Clean energy revolution with the help of the most abundant element on Earth

Every year there is some innovation happening to move us towards clean energy. Electric vehicles are becoming one of the biggest things in recent years. We are able to see many private planes and jets that are already operating with electricity instead of fossil fuels. But even though we are moving towards clean energy, they are not 100% clean because we are still dependent on some rarest substances on Earth for our batteries. That's why we need innovation around the batteries to make use of the most abundant element on Earth's crust to make it really green energy.

If you look at the below table, the most abundant element on earth appears to be Oxygen which is what we use for breathing. We know how to produce oxygen and mostly with the help of carbon dioxide, we exhale. Plants are trees that are capable of producing enough oxygen for our survival. But apart from that, there are so many other substances and I'm very happy that we are using the second most abundant substance on our earth's crust to make solar panels that act as our alternative source of energy. There is a big debate that disposing of expired solar panels is becoming a big pain. That's a separate topic altogether.

Most electric vehicles operate with the help of batteries and they are the primary source of power on electric vehicles. If we have to come up with innovations around electric vehicles, we have to make sure the batteries are the best place to innovate. We already know that in the last two decades the batteries have seen great growth in terms of innovations. We used to have very big batteries to source enough power but today with all the innovations, we are able to have a compact battery that can power our house.

That's not going to be enough right, we need more innovations in this area. Currently, Lithium-Ion is the most famous battery being used everywhere but there are already innovations beyond that. We already have Lithium Ferro Phosphate batteries. The experts say that they are better than Lithium-Ion batteries and it is also good from a security standpoint. Maybe the future is going to be transforming towards this but the main thought here is to move towards abundant elements available on our Earth's crust.

Sodium is one such option. They say that the efficiency we get from Sodium based batteries is less comparatively. But it is one of the most abundant elements on our Earth's crust. If we can somehow find ways to replace Lithium with Sodium, it will be the best innovation and the batteries will also become highly affordable for everyone. The researches are still in its early stages. We will have to wait a few more years to see how it goes.

Posted with STEMGeeks