Chinese sodium battery compact car ESS ‘mass production’ Vs LG Ensol lithium sulfide battery ‘development’

As inexpensive sodium batteries are mass-produced, they are applied to small-size batteries, and China's CATL announced that it will mass-produce 'lithium-sodium mixed battery packs'.
The New York Times reported on the 16th that at the Shanghai Auto Show next week, automakers and battery producers will announce sodium battery plans for a limited range of small cars in the Chinese market.
Sodium batteries, which are salt to replace expensive lithium, have been difficult in automotive battery packs because of their large size, but by mixing minerals into highly processed compounds, it enables rechargeable batteries and has entered the mass production system, said CATL, a Chinese battery manufacturer. NYT reported.

On the 17th, LG Ensol discussed the construction of an energy storage system (ESS) and a cylindrical lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery plant by investing $500 million (7.2 trillion won) with the state of Arizona.

On the 25th of last month, LG Ensol announced that 4.2 trillion won and 3 trillion won were invested in the LFP plant in a cylindrical shape, and the AP reported on the 17th as “conversion to ESS production in the future.”

On January 19, LG Ensol announced the success of advancing lithium-sulfur battery technology with the KAIST research team.

'Lithium-sulfur battery' uses sulfur for the anode material and lithium metal for the cathode material, so it does not use rare metals such as cobalt and nickel, and has the advantage of being lightweight and resistant to sub-zero temperatures.

CATL recently built its first large-scale sodium battery assembly line in Ningde, Fujian Province. Last year, it developed a technology to make sodium battery cells almost identical to lithium batteries with the same equipment. It is ready for mass production of mixed battery packs, it told the NYT.
There are 20 sodium battery plants under construction or in progress worldwide, 16 of which are in China.
Sodium batteries took off in earnest in the United States in the 1970s, and after Japanese researchers made important advances, Chinese companies are now leading the commercialization of the technology.
In the innovation of rechargeable batteries, China has solved the challenge of lithium batteries by replacing lithium with much cheaper and more abundant sodium, meeting the condition of maintaining the same charge when the temperature drops below freezing, and accelerating development. The NYT found that the benchmark's prediction that it would dwarf the .
"There are lingering doubts about the durability of sodium batteries," David Peaceman, power consultant at Lantau Group, a consulting firm, told the NYT.
"Sodium will cut the peak of demand for lithium," said Mike Henry, CEO of BHP, the world's largest mining company. "I'm sure we'll see sodium replace lithium in certain applications. “There is,” he told the NYT.
Utilities that convert lithium to sodium in batteries (mass storage) can replace batteries that double in size on vacant lots near solar panels or wind turbines, and utilities around the world can move to climate-friendly sources such as solar and wind power. Demand for sodium batteries has grown rapidly as migration has increased the need for massive battery storage.
In China's Shandong province, early evening when demand for electricity is high is selling up to 20 times more solar power than at noon when the grid is flooded with more solar power than factories and homes need, and power companies are using lithium batteries. It stores electricity during the day and distributes renewable electricity throughout the evening.
The Three Gorges Corporation utility in central and western China is experimenting with sodium batteries, installing batteries with a storage capacity of 10-20% of newly built solar or wind-generated electricity in the province.
CATL uses minivan-sized lithium batteries at an urban electric vehicle charging station in Fuzhou, Fujian province to automatically charge rooftop solar panels when the sun is shining, eliminating sodium batteries where drivers can recharge inexpensively in the evening. I am researching.
Sodium batteries do not require cobalt mined in Africa and nickel from Indonesia, Russia or the Philippines in lithium batteries.
The world's largest sodium mining area is the United States, which accounts for more than 90% of the world's soda ash reserves.
China, which has fewer natural reserves of soda ash and is reluctant to rely on imports from the United States, instead produces synthetic soda ash in coal-fired chemical plants.
American electric vehicle company Tesla announced on the 9th that it would build a megapack production plant, a large-capacity energy storage system (ESS), in Shanghai, China, and China CATL is supplying battery cells and packs to Tesla Megapack. Lithium batteries are expected to dominate.
The size of the international ESS market is rapidly growing from 11 billion dollars in 2021 to 262 billion dollars in 2030.
The NYT reported on the 9th that “China produces most of the world’s rechargeable batteries and dominates the chemical processing needed to produce the components.” It will all be close to the manufacturing plant,” he reported.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the Shanghai plant's goal is to "supplement the output of the Megapack plant in California" and that "the plant will be built in Shanghai to assemble 10,000 giant batteries a year for electricity producers and distributors." said on the 9th.
A single Tesla megapack can power 3,600 homes.

Regarding Tesla's Megapack, "the existing Megapack factory in California has a backlog of orders through early 2025, and a single Megapack the size of a shipping container costs less than $20,000 in California," Reuters said on the 17th.

Regarding LG Ensol's investment in the '$500 million Arizona battery plant', he said, "We aim to respond to the rapidly growing demand for locally manufactured batteries through the US IRA." After that, we plan to produce batteries for energy storage systems,” the AP said on the 17th, predicting price competition with Chinese sodium batteries.

In Changsha, deep in China's interior, thousands of chemists, engineers and manufacturing workers are shaping the battery's future, leading the next innovation in rechargeable batteries: replacing lithium with much cheaper and more abundant salt-derived sodium.

In Changsha, university graduates are researching sodium battery technology in the research institutes of chemical companies such as BASF, Germany, the world's largest chemical manufacturer, and a large sodium battery factory is already under construction near the laboratory.

On January 20, GM of the United States canceled plans to build a fourth battery joint venture with LG Ensol.

On March 28, the U.S. state of Michigan approved a subsidy of $123 million for the development of a battery joint factory site between Ford and CATL of China.

American automakers are replacing the leader by combining sodium batteries from China's CATL with salt minerals extracted from salt mines in Wyoming, a remote area in the Midwest of the United States.