The recent news that Britishvolt, the firm that had been planning to build a giant factory in Northumberland to manufacture electric car batteries, has collapsed into administration is a blow to the UK's sustainability goals. The UK government plans to ban all new petrol and diesel cars by 2035. However, in order to achieve that goal, there needs to be a huge ramp up in the production of electric vehicles and that includes batteries. As reported by the BBC, there is currently only one Chinese-owned battery plant in the UK and we will need several to support the government's ambition to replace petrol/diesel cars with electric in the next decade.

But batteries will be required for more than just vehicles. As we move away from gas towards renewably sourced electricity, battery storage will play a key role in how we power our homes and businesses in the near future. We will need to source the funding, materials and space not only to generate the electricity, but also to store it and to manufacture the technology required for such generation and storage and to off-set the effect on the environment of such manufacturing. Bearing in mind that the lithium required for battery storage is already a limited resource, the barriers to meeting climate goals at times feel insurmountable.

So is there an alternative? I have discussed research into various storage solutions in the past. In April last year, I posted about research into iron-air batteries (you can read that post here) and it seems that research in this area has moved on significantly. As reported by Popular Mechanics, Form Energy are building a new iron air battery facility in West Virginia. 

Lithium-ion batteries have limited storage capacity and can only expend energy over a short period of time. In addition, the mining of lithium has its own environmental problems, which you can read about here. Iron-air batteries are (as the name suggests) made out of iron and air. The Popular Mechanics article states that iron is the fourth most abundant element on Earth. And here comes the science (also taken from the Popular Mechanics article): "Using a principle called “reverse rusting,” the cells “breathe” in air, which transforms the iron into iron oxide (aka rust) and produces energy. To charge it back up, a current reverses the oxidation and turns the cells back into iron." 

The iron-air batteries have far greater storage capacity than lithium-ion batteries (Popular Mechanics suggests 100 hours to lithium-ion's four). In addition, they are cheaper to produce and run and last longer. The downside - they are big and take a long time to re-charge. So they will not be replacing lithium-ion for car or phone batteries, but they may be a good option for backing up the grid.