A portion of this video is
brought to you by Surfshark. Where there’s tech, there’s magnets. The strong
magnets that generate their own magnetic field, AKA permanent magnets, aren’t only on your fridge.
They’re in multiple places _inside_ your fridge, and in your cell phone, headphones, and hard
disk drive, too. Permanent magnets are also a critical resource for renewables, because
the generators in some wind turbines and motors in electric vehicles rely on them to run.
This is far from ideal, though. Most permanent magnets are made of what we call rare-earth
metals, and these elements are difficult to mine, expensive, and not widely recycled. Processing
rare earths creates radioactive waste. Plus, the vast majority — over 90% — are sourced from
China alone, creating supply risks. As a result, the elements most crucial to clean energy
are ironically the most unsustainable. But what if we could avoid using them
altogether … and potentially make a better electric motor? With his design for a
permanent magnet-free electric motor, a Floridian high school student has just
shown us how. Another company is using cloud computing to try to improve electric motor
performance. There’s some exciting advances being made
when it comes to electric motors, but how much of a difference can they make?
I’m Matt Ferrell … welcome to Undecided. In his own words, 17-year-old Robert Sansone
of Fort Pierce, Florida has “a natural interest in electric motors.” While researching electric
vehicles one day, he learned about the negative environmental impacts of the rare-earth elements
used in the permanent magnet motors that power them.This sparked his interest in developing an
alternative type of motor without rare earths. But first, what are these rare-earth elements, and
why are they so problematic? Well, 17 elements of the periodic table are considered rare-earth
elements or rare-earth metals, AKA REEs. To clarify, rare earths aren’t really “rare” in terms
of crustal abundance so much as rarely found in quantities large enough to justify mining.However,
we’re surrounded by rare earths every day. These elements are highly conductive to electricity
and used in a huge number of technologies, from fighter jets to fiber optic cables. Glass and
ceramics are another primary application, and they represented about 10% of the end-use distribution
of rare earths in the United States in 2021. Rare earths are used extensively in the
automobile industry, whether in the catalytic converters of cars or the rechargeable batteries
of hybrid vehicles. Some act as stabilizers in the process of turning oil into gasoline. And
when it comes to permanent magnets, neodymium and dysprosium in particular are vital. In fact,
according to the United States Geological Survey, neodymium-iron-boron magnets are the most
powerful we’ve got. These magnets can withstand temperatures as high as 230 C, and they’re
especially advantageous in clean energy tech because they allow gearboxes to be eliminated in
wind turbines and electric cars. To put the use of neodymium into perspective, a single 1 MW
wind turbine needs about 700 kg of it for the turbine’s magnet-based generator to function.
As the demand for rare earths continues to skyrocket, their concentration in the hands
of a few suppliers is becoming more and more of a concern. The CEO of USA
Rare Earth, estimated in a 2021 interview that the United States would need to produce
around 20 to 25 times more rare earths than it already does to lessen our near-total
reliance on China between now and 2050. However, rare earths production is a costly,
difficult process that has serious consequences. Rare-earth metals never occur as free elements,
but instead as mixtures in ores. They have to be purified to be used, and the process of separating
rare earths can involve thousands of steps and massive amounts of harsh chemicals. This is made
even more complicated by the fact that all rare earths require different chemical techniques for
refining.Also, the ores and minerals that rare earths are primarily sourced from naturally
contain uranium and thorium. This means that producing rare earths creates a significant
amount of toxic and radioactive wastes. To make matters worse, products containing
rare earths (like smartphones, monitors, and LEDs) are usually dumped into the trash,
not recycled.Attempting to salvage valuable metals from this e-waste can be extremely
dangerous to human health anyway because consumer electronics typically contain
harmful substances like lead and mercury. All these factors translate into the priciness
of rare earths. Some elements, like neodymium and gallium, go for hundreds of dollars per kilogram.
