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Comment by cultofmetatron | Hacker News Reader

Even if sodium ion batteries have a quarter the energy density of lithium, they are still a massive win for grid scale storage. Honestly don't know why there's such a push for them in EVs when lithium works fine there. The cost benefit of sodium ion really makes a lot more sense when you can just drop a bunch of them on a lot of land and have it essentially be a reserve of power for a municipality.

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The safety aspect of them is probably more important than in grid storage. Also the performance at colder temps.

Sodium doesn't make sense for vehicles when there are safer lithium chemistries like LiFePO4 that have lower density than the combustible ones but better than sodium.

LiFePO4, and presumably sodium-ion, can burn once ignited but should be hard to get started.

What are your thoughts on sodium batteries vs water electrolysis for grid scale?

water electrolysis is mind numbingly inefficient + you still have the hydrogen embrittlement problem. Additionally, you then also need a hydrogen fuel cell which relies on some pretty expensive materials like paladium. Lithium ion batteries already are a better fit for small scale grid storage since all you need is the battery and a power management system. Sodium even if its not as good as lithium for density will still be a much better fit for the vast majority of use cases than electrolysis from a maintence and power efficiency perspective.

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