide runs to around…