Submitted by FarmhouseFan t3_zmk8gt in Futurology
TomatoMasterRace t1_j0chf3k wrote
Would it make any sense at all to manufacture lithium using fusion reactors? (Hydrogen + helium = lithium)
Human_Anybody7743 t1_j0gaplk wrote
None whatsoever. The amount of material that a large (multi GW) fusion generator can fuse is on the order of a few to a few dozen kilograms a year.
Initial designs will need substantially more lithium than their fuel quantity because this is the source of tritium to run them (Lithium 7 + neutron -> He4 + H3 + neutron). There needs to be many tonnes so a neutron always hits some lithium, but the quantity is fairly insignificant given the scales involved.
To give a vague idea of the scales involved, fusing a couple hundred thousand tonnes of D + T would raise the temperature of the entire ocean by few degrees. The surface would essentially be a firestorm.
Sodium ion, zinc bromide, iron, or aluminium batteries are probably the answer to your query in decreasing order of maturity (Sodium ion is under mass production now and will be in some small chinese cars next year).
AlS or LiS batteries are the most exciting because the sulfur has multiple oxidation states giving them high enough energy density for applications like shipping or even short haul mass passenger flight. They're also the hardest because they desperately want to be something other than a charged LiS or AlS battery and have extremely high energy density and lots of options for doing so because Sulfur has multiple oxidation states. AlS has been used for multi day solar unmanned flights.
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