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Non-Tech : Alternative energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Triffin who wrote (4907)	6/10/2008 7:47:54 PM
From: gg cox	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 16955

Triff Re sodium sulphur battery link and video. There is no mention in the video of the temperature at which the battery has to be maintained. The video states that it has a 15 year life, but a paltry 2500 cycles which does not measure up to over 10,000 cycles for VRB at ambient temperature. Maintaining a battery at near 400 degrees C. for years requires a lot of energy. It is costly to maintain my house at 72 F in the winter even with excellent insulation, so i raise sceptical eyebrow as to efficiency and life of sodium sulphur. Some excerpts from the link below...i think the jury is still out on overall efficiency, and cost per cycle of SS. ""Unfortunately in order to construct practical batteries using sodium electrodes, the sodium must be used in liquid form. Since the melting point of sodium is 98 °C this means that sodium based batteries must operate at high temperatures, typically in excess of 270 °C. This in turn brings problems of thermal management and safety and places more stringent requirements on the rest of the battery components."" "" Corrosion of the insulators can be a problem in the harsh chemical environment since they gradually become conductive and the battery self-discharge rate increases."" mpoweruk.com