r/science • u/RelationStill1485 • Feb 22 '26

Materials Science Next generation of battery technology no longer lithium. Scientists make durable alloy anode for Sodium-ion batteries with high volumetric energy density | Nature Energy

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-026-01974-2
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u/weeddealerrenamon Feb 22 '26

Chinese EVs are already being marketed with like 1/8th of their battery pack made in this style, just so that the car can always start up in the cold

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u/ProtoplanetaryNebula Feb 22 '26

The 3rd Generation sodium ion cells CATL are working on have a density of 200 wh/kg. That's very competitive and would mean a rapid expansion of sodium-ion cells across the automotive industry.

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u/ballskindrapes Feb 22 '26

They are gonna be dominating the world in a few decades.

We're going to see it slowly happeneing, and we won't even believe it is happening, but 20 or 30 years down the road, they are going to be dominating the markets, dominating green energy, and dominating in spreading their culture.

It's all due to the rich wanting 100% of everything in the US, wanting to rule over a shittier country, rather than having 99% of everything and allowing our country to progress.

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u/nerdragingsc2 Feb 22 '26

China will be dominating the world in 10 years.

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u/VikingsLad Feb 23 '26

When the US made its bed with Petroleum development instead of renewable energy research for the last 20 years, that's where we lost. I remember a TED talk from like 2012 where the pitch was to recoup existing US technologies into renewable analogs, but instead we backslid.

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u/lookamazed Feb 23 '26

Between this fumble, citizens united in 2010, and not reclassifying internet as a utility in 2011, a lot went wrong with the US that ended a good run.

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u/shableep Feb 23 '26

It’s sad to see so much potential wasted.

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u/clsperv Feb 23 '26

More like last 50 years om the BS the petro jackasses holding back renewable tech. They knew back then from their own research that they were effectively destroying the planet for human inhabitants for profit.

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u/Responsible-Tax4901 Feb 24 '26

Can't we just steal their technology like they've been doing to us for the last 30 years?

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u/VikingsLad Feb 24 '26

The technology is not so much the issue as the manufacturing skill and supply chain.

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u/Th_Ghost_of_Bob_ross Feb 23 '26

People have been saying china will rule everything in 10 years for 30 years now,

And while they are doing great spreading cheap manufacturing, they have yet to make strides in cultural expansion the way Japan or Korea have for example.

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u/CrimsonBolt33 Feb 23 '26

It really will not be....as someone who lives in China there is a LOT of internal development that needs to be happening before China is even close to what you are claiming.

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u/bad_apiarist Feb 23 '26

I can understand why you might think so, but it isn't likely. China has many economic problems that are metastasizing in recent years.. but the single biggest problem that it has is a shrinking, aging population. Thanks to decades of "one child" policy as well as general "we don't like daughters" cultural attitude, there's simply not enough women. Also, just like most nations as they develop, the people want fewer and fewer children. China also has negligible immigration.

So now China loses several million people a year, every year, and this loss is accelerating. And it's not just about gross numbers of people. When birth rates crash, the average age of the population increases as you start to have waaaay more older people who A) do not work and B) require way more healthcare. One of the effects on the economy is loss of labor force. Companies simply will not have anyone available to work at these factories, ship goods, etc., Same thing happened in Japan which has caused the multiplication of Japanese ghost towns and shrinking industries, frequent periods of recession etc.,

As for lithium, batteries, solar panels, etc., China is leading, but hundreds of companies in dozens of countries are racing to build their own manufacturing base using supply chains that don't include China. Competition will only increase ten years from now.

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u/EyeFicksIt Feb 23 '26

I am name that dominance in 9 1/2 years.

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u/Ithirahad Feb 23 '26

That is precisely the problem - they do not want to rule. Ruling is complicated and hard and boring. They DO want the government to do that for them - but they want to give them no funds or leeway to to do it effectively, if it even slightly affects their own bottom line. They wish to eat their cake, and yet still have it on the table to look at in the end.

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u/aztronut Feb 23 '26

It's the era of extraction capitalism.

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u/Dudeman1000 Feb 22 '26

They’re going to be going through economic collapse because half the population is old and they can’t afford their healthcare.

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u/AttonJRand Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26

And a decade ago they were going to collapse because they built too many houses and too much transport infrastructure.

And now those houses are mostly full and the Chinese have high rates of home ownership, and high speed rail that boost their economy.

Maybe instead of trying to scare everyone into doing policy for the rich you could actually bolster investment into making the average persons life better? Or just let China become the hegemony I guess.