Others, like hafnium and germanium, will run you _thousands_ of dollars per kilogram. Meanwhile,
copper hovers at about 8 bucks per kilogram. So, despite their usefulness, rare-earth
elements complicate our relationship to renewable energy. If the permanent magnets that
set EVs in motion come at such a high cost, then what are our other options? When Sansone
continued his research to answer this question, he discovered that synchronous reluctance
motors don’t use permanent magnets. The thing is, synchronous reluctance motors don’t
provide nearly as much efficiency or torque, so they normally wouldn’t work in an
EV. Motivated by the opportunity to use this research as a project for school,
Sansone began a yearlong quest to fix that. But before we get into what this ingenious high
schooler did, I’d like to thank Surfshark for sponsoring this portion of today's video. I always
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the channel. Now back to Sansone’s discovery.. To understand what Sansone eventually
accomplished, let’s lay out what an electric motor is and where permanent magnets
come in. Electric motors are everywhere: if an object moves, chances are an electric motor
is driving it. That’s why it’s no surprise that electric motors are responsible for 43% to
46% of the world’s electricity consumption. An electric motor works by converting electricity
into mechanical energy. When an electric current flows through a coil within a magnetic
field, a force is generated that in turn produces torque.Torque is what causes an
object to rotate about an axis, and when torque is applied to a motor, it spins.This
rotation is then transferred from parts like gears to whatever needs to move, like a fan’s
blade, a car’s wheels, or your vacuum cleaner. The core of an electric motor is its
electromagnet. It takes the form of a metal loop called an _armature_, which, once
connected to a current, essentially becomes a big flat magnet. Like any other kind of magnet,
it has a north pole and a south pole. These can be flipped by reversing the polarity, which really
just means some control electronics are swapping which wires are charged to the positive and
negative ends of the battery. In a direct current or DC motor, curved north and south pole
magnets on opposite sides of the armature make up a stator, or static permanent magnet.
The armature will spin to align with the stator’s magnetic poles, but when we reverse
the polarity, it continues spinning to align to the new north on the opposite side. Reversing
the polarity back and forth causes magnet to keep spinning as it tries to stay aligned,
which in turn creates mechanical energy. DC motors have been in use since the mid-1800s,
but alternating current or induction motors are preferred in 70% of industries.In DC motors,
flip-flopping the polarity of the inner rotor causes it to spin. In an AC motor, made famous
by everyone’s favorite scientist, Nikola Tesla, power is sent to paired coils positioned along the
stator to produce a magnetic field in the rotor, which is affectionately referred to as a _squirrel
cage_.These coils are charged in a rotating phase sequence, essentially creating a swiftly
rotating magnetic field. The magnetized rotor then spins as it tries to “catch up” to the field
flowing around the stator. This can be measured as the saliency ratio, which is how efficiently
a rotor aligns with the applied magnetic field before the coils change their charge. Enter Sansone, who zeroed in on synchronous reluctance motors (syncronous reluctance motor) which create an exploitable difference in magnetic reluctance. Magnetic reluctance is equivalent to magnetic
resistance. Metals with high magnetic reluctance move more as they try to resist
a magnetic field. Per Sansone’s description, maximizing the difference between the low
magnetic reluctance of the steel rotor and the high magnetic reluctance of the slots
cut into it increases the motor’s saliency ratio. Higher saliency means higher torque.
Still, neither the torque nor efficiency of synchronous reluctance motors, or syncronous
reluctance motors, are currently enough for EVs. Therefore, Sansone’s goal was to improve upon
these relative weaknesses in hopes of designing a syncronous reluctance motor that could compete
with permanent magnet ones. Then, by switching to these motors, we could theoretically make EVs
both much more sustainable and cheaper. Armed with a 3D printer, steel, and copper,
Sansone spent a year optimizing his concept for a novel syncronous reluctance motor.Over
the course of building 15 prototypes, Sansone developed his motor without air gaps,
instead incorporating another magnetic field in their place. This one tweak gave the exploitable
resistance and saliency ratio of the motor a big boost, producing 39% more torque and operating 31%
more efficiently at 300 revolutions per minute. The efficiency jumped to 37% when the motor
ran at 750 RPM, but any higher and Sansone’s 3D-printed plastic parts would overheat.
