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CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally

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Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally

#81

Post by cossatot »

namibj wrote: post #69
GeekyBear wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's cheaper, doesn't involve the use of scarce resources, and is expected to have an operational lifetime that is three times longer than lithium ion storage facility. That's a significant difference.

2021 total world energy production of approximately 172 PWh would require 27.5 billion metric tons of lithium metal at typical 0.16g/Wh of a modern LFP cell; meanwhile, we have approximately 230 billion metric tons of lithium for taking (e.g. as part of desalination plants producing many other elements at the same time from the pre-consecrated brine) from the oceans. Note that we require only a fraction of a year's w…

Do you think desalinating 10% of the world's ocean water is feasible? What are the energy resources necessary to do that?

Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally

#82

Post by microtherion »

creativeSlumber wrote: post #21

what happens if that large enclosure fails and the CO2 freely flows outside? That enclosure has a huge volume - area the size of several football fields, and at least 15 stories high. The article says it holds 2k tons of co2, which is ~1,000,000 cubic meters in volume. CO2 is denser than air will pool closer to the ground, and will suffocate anyone in the area. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster Edi…

Yeah, I was also immediately thinking about the Lake Nyos disaster. But that one released something like 200k tons of CO2 in an instant, whereas this facility has 2k tons, which would more likely be released more gradually.

Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally

#83

Post by pfdietz »

2thumbsup wrote: post #80
pfdietz wrote: post #77

We don't need another few-hours storage technology. Batteries are going to clobber that. What we need is a storage technology with a duration of months. That would be truly complementary to these short term storage technologies.

A few hours are sometimes enough to start generators when renewable energy supply decreases. Obviously, the more capacity the better, but costs will increase linearly with capacity in most cases. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity - where it is feasible - is the only kind of energy storage close to "months".

The point is that's already a well-served market. These competitors are like alternative semiconductors going up against silicon.

Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally

#84

Post by ifwinterco »

2thumbsup wrote: post #80
pfdietz wrote: post #77

We don't need another few-hours storage technology. Batteries are going to clobber that. What we need is a storage technology with a duration of months. That would be truly complementary to these short term storage technologies.

A few hours are sometimes enough to start generators when renewable energy supply decreases. Obviously, the more capacity the better, but costs will increase linearly with capacity in most cases. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity - where it is feasible - is the only kind of energy storage close to "months".

You can store energy for months pretty easily as chemical energy. Just get some hydrogen, then join it to something else, maybe carbon, in the right proportion so it's a liquid at room temperature making it nice and easy to both store and transport.

Wait a minute...

Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally

#85

Post by upofadown »

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #57
buckle8017 wrote: post #33

So it's a compressed air facility but it's using dry CO2 because it makes the process easier and CO2 is cheap. Not a carbon sequestration thing, but will likely fool some people into thinking it is. So the question is, how much does it cost? The article is completely silent on this, as expected.

The tanks to hold liquid CO2 will likely be a lot cheaper than compressed air tanks because the required pressure is much lower. But they are going to loose a lot of energy to cooling the gas and reheating the liquid. I would be surprised if the round-trip efficiency is higher than 25%.

The energy used to liquefy the CO2 is the bulk of the energy stored. They don't throw it away afterwards. The the liquid-gas transition is why this works so much better than compressed air.

Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally

#86

Post by riffraff »

buckle8017 wrote: post #33

So it's a compressed air facility but it's using dry CO2 because it makes the process easier and CO2 is cheap. Not a carbon sequestration thing, but will likely fool some people into thinking it is. So the question is, how much does it cost? The article is completely silent on this, as expected.

they do say

> Energy Dome expects its LDES solution to be 30 percent cheaper than lithium-ion.

Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally

#87

Post by perlgeek »

pfdietz wrote: post #77

We don't need another few-hours storage technology. Batteries are going to clobber that. What we need is a storage technology with a duration of months. That would be truly complementary to these short term storage technologies.

We need every approach that's viable. Batteries are part of the solution, and will be in future. But I don't see why we we should assume they're better in every way than this approach

Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally

#88

Post by pfdietz »

perlgeek wrote: post #87
pfdietz wrote: post #77

We don't need another few-hours storage technology. Batteries are going to clobber that. What we need is a storage technology with a duration of months. That would be truly complementary to these short term storage technologies.

We need every approach that's viable. Batteries are part of the solution, and will be in future. But I don't see why we we should assume they're better in every way than this approach

A principle in engineering is that for any market niche, only a few, or even one, technology persists. The others are driven to extinction as they can't compete. It's the equivalent of ecology's "one niche, one species" principle.

There are far more technologies going for the hours scale storage market than will survive. Sure, explore them. But expect most to fail to compete.

Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally

#89

Post by rgmerk »

lambdaone wrote: post #34
alexchamberlain wrote: post #18

Would this be effective at smaller volumes? Could it get down to say the size of a washing machine for use at home?

Very unlikely. All the technologies involved work best at scale; for example, the area-to-volume ratio of the liquid gas storage vessel is a critical parameter to keep energy losses low.

Also, parasitic losses in engines tend to be proportionally lower as the engines get bigger.

Compare the thermal efficiency of marine diesel engines to their automotive equivalents, for instance.

Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally

#90

Post by 1970-01-01 »

pfdietz wrote: post #77

We don't need another few-hours storage technology. Batteries are going to clobber that. What we need is a storage technology with a duration of months. That would be truly complementary to these short term storage technologies.

We need anything that scales quickly, safely, and cheap. Just getting us through the duck curve would be a tremendous win for energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve
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