An "infinite battery" in front of the house and not knowing it. A boundless mine, a strategic resource which, unlike everything that revolves around energy, is incapable of triggering conflicts and shedding blood to gain undue supremacy linked to rare materials and critical minerals. Since it began, the phantom ecological transition has never stopped chasing the old clichés of dependence on hydrocarbons: markets and prices are controlled only by those who hold them. A sort of perennial "curse" where people profit, speculate, exploit and put a noose around the necks of disarmed states and economies.
Energy, the Campi Flegrei
We have gone from dependence on oil and gas to the subjugation of lithium and cobalt, with geopolitics transformed into a varied set of "Campi Flegrei" always boiling. Everyone today is looking for rare materials, to "power" batteries with which to "capture" wind or solar energy, to make the "power" of the wind and the sun their own. The new dependence, however, opens up unprecedented scenarios, with continuous coups d'état, see Central Africa, or new colonizations that the world's powerful pursue with creeping means of violent persuasion. Renewables speculators don't care. For them, a simple equation applies: fewer batteries means building more shovels and infinite expanses of solar panels, all generously financed by state incentives, "robbed" from citizens' bills.
Engine of nature
It matters little if the blades only rotate when there is wind or the panels capture the sun only when it is there. In reality, if the energy of the future were truly renewable, it would have to adapt in an "intelligent" way precisely to this powerful "engine" of nature, whose energy should be captured when it exists to be used when the wind stops and the sun sets.
Sea battery
For this reason the great challenge, against energy speculation and the greed of the lords of the shovels, could be called "sea battery", the new frontier for conserving energy, without squandering landscape and nature with impunity, without unleashing wars everywhere in order to conquer a very small deposit of lithium, cobalt, rare or critical earths. The scientific research will be published in November by the major global magazines on renewable energy and sustainability, but its content is in our hands. We anticipate it, precisely because the Island is the protagonist. The title of the study goes further: «Integration of Na-seawater battery technology with renewable energy: the case study of Sardinia».
Independent Sardinia
The theme is complex, the research is articulated, the synthesis is free will: an island, in this case Sardinia, must aspire to total "energy independence", making the most of the energies that nature offers it, "sun and wind" in this case, capturing the power through "batteries" which instead of being produced with rare and unavailable materials can be made by "extracting" sodium (Na) directly from the infinite sea water, the one that surrounds the entire island. It would seem like a science fiction utopia if it weren't for the fact that the researchers from the University of Perugia, Department of Engineering, Professor Linda Barelli, with her colleagues Dario Pelosi, Graziano Di Donato and Stefano Passerini, from the Sapienza University of Rome, from the German Helmholtz research institutes Ulm and Karlsruhe Technology, and Maria Assunta Navarra of Sapienza, have "sculpted" their studies, complete with final results, in research that is as revolutionary as it is far-sighted, capable of writing a decisive chapter on the use of renewable energy. The heart of the study can be summarized: «The Na-seawater battery is proposed as an energy storage technology».
Scientific “Paper”.
In the research paper, scientists put in black and white the applications of research on seawater batteries, from short-term to seasonal storage, which has always been a real concern of renewable energy. A technology that wastes nothing starting from desalinated water and chlorine by-products, all evaluated for the Sardinia case study. They called it “SWB”, translated to “Sea Water Battery”. A technology capable of identifying reactive metals, to be used as promising energy carriers and storage means characterized by high volumetric energy densities and circularity, thanks to the ease of storage and transport, availability of material and low cost".
Sardinia impact
Among these, Sodium is a widely available element, it can be extracted from sea water, and exploited through the innovative Sodium-seawater battery. The study is not just theoretical. To make it more than appreciable, it was developed in such a way as to understand «the impact of seawater-sodium-battery technology by focusing on the island of Sardinia as a case study». The Sardinian scenario, excluding the speculative plans of the solar and wind multinationals, but based solely and exclusively on the quantities of renewables necessary to satisfy the needs of the Sardinians, has been analyzed in every detail. An accurate picture starting from the seasonal production peaks of solar and wind. A necessary accumulation generated through sea water "batteries" capable of rebalancing the energy distribution when renewable production is absent.
Four football fields
All this with a time frame that goes from the minimum span of the day up to a seasonal projection. The summary of the research is in a few exhaustive and emblematic numbers: «As regards the long-term scenario, the implementation of "sea water batteries" in the energy system allows the coverage of Sardinia's annual energy demand thanks to the integration of approximately 340,000 cubic meters of metallic sodium (Na), corresponding to a 12 meter high sodium (Na) tank under four football fields". In practice, with a metal "tank", the size of just over three hectares and a depth of a three-storey underground car park, it would be possible to store a "sea water battery" capable of satisfying the entire energy demand of the Sardinia.
Energy revolution
A revolutionary project capable of putting lithium ion battery technology on the line which not only dominates the market of electrochemical storage technologies, thanks to the high energy density, efficiency and flexibility, but which risks mortgaging the future even more that, according to an IEA study, in 2040 the demand for Lithium, Cobalt and Nickel for use in electric vehicles will exceed today's production eight times.
Sea water, the advantages
A theme, that of dependence on "rare and critical materials", which risks heavily influencing the already heated world scene, both for the very serious implications linked to key issues such as the availability and cost of critical materials (mainly Cobalt, Nickel and Lithium ), both safety and very serious environmental risks. It is clear that “seawater batteries” would have unprecedented competitive advantages: from low cost to great abundance, from low geopolitical supply risks to adequate electrochemical potential. A revolution.
Black mass out of play
The scientific and strategic plan developed by the researchers fully demonstrates the feasibility of the seawater energy storage system, with short and long-term energy storage for Sardinia, exploiting the configuration of the combined sea sodium battery with the island's renewable sources. It is all too clear that this solution would totally put the already old and polluting project for the recycling of lithium batteries to be carried out in Portovesme completely out of play. A recycling plan that was born old, even before seeing the light, capable of once again transforming the island into a global landfill for hazardous waste. Last note: with the creation of the "sea water battery" for Sardinia, those three hectares of underground container can be divided into several points on the island, it will also be possible to produce 37 million cubic meters of desalinated water per year , corresponding to approximately 29% of the water necessary for the sanitary uses of the Sardinian inhabitants. In short, a battery in front of the house, for the potential energy independence of the island. And to think that there are those who still aim to dump the world's Black Mass waste on the island with Litio & company.