One prototype actually melted on his desk. Fortunately, this loss was not in vain. In May,
Sansone received first prize at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering
Fair for his syncronous reluctance motor, heading home with $75,000 for his efforts.
He hasn’t stopped, either: as of October, he was still working on the 16th iteration of
his motor, with plans for version 17 underway. We can only say so much about the viability of
Sansone's design for two reasons. For one thing, he intends on patenting his syncronous reluctance
motor, so he hasn’t shared specifics about how it works. And as Sansone points out himself, a
Tesla motor can reach 18,000 RPM. It simply isn’t possible for him to test the relative
power of his heat-sensitive prototypes with the resources he has.In any case, Sansone’s
story is an impressive show of what’s possible. Synchronous reluctance motors are an upcoming
potential pathway to addressing the sustainability issues caused by rare earths. _Switched_
reluctance motors, however, are already in motion. Like syncronous reluctance motors,
switched reluctance motors, or SRMs, sidestep magnets entirely. They both start with the same
letters and lack permanent magnets, so it’s a little confusing, but they work differently.
On a superficial level, SRMs function similarly to three-phase induction motors, a type
of AC motor. An SRM works by
wrapping magnetic steel in copper, with a similarly magnetic steel and copper-coil rotor.
That might not sound like it makes a difference, but it does. The magnetic forces exerted on
the iron in a SRM’s rotor can be up to 10 times greater than the magnetic forces
on the current-carrying conductors. that on some significant drawbacks, including
how loud they are. Though SRMs are powerful, they’re not very efficient. They aren’t as smooth
as three-phase induction motors. They vibrate, and they display more severe torque ripple, or
variations in torque as the shaft rotates.And managing the charged steel components also
requires more advanced control and monitoring methods than other types of electric motors.
With all these issues in mind, Turntide Technologies is attempting to tackle our need to
reduce energy consumption through its Smart Motor System. Using SRM technology, the company’s system
is made up of a motor, its controller, and the cloud. The system collects data from the different
parts of the motor to determine the ideal motor speed, and stores analytics for both the
controller and the user in the cloud. The idea is to ensure the motor operates at optimum efficiency
at all times so that no power is wasted. That’s a big deal considering the sheer number
of electric motors running at any given time. According Turntide CEO Ryan Morris, if we were
to replace the motors in every building on earth with smart motors, we could reduce global
carbon emissions by 2.3 gigatons a year, or what he calls the equivalent of growing seven
more Amazon rainforests.That’s a bold claim, and one you should take with a giant
grain of salt, but the smart motors’ performance in the HVAC system case studies
available on Turntide’s website is promising. In one pilot program, Canadian real estate company
Ivanhoé Cambridge retrofitted the HVAC systems in two malls with Turntide’s smart motors. These
locations saw 38% and 35% in energy savings and 79% and 64% decreases in motor energy usage,
respectively.The British retail chain Wilko similarly tested 800 motors across 400 stores.
The company saw 40% in energy savings alongside an additional 20% in savings when coupled with
building automation.Overall, when used in HVAC systems, Turntide’s smart motors promise to
pay for themselves in less than three years. Sansone’s synchronous reluctance motor and
Turntide’s switched reluctance motor are great examples of “when there’s a will, there’s
a way.” And in Sansone’s case, it gives me a lot of hope for the future of budding engineers out
there. Even as we face the destructive effects of manufacturing permanent magnets, we have pathways
ahead of us to help fix that problem. Rare-earth elements might be ubiquitous in the clean energy
sector at the moment, but may not have to be. So are you still undecided? Do you think electric
motor innovations like these will make a big difference for the future of EVs and renewables? Jump into the comments and let me know. And be sure to check out my follow up podcast Still TBD where we'll be discussing some of your feedback. If you liked this video, be sure to check out one of these videos over here. Thanks to all of my patrons for your continued support and a big welcome to new Supporter+ member Winfried Theis. You’re helping to make these videos possible. And thanks to all of you for watching. I’ll see you in the next one.
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Ysk, a 100 years ago, inventions were a common hobby, for some reason, its a good time for that, once again.