Science - World Largest Water Battery

Honda says they will have their solid state battery production line operational in two months..that is a major advancement as nobody has been able to mass produce a SSB to date

The Science Behind Honda’s Solid-State Battery Breakthrough

Solid-state batteries have started to look like a costly industry-wide folly, similar to the many years and dollars that Chrysler threw away on the Turbine car. However, Honda has made a daring announcement that it will have a factory up and running in a few short weeks. Toyota started the solid-state revolution over a decade ago, but its progress has been almost maddeningly slow. If Honda’s announcements are true, it may steal solid-state glory from Toyota.

Before everyone gets too excited about ASSB-powered Hondas (the abbreviation stands for All-Solid-State Battery), Honda’s factory is a demonstration line rather than a full-sized production factory. However, this marks a massive step in the development of car-sized SSBs. No other company has managed to get an SSB factory running regardless of size. A lot of major companies have claimed that they have factories under construction, but they have all claimed opening dates in the conveniently ambiguous future. Honda is the only automaker to claim that it will have a factory open in less than 2 months.
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Honda has wasted no time in fitting it out with tooling. The buildings were completed in the spring of 2024. Even though the roof hasn't yet been nailed down for a full year, Honda has nearly finished installing the manufacturing equipment. Again, it cannot be emphasized enough that Honda is actually getting ready to crank out solid-state batteries instead of merely issuing press releases about them. This puts Honda ahead of everyone else in the industry.
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The most stunning part of Honda’s announcement is the date. Production is set to begin in January 2025. Honda will focus on verifying mass production techniques and costs. Accordingly, the Sakura City facility incorporates technologies for use in weighing and mixing electrode materials, coating and roll pressing, and module assembly. Mass production has been one of the biggest hurdles to ASSB development. Various companies have produced working battery prototypes, and a lot of them have also announced that they have factories under construction. However, Honda is the only company whose production date is in a few weeks instead of a couple of years.

 

the lab breakthroughs on the energy and materials front seem to happen daily. Honda is the first and only one to attempt to do a production level solid state battery using an entirely different process they developed to build the battery that makes production scalable. They have built these batteries using this process on a test scale and know it works. moving to production level numbers is a real big deal. putting mass produced SSB cars on the road in 6 months was unheard of until this. lets hope the reality matches the hype. Honda isn't one to blow smoke so they must be confident in this tech.

 

Bill Gates’ Terrapower permitted to unleash 345 MW sodium-cooled nuclear reactor

Bill Gates-backed nuclear energy firm Terrapower announced that it has received approval from the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council (ISC) on its permit for the first Natrium plant, Kemmerer Power Station Unit 1.

The approval will allow for the construction of non-nuclear facilities – including the energy island portion that houses the molten-salt energy storage tanks and turbines – of the Natrium plant.

 

Bill Gates is doing great things for the planet.

first time ever concentrated heat has been generated and stored at such temperatures to be able to be used for industrial processes like making aluminum, steel, cement, etc..

Bill Gates-backed startup launches wildly hot thermal battery system: ‘Uninterruptible, reliable supply of process heat’

 

Secretive Energy Startup Backed by Bill Gates Achieves Solar Breakthrough.

In summary, Heliogen has manufactured a solar oven that can reach temperatures that are about a quarter of what you would find on the surface of the sun. In terms of sustainable energy, this means that concentrated solar energy can generate the heat required to produce steel, glass, cement, and other materials. This process could help take the place of fossil fuels and large carbon emissions in these industries. [1] “We are rolling out technology that can beat the price of fossil fuels and also not make the CO2 emissions,” Bill Gross, Heliogen’s founder, and CEO. “And that’s really the holy grail.“

Bill Gates isn't the only billionaire backing Heliogen; Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong also supports this startup. He believes that the patented technology will be able to reduce greenhouse gases for these industries. Take cement, for example; according to the International Energy Agency, it accounts for seven percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. “Bill and the team have truly now harnessed the sun,” said Soon-Shiong, who also sits on the Heliogen board. “The potential to humankind is enormous. … The potential to business is unfathomable.“

 

I guess the fascinating part to me is that the humans don't know how the chips that AI designed work but they work really good. Is this how it achieves breakout consciousness? i think moore's law is about to get dusted
I wonder if this is how Nvidia is innovating so rapidly.

AI Designs Computer Chips We Can’t Understand — But They Work Really Well


When chips are usually designed, scientists and engineers work with patterns and templates that are well-known. A new study published in Nature Communications tried a different approach: a deep-learning-enabled design process for creating circuits and components. Using artificial intelligence (AI), researchers at Princeton University and IIT Madras demonstrated an “inverse design” method, where you start from the desired properties and then make the design based on that.The designs seem to work really well, but there’s a catch: no one really knows why they work so well.

The researchers trained convolutional neural networks (CNNs) — a type of AI model — to understand the complex relationship between a circuit’s geometry and its electromagnetic behavior. These models can predict how a proposed design will perform, often operating on a completely different type of design than what we’re used to.The study showcased a range of use cases, from simple one-port antennas to complex multi-port RF (radio frequency) structures like filters, or power dividers. The AI-designed compact antennas that function across two distinct frequencies, improving performance for multi-band devices. Within minutes, it synthesized filters with precise band-pass characteristics, a task that would have taken days or weeks before.

