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Iron fuel shows its mettle

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Re: Iron fuel shows its mettle

#91

Post by jokoon »

At that rate, there should be an encyclopedia dedicated to all projects that can be described as greenwashing.

I think it's a new strategy to "drown the fish", by flooding the media with "green" technologies just to pretend to say "we heard you, we are going to change the world with green new things" only to save more time until everybody realize each of those new projects are just not viable. The air travel sector seems to be rife with this.

Who could have guessed that snake oil could work in something as serious as the energy sector, I'm really surprised it's getting so low.

I'm going to be brutally honest, but you even hear people from first world countries playing the poverty card when you tell them they should stop driving alone in a 1 ton vehicle, and it seems sobriety and de-growth will have to convince those people that fossil fuels are a privilege, not a right.

I can bet that we are going to see people sabotaging cars, gas stations and refineries pretty soon if nothing is done. Greta Thunberg will be 25 soon and a whole generation will not tolerate more lies.

Re: Iron fuel shows its mettle

#92

Post by unwind »

jokoon wrote: post #91

At that rate, there should be an encyclopedia dedicated to all projects that can be described as greenwashing. I think it's a new strategy to "drown the fish", by flooding the media with "green" technologies just to pretend to say "we heard you, we are going to change the world with green new things" only to save more time until everybody realize each of those new projects are just not viable. The air travel sector s…

Okay, but it would be more helpful if you provided some actual arguments against the technology.

Re: Iron fuel shows its mettle

#93

Post by caseyohara »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #74
Tade0 wrote: post #50

> “Places that have excess energy could make iron, and others can buy it. This way, you could commodify renewable energy so it can be globally distributed without the need for transmission lines. Metals can solve a big problem in the renewable energy transition: long-duration energy storage.” My gut feeling is that transmission lines would still be cheaper. That being said long-term storage seems to be the value prop…

Iceland has absurd amounts of spare energy. So they bring in ships full of bauxite and refine it into aluminum blocks then load it back on the ship. Aluminum is refined by electrolysis, so it’s a perfect way to export their excess electricity. That’s stocking btw that it takes 4 tons of coal per year per house. That’s an absurd amount.

It's not that absurd. One ton of coal produces ~25 million BTUs. That's about the same output as a cord of oak or hickory, which weigh about 2 tons per cord. And most people that heat their home exclusively by burning wood use about 5-6 cords per year.

Re: Iron fuel shows its mettle

#94

Post by MauranKilom »

rcme wrote: post #59

Is iron oxide really that much more volumous than iron? In terms of capturing the iron oxide, why couldn’t this be run in a sealed container with a valve that allows oxygen in? This doesn’t work for hydrocarbons because the volume of CO2 is orders of magnitude greater than the volume of fuel, but does iron oxide have the same issue?

I vaguely remember that continuous processes are strongly preferred over batch processes. Especially for such things as "provide energy".

Re: Iron fuel shows its mettle

#95

Post by concordDance »

jokoon wrote: post #91

At that rate, there should be an encyclopedia dedicated to all projects that can be described as greenwashing. I think it's a new strategy to "drown the fish", by flooding the media with "green" technologies just to pretend to say "we heard you, we are going to change the world with green new things" only to save more time until everybody realize each of those new projects are just not viable. The air travel sector s…

While it's very true that greenwashing is a thing, bans on fossil fuels are not the right approach. You need sin taxes that account for the cost of the externalities instead. A CO2 tax is sensible, "degrowth" is a horrific thing that will kill billions.

Re: Iron fuel shows its mettle

#96

Post by concordDance »

cogman10 wrote: post #85
SmooL wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My gut feeling is that transmission lines would still be cheaper Transmission lines are great for moving electricity, but only if there's demand for that electricity _right now_. Otherwise, you have to store it - which is a problem, because battery tech right now isn't great (or rather, it's not good enough for grid-scale requirements) . This iron powder could be thought of as a "battery". It might be harder to mov…

> or rather, it’s not good enough for grid-scale requirements I disagree with this point. LFP batteries are cheap, high density, and have huge cycle life. The big drawback of LFPs is manufacturing is just starting to ramp up on them. That is, they aren’t available. LFPs just came out of patent protection last year and you are already starting to see them everywhere. The biggest problem with LFPs today is demand is ou…

Got any numbers here?

Re: Iron fuel shows its mettle

#97

Post by nyc_data_geek1 »

concordDance wrote: post #95
jokoon wrote: post #91

At that rate, there should be an encyclopedia dedicated to all projects that can be described as greenwashing. I think it's a new strategy to "drown the fish", by flooding the media with "green" technologies just to pretend to say "we heard you, we are going to change the world with green new things" only to save more time until everybody realize each of those new projects are just not viable. The air travel sector s…

While it's very true that greenwashing is a thing, bans on fossil fuels are not the right approach. You need sin taxes that account for the cost of the externalities instead. A CO2 tax is sensible, "degrowth" is a horrific thing that will kill billions.

Done correctly, degrowth need not lead to billions of deaths. We desperately need to restructure our economic systems and societies to account for the reality that infinite economic growth on a finite world is not possible, realistic or desirable. If we do so, we can minimize the bleeding.

If we fail to, billions will die on hothouse Earth regardless.

Re: Iron fuel shows its mettle

#98

Post by j-a-a-p »

olau wrote: post #28
j-a-a-p wrote: post #10

Looks like the same thing as Form Energy provides. They are selling plants at MW level (article is about a small brewery at kW level) https://formenergy.com/

Form Energy is a bit light on details, but it looks like they are using a water based electrolyte, add oxygen, get electric power and rust when discharging, then add electric power and get iron and oxygen when charging. The project mentioned here is setting the iron powder on fire and need to use a steam turbine to get electric power out of it. So different tech.

> Our first commercial product is an iron-air battery capable of storing electricity for 100 hours at system costs competitive with legacy power plants.

https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/

But yes, I was triggered with iron alone, but they both seem to burn iron. There is a whole industry of flow batteries emerging also.

Re: Iron fuel shows its mettle

#99

Post by samus »

wongarsu wrote: post #57
dmix wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that battery/production distinction work? How is it a battery if it is consuming/burning a fuel? More as a stable fallback or something?

Non-rechargeable batteries are also consuming a fuel. The products just stay in the same enclosed container. Same with rechargable batteries, just that there the process is easily reversible. It is a bit of a fuzzy distinction. Batteries are typically simple chemical reactions that cause electrons to move around. But viewed from the outside a hydrogen fuel cell behaves the same; so why not call this one a battery too…

A useful distinction seems to be that batteries are solid state and don't use high process heat, else something would be seriously wrong. Of course, the underlying reactions are probably very similar if you look at them with a chemist's eye.

Re: Iron fuel shows its mettle

#100

Post by howlin »

I don't really understand why iron is being considered over aluminum. Is aluminum production from ore too complex compared to iron? I would have to imagine burning metallic aluminum produces much more energy per gram.
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