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Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

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Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#231

Post by antupis »

freefal wrote: post #169
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #105

In early 20th century in London there was an alternative hydraulic "power grid" with plants (aka pumps), storages and an underground distribution network of pipes. A building, for example, could connect to high pressure water mains and use it to power elevators. Electricity eventually won, but it's interesting to see an idea coming back. Zeppelins next! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Hydraulic_Power_Company

A bit tangential, but New York City has an operating steam system that's still widely used by commercial customers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system

District heating is pretty normal at northern Europe altought now we use mostly water.

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#232

Post by hinkley »

Dave Borlace (Just Have a Think) has been covering this space a bit. There's a whole space in power storage that also overlaps with carbon capture that I suspect will probably end up being the winning play because cogeneration can often double system efficiency, making unprofitable things profitable.

One way we can reduce carbon intensity is to stop using fossil fuels to generate industrial CO2.

There's a kind of metal-air battery that actually absorbs CO2 while charging, and emits it while discharging. There is also air liquification as power storage, in which you can separate the oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen into different containers.

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#233

Post by bumby »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #181
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #105

In early 20th century in London there was an alternative hydraulic "power grid" with plants (aka pumps), storages and an underground distribution network of pipes. A building, for example, could connect to high pressure water mains and use it to power elevators. Electricity eventually won, but it's interesting to see an idea coming back. Zeppelins next! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Hydraulic_Power_Company

The University of Iowa campus has a steam system under the campus, installed in the last century. Nowadays the steam is recovered waste from the electric plant. But it's still in use!

If you want to find good candidates for saving the campus tons of money, go to the roof of one of the tallest buildings on a cold day and look for the buildings that are venting lots of steam. They likely have a failed steam trap somewhere in the building. It's not uncommon for failed steam traps to save thousands of dollars a year apiece when fixed.

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#234

Post by DrBoring »

samstave wrote: post #116
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #105

In early 20th century in London there was an alternative hydraulic "power grid" with plants (aka pumps), storages and an underground distribution network of pipes. A building, for example, could connect to high pressure water mains and use it to power elevators. Electricity eventually won, but it's interesting to see an idea coming back. Zeppelins next! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Hydraulic_Power_Company

There also used to be "central turbines" whereby there was a central spinning rod that one could attach belts to in order to spin a thing to get work out of it... called line and shaft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qt5tltnvF8

I once saw this in use at a restaurant to drive ceiling fans. I looked up some videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uCvwEq3co

https://youtu.be/1IWTM1rNCnw?t=78

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#235

Post by mnahkies »

throw8932894 wrote: post #213
mabbo wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of system is used today in many modern industrial facilities. Case in point: Amazon warehouses. Lots of the mechanical automations inside some of those warehouses are powered by compressed air in open loop systems. As the conveyor pushes the item off, onto a different lane, there's a distinct hiss of air escaping. The movement of the machine was powered by compressed air. Out in the parking lot in these fac…

It is pretty common in regular workshops. Compressed air powers drills, riveting machines, sprays guns, jack hammers... Tools powered by compressed air are simpler (no electronics), more durable and cheaper.

My favourite thing about air tools was not having to worry about batteries (most electric hand tools I've used are battery only so no opportunity to use an extension lead like you use an air hose)

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#236

Post by MSFT_Edging »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #105

In early 20th century in London there was an alternative hydraulic "power grid" with plants (aka pumps), storages and an underground distribution network of pipes. A building, for example, could connect to high pressure water mains and use it to power elevators. Electricity eventually won, but it's interesting to see an idea coming back. Zeppelins next! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Hydraulic_Power_Company

There was an article on here earlier about Amish tech and they also make use of a lot of pneumatic machines for daily tasks.

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#237

Post by trompetenaccoun »

reacharavindh wrote: post #221

I’m not an electrical engineer. But, thinking about the power storage/retrieval problem with a computer engineer’s lens, I can draw a parallel to data storage/retrieval. L1/L2/L3 caches - expensive, small, but fast. RAM - mid tier, still fast, bigger than cache, less expensive than cache, but limited in capacity compared to disk/flash based storage. SSDs… Disks…. You get the point. Would it be the same with the grid?…

Sounds trivial enough, now someone just has to built it all.

Jokes aside though everything has pros and cons. For storing large amounts of energy from the grid, are you sure lithium batteries make sense? Take a look at this, it's not a scientific article but it gives you a basic overview of the problems we'd face when storing energy in lithium batteries at scale: https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/storage/lithium-or-vana...

And that isn't to say that flow batteries are the ultimate solution either, we will have to do better because it's still very expensive.

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#238

Post by ted_dunning »

toss1 wrote: post #195
nkurz wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really popular idea on the internet because it's very easy to grasp, but the numbers don't work out well. The weights you can actually lift aren't much compared to the volume of a reservoir of water, and the heights you can lift them are but a fraction of the thousands of meters being discussed here. Yes, the concrete isn't going to require much maintenance, but the gearboxes needed are a significant enginee…

Except it is already being done by multiple companies [0], Energy Vault in Switzerland [1], Gravitricity in Scotland [2], New Energy Lets go [3], and Gravity Power [4]. All have raised substantial funds and are building. Sure, pumped hydro has advantages, but has serious geographic limitations - you need a fairly ideal site. The key is that these can be built almost anywhere. [0] https://spectrum.ieee.org/gravity-ene…

See also the rail-based gravity storage: https://aresnorthamerica.com/gravityline/

But the point about little progress by these companies still holds. ARES has been around for 11 years now and has one 50MWh project to talk about that covers 20 acres.

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#239

Post by dmix »

freefal wrote: post #169
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #105

In early 20th century in London there was an alternative hydraulic "power grid" with plants (aka pumps), storages and an underground distribution network of pipes. A building, for example, could connect to high pressure water mains and use it to power elevators. Electricity eventually won, but it's interesting to see an idea coming back. Zeppelins next! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Hydraulic_Power_Company

A bit tangential, but New York City has an operating steam system that's still widely used by commercial customers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system

The interesting part of the NYC one is the scale

> Today, Consolidated Edison operates the largest commercial steam system in the world (larger than the next nine combined).

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#240

Post by throwawayboise »

mnahkies wrote: post #235
throw8932894 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty common in regular workshops. Compressed air powers drills, riveting machines, sprays guns, jack hammers... Tools powered by compressed air are simpler (no electronics), more durable and cheaper.

My favourite thing about air tools was not having to worry about batteries (most electric hand tools I've used are battery only so no opportunity to use an extension lead like you use an air hose)

The motor also doesn't create sparks so they are more useful in flamable atmospheres.
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