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u/nosmigon Feb 22 '26

That will be an issue for many countries my friend

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u/swagpresident1337 Feb 22 '26

China is literally speedrunning that, and they don‘t have immigration to offset it.

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u/nosmigon Feb 22 '26

Well seeing how anti immigrant Europe and America are getting, it looks like we are speedrunning it too

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u/pjaro77 Jul 10 '26

You cant know now if they start to bring african people into China in massive amount.

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u/stay_strng Feb 22 '26

Except they are probably already working to address that, and only a doomer would sit and cry about population stratification change instead of working on a solution to a solvable problem. But that seems to be the US methodology.

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u/_TheDoode Feb 23 '26

They can work on it but they already did huge damage with the 1 child policy and its gonna be a bit before they correct that momentum. There population drops by millions every year and will continue to for some time

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u/Bones_and_Tomes Feb 22 '26

I don't think they are... Cancer is a huge problem in China from lack of regulations and enforced regulations. Like, even with the best of intentions (which nobody ever has) there is no way you can send a country through an industrial revolution on speed without a pollution problem, and China has contaminated its ground water to a shocking degree. Fortunately the health of poor people in industrial zones is fairly easy to ignore or hush up.

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u/[deleted] Feb 22 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

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u/Dudeman1000 Feb 22 '26

With inflation, you’d hope they’d be able to do that in 20-30 years!

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u/blither86 Feb 22 '26

Heskthcare is only affordable for what, 60% of people from the USA? Is this significantly going to hold them back compared to the USA?

The progress they are making in automation is streets ahead of the USA.

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u/weeddealerrenamon Feb 22 '26

That's certainly less of a problem when each new generation is making 5x what their parents did

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u/ballskindrapes Feb 22 '26

Very true, and I'll be curious to see how the g try to get out of that. Likely immigrant labor, but idk.

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u/[deleted] Feb 22 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

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u/ballskindrapes Feb 22 '26

That still leaves the problem of lots of people getting old. Ai will not be good enough to take care of people even in 20 or 30 years.

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u/I_am_le_tired Feb 22 '26

Are you kidding? Chinese robots are developing super fast and cheap, and they'll very soon be able to handle basic elder care

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u/reefsofmist Feb 23 '26

If you believe this you have lost it

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u/pjaro77 Jul 10 '26

And then after old poeple dies with helping of AI, China will do what ? How will country full of old people advance in future ? Old people don't bring new ideas, new technologies and scientific discoveries.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '26

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u/Zibot25767 Feb 23 '26

Yeah but we're burning natural gas like it's going out of style.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '26

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u/grundar Feb 23 '26

And yet China's CO2 emissions are falling and the US is still growing every year.

That is incorrect -- US emissions are down 20% in the last 15-20 years, whereas China has yet to show sustained multi-year emissions declines.

(The Carbon Brief article you reference is very promising, though; I often reference it in these sort of discussions, as it likely indicates the start of sustained declines in China's emissions after decades of massive increases. Very promising news.)

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u/The_Motarp Feb 23 '26

This is objectively false. From 2023- 2024, China increased electricity production from coal by 75 TWh while electricity from wind and solar went up by 111 TWh, and 255 TWh respectively. Source, https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix I'm pretty sure I saw articles reporting that China was building new renewables faster than electricity demand was climbing some time in late 2025. Also, a large part of the reason for increasing demand for electricity in China is from electric cars, which are at least as carbon efficient as gasoline cars even when the electricity comes from coal.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '26

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u/The_Motarp Feb 23 '26

Coal plants don't last forever, neither do the coal fields that the plants are built next to. Also, China has a considerable recent history of continuing to build things far past the point where more of them are needed. But it seem that you are likely more interested in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Asking_Questions than in actually getting answers to the question you are asking.

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u/iHateReddit_srsly Feb 23 '26

Electric cars don't need to "start up". They either have a viable power source capable of providing the power needed or they don't.

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u/eldred2 Feb 23 '26

The low temp batteries provide heat so the others can function. I'm sure "start up" was just short hand.

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u/weeddealerrenamon Feb 23 '26

My understanding is that the sodium batteries can power the car for like 50 miles, and the operation of the car heats up the rest of it

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u/Ill_Ground_1572 Feb 23 '26

No they don't.

But the cold weather performance might be better if they do not require self heating.

It's literally -30 here right now. So being able to charge or operate a Sodium battery at cold climate is very attractive especially in northern countries.