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Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to store power in molten salt

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Re: Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to store power in molten salt

#5
The rather extreme losses associated with electricity > heat > heat engine > electricity seem like an absolute deal killer. Assuming they are at an extreme 50% round trip efficiency you need to be extremely cheap to have a hope of breaking even. Worse heat has fairly low energy density and cools over time so they can’t really scale the up or down that much.

It might be possible if they where starting with heat, but feeding this from wind and solar just seems unlikely.

Re: Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to store power in molten salt

#7
post #5

The rather extreme losses associated with electricity > heat > heat engine > electricity seem like an absolute deal killer. Assuming they are at an extreme 50% round trip efficiency you need to be extremely cheap to have a hope of breaking even. Worse heat has fairly low energy density and cools over time so they can’t really scale the up or down that much. It might be possible if they where starting with heat, but f…

A lot of the fundamentals have actually already been researched and at least in academia, the various ideas have all been out there for quite a few decades now.

The main impetus has been in getting the funding to kickstart everything, and backing from Alphabet with strong financial support plus an intellectual talent from subsidiaries (Google, X, etc.) to pool from is the killer combination here in my opinion.

Re: Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to store power in molten salt

#9

Blog post from the Malta team on their graduation from X with their molten salt battery grid energy storage play. https://blog.x.company/introducing-malta-81bceb559061

From the blog post:

> Malta’s solution is to store electricity as heat in high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature liquid for days, or even weeks, until it’s needed. The key insight behind Malta is that electricity can be stored as heat in high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature liquid for days, or even weeks, until it’s needed.

The key insight is an oft forgotten energy storage fundamental called ‘tautology’.

Re: Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to store power in molten salt

#10
post #9

Blog post from the Malta team on their graduation from X with their molten salt battery grid energy storage play. https://blog.x.company/introducing-malta-81bceb559061

From the blog post: > Malta’s solution is to store electricity as heat in high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature liquid for days, or even weeks, until it’s needed. The key insight behind Malta is that electricity can be stored as heat in high temperature molten salt and cold in a low temperature liquid for days, or even weeks, until it’s needed. The key insight is an oft forgotten energy storage f…

Not sure if you noticed, but the phrase "Key insight" links to a scientific paper:

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4994054

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