The ability to rapidly design high-performance circuits could accelerate advancements in telecommunications, autonomous systems, and beyond. This approach empowers engineers to focus on innovation rather than routine optimization. Yet perhaps the most exciting part is the new types of designs it came up with.
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“We are coming up with structures that are complex and look randomly shaped, and when connected with circuits, they create previously unachievable performance,” says Sengupta. The designs were unintuitive and very different than those made by the human mind. Yet, they frequently offered significant improvements. “Classical designs, carefully, put these circuits and electromagnetic elements together, piece by piece, so that the signal flows in the way we want it to flow in the chip. By changing those structures, we incorporate new properties,” Sengupta said. “Before, we had a finite way of doing this, but now the options are much larger.”

This study marks a pivotal moment in engineering, where AI not only accelerates innovation but also expands the boundaries of what’s possible. Wireless chips are a combination of standard electronics (like computer chips) and electromagnetic components like antennas or signal splitters. While this study focuses on RF and sub-terahertz frequencies, the principles of AI-driven design can extend to computer chips or even quantum computing.

 

one would think that would be easy. the incinerator in lee County is one of the best gubmnt projects I have seen. Landfills should be outlawed.

 

Trump officials to receive secret briefing on ‘super agent’ AI breakthrough

These bots are growing increasingly sophisticated, with expectations that AI chatbots will soon be able to perform tasks such as building a working app from scratch or engaging in long-term planning. This emerging form of AI could begin to do complex work normally taken on by a human, such as computer programming.
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Mr Altman said: “We are not going to deploy AGI next month, nor have we built it. We have some very cool stuff for you but [please] chill and cut your expectations 100x.”

In a blog post, OpenAI, which has received billions of pounds in funding from Microsoft, said the meeting would be to “preview the state of AI advancement and how it can drive economic growth” with politicians. It said the technology represented an “unmissable opportunity to catalyse a reindustrialisation of the US” in a race against China.

 

Exists in 37 dimensions simultaneously

Tip of the iceberg

Scientists Produced a Particle of Light That Simultaneously Accessed 37 Different Dimensions

Essentially, an international team of scientists wanted to see how un-classical particles of light could get—and the results were maybe stranger than the authors originally anticipated. This extremely technical experiment produced photons, or particles of light, that existed in 37 dimensions. Just as you and I exist in three dimension—plus an additional temporal dimension—these photons required 37 similar reference points.

“This experiment shows that quantum physics is more nonclassical than many of us thought,” Technical University of Denmark’s Zhenghao Liu, a co-author of the study, told New Scientist. “It could be [that] 100 years after its discovery, we are still only seeing the tip of the iceberg.”

 

giant structure full of heavy blocks moved around by AI driven pully systems that moves them up when extra power is available and moves them down when power is needed

all that renewable being wasted at times is a crime



China's 40-story gravity batteries threaten lithium's energy reign

Standing over 120 meters high, the EVx building is a massive mechanical tower for lifting giant blocks weighing 24 tons during surplus energy. When the grid demands more power, the blocks are lowered, and their potential energy is converted back into electricity.

Capacity and Efficiency: With a peak power output of 25 MW and an overall capacity of 100 MWh, the EVx has a projected round-trip efficiency of over 80%. Its estimated 35-year operating life suggests a robust long-term solution.

Materials and Construction: Each block is made from readily available substances, such as soil, sand, or recycled waste. Building the tower relies on local labor and local resources. This keeps costs lower than if it relied on imported lithium or other rare metals.

As China pushes heavily toward renewable power, multiple EVx projects are planned, ranging from 100 MWh to 660 MWh systems, and even a proposed 2 GWh installation in Inner Mongolia. Altogether, the capital outlay for these plants exceeds US$1 billion.

 

Energy Vault Project – China, Rudong

The 25 MW/100 MWh EVx™ Gravity Energy Storage System (GESS) is a 4-hour duration project being built outside of Shanghai in Rudong, Jiangsu Province, China. The EVx™ is under construction directly adjacent to a wind farm and national grid. It will augment and balance China’s energy grid through the shifting of renewable energy to serve the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC). The system is expected to be fully grid interconnected by the end of 2023 as planned with local grid authorities.

The EVx ™ system is projected to achieve an impressive round-trip efficiency exceeding 80%. This places the new gravity system at the forefront of energy storage efficiency compared to alternative long duration energy storage methods such as mechanical, thermodynamic, compressed air, and flow battery systems. With a projected operational lifespan of 35 years, this project aligns with China's "Zero-Carbon parks" initiative and national "30-60" net carbon neutral plan. This inaugural deployment sets a benchmark for worldwide collaborations in decarbonization technology.

 

energy vault has lots of energy storage solutions..interesting stuff

Energy Vault Project Overview

 

China, putting gravity to work, pump it uphill with extra energy, flow downhill to recapture. could use a heavier fluid to store more energy in same volume...

this is ideal for California with their staggered reservoir systems and excess renewables

World's largest 'water battery' is now fully operational as it reaches a historic milestone: 'It's inspiring'

The world's largest "water battery" is fully up and running.

The Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station, located just north of Beijing, is fully operational as of the start of 2025. The station took more than 11 years and $2.6 billion to build, PV Magazine reported.

Pumped-storage hydropower stations are known as water batteries because they allow for long-term storage of energy from nearby sources that are renewable but not as constant or predictable. By storing this energy, the power grid is less stressed, resulting in fewer blackouts. The Fengning station supports a nearby wind and solar farm.