201–210 of 278 posts
The technology isn't incredibly immature. On the contrary, it's understood to the tiniest detail. If it doesn't work, it won't work.
Isn’t pumped hydro a realistic solution? There should be a massive amount of energy in moving all that water up a mountain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Here's an idea: what if -- instead of digging a deep hole into the ground -- we use the tower of a wind turbine as the vertical space in which the weight is raised/lowered? First, there's not really any room in there, wind towers are built for the job, we don't add twice the amount of steel and an elevator shaft for funsies. Second, even if there were some room it would be inconsequential, you need a lot of crap ve…
What if we used load bearing batteries as part of the tower structure?
Which is why vertical glaciers are so tempting. Its just ice, you pile it up, in large columns, with a puddle of water beneath. Energy is extracted by warming the water and taking part of the pressure to a turbine.
Energy is added by pumping and freezing water on top, while the extracted heat is stored in a side tank for later usage. Insulation against heat prevents energy loss for longer times. Four T-beams hold up the freezing machinery on top. Storage grows with demand. If the ice starts to deform, added carbon-flakes, can increase tensile strength. Pressure in the pool is kept via onion-seals
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All the while the north sea with it's wind is right there, and the Sahara with it's sun nearby too. Some investment in long distance power transmission would go a long way towards smoothing out the grid.
Importing energy from Sahara comes with serious geopolitical issues. Do you really want to commit to peacekeeping in a huge area of Africa? Keep in mind that oil can be stockpiled much more easily than electricity, stockpiles that let you weather small storms. Importing electricity means being on top of every hint of a blip.
If Israel can build natural gas pipelines to Italy, I think we can handle a subsea electrical cable.
You don't want all your eggs in one basket, but this seems like a poor excuse for having zero eggs at all.
Stopped reading at a total cost of more than $300 per MWh for batteries. Quick back-of-the-napkin calculation: Car batteries come in at less than $100/KWh. They're good for at least 1000 cycles at 80% capacity. That gives us at least 0.8MWh for a 100$ investment. It's very, very unlikely that initial construction of the site and operational costs more than triple that price.
This sounds amazing. It's like the repetitive, seemingly-pointless behavior you see in the background in videogames...
Here's an idea: what if -- instead of digging a deep hole into the ground -- we use the tower of a wind turbine as the vertical space in which the weight is raised/lowered? A wind turbine is already equipped with a generator, so it'd be a matter of building some sort of "switch" which would make it either: (a) generate electricity using the turbine, as per usual; (b) raise the weight using the turbine, thus not produ…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMO you grossly overestimate the amount humans know about things. Science is basically a stream of updated realizations that the previous "known" things were actually wrong.
and you vastly underestimate it
Excuse me, I'm off to build a battery out of a bank of leaf springs.
The technology isn't incredibly immature. On the contrary, it's understood to the tiniest detail. If it doesn't work, it won't work.
Isn’t pumped hydro a realistic solution? There should be a massive amount of energy in moving all that water up a mountain.
Stopped reading at a total cost of more than $300 per MWh for batteries. Quick back-of-the-napkin calculation: Car batteries come in at less than $100/KWh. They're good for at least 1000 cycles at 80% capacity. That gives us at least 0.8MWh for a 100$ investment. It's very, very unlikely that initial construction of the site and operational costs more than triple that price.
I wish that cost basis wasn't the only consideration when evaluating energy storage, but we're so accustomed to money being the great equalizer that things without a financial cost associated are often overlooked. What is the $/MWh cost associated with mining for, recycling, and disposing of battery components? What about the third order effects of centralizing control over the fuel source within only a handful of co…
A fraction of the cost of the batteries, naturally.
> What about the third order effects of centralizing control over the fuel source within only a handful of countries[0]?
The lead in car batteries is one of the most recycled materials on the plant. Your link is talking about lithium, not lead. Lithium-ion batteries only make sense in portable applications like cell phones and electric vehicles where weight is a major consideration. In stationary applications, heavier batteries like lead-acid are infinitely more practical.