On the edge of the Salton Sea, state officials and investors are seeking to turn brine into ‘white gold’ that can power electric cars. But will this help solve the Imperial Valley’s troubles — or add to them?

One of the aspects of lithium-ion batteries least understood by scientists has now been elucidated by a new research approach, opening the door to major improvements in battery performance, according to a new study by Berkeley Lab scientists.

Their study, recently published in the journal Joule, used a technique developed by Berkeley Lab battery scientists in the Energy Technologies Area to illustrate the structures of large organic molecules generated during battery operation.

Congratulations to LiRRICs Will and Hanna, who were part of the BHER-led team that submitted the proposal entitled, “Electrolytic Production of Battery-Grade LiOH•H2O from Geothermal Brine.”
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On 22 September 2020, Tesla announced at its “Battery Day” a series of technical advancements it was working on that when combined, could reduce the cost of energy storage in its homemade lithium-ion batteries by over 50%. Some of those announcements were impressive, some were surprising, some were obvious, but some were received with shock by lithium-ion battery supply chain stakeholders.

The Energy Storage & Distributed Resources Division (ESDR) announced the formation of the Thermal Energy Group earlier this month. ESDR now encompasses six groups spanning a diverse set of research areas ranging from energy conversion to grid integration, all of which are part of the Energy Technologies Area (ETA) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The group will be led by Sumanjeet Kaur, who has guided and supported the group’s innovative research direction and growth over the last several years.

Power demand means we need new sources.