we got sulfur and lead now.....so lead battery?

[badgamer123]

we need a use for sulfur....and lead acid battery seem fun to store large amount of energy...(a big pool of lead etc)

[Derringer]

Maybe produce sulphuric acid (sulphur, water, oxylite) and lead oxide (lead, oxylite) at the molecular forge, then assemble plastic (primary element), lead, lead oxide, and sulphuric acid into an advanced battery. Probably great for solar installations that otherwise need absurd numbers of smart batteries. Mind your temperatures, plastic likes to melt.

[Sasza22]

I`m not against an advanced battery that uses some plastic and maybe lead. We need more uses for plastic and batteries don`t get any progression after the smart one. An expensive super capacity battery with some other downsides (like needing to be cooled) could be an interesting late game option.

[Derringer]

Classic wet lead-acid batteries are anything but maintenance-free... acting like an electrolyser if overcharged and requiring a top-up of water, for example.

[Coolthulhu]

To win with arrays of existing batteries, the new battery would have to have lower charge loss (per unit of stored power) and less maintenance than them. Any new battery that fails to beat old batteries would be obsolete on arrival. Storage capacity isn't enough when you can just build more.

[Sasza22]

32 minutes ago, Coolthulhu said:

and less maintenance than them

But the current batteries don`t require maintainance. So you can`t get less than that, or did i misunderstood? An advanced battery should hold more charge and lose less charge over time to be suitable for high power systems. But it should have some sort of downside that makes it interesting but not annoying to use. Like them producing substantial heat. A cooling system properly set up is maintainance free but requires you to get to a point you can set it up.

[Coolthulhu]

1 minute ago, Sasza22 said:

But the current batteries don`t require maintainance.

In some cases they do, for example when you set them up in space and need to set up a cooling system for them.

2 minutes ago, Sasza22 said:

But it should have some sort of downside that makes it interesting but not annoying to use. Like them producing substantial heat.

Should it?

The new battery would have to compete not just with banks of existing batteries, but also with smart battery+generator setups. Using charge loss (per storage unit) as a primary benefit would put a rather strict cap on the new heating: it must not cost more power to remove heat than is gained from lower charge loss, otherwise it's just better to add more batteries.

In which situations would the new battery be noticeably better than existing options? "It's easier/less effort to set it up" doesn't count.

[Sasza22]

4 minutes ago, Coolthulhu said:

it must not cost more power to remove heat than is gained from lower charge loss, otherwise it's just better to add more batteries.

That`s true. I didn`t account for the extra power cooling loops need.

5 minutes ago, Coolthulhu said:

In which situations would the new battery be noticeably better than existing options?

So basically the new battery should be superior for high amounts of power stored. Current batteries have a limit, when adding more of them just makes you lose too much power and it`s no longer worth it. The new one should both take less space to store the same amount of energy (more capacity per battery) and slower lose charge so it`s beneficial to store more energy using them rather than basic ones. But it shouldn`t be worth to build one for small remote systems so regular batteries aren`t completely obsolete.