Earlier quoted context omitted.
So .. significantly less dangerous than a corresponding volume of natural gas, which is also unbreathable but also flammable/explosive?
Why is that a relevant comparison? Is anyone gathering natural gas in giant balloons near habitations or workplaces?
CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
131–140 of 320 posts
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#132As always, diversity in the energy ecosystem is a huge plus. Time and time again we see that 'one size fits all' is simply not true so I'm a fan of alternative approaches that use completely different principles. This enables the energy ecosystem to keep exploring the space of possibilities efficiently. I hope this continues to be developed.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are good for about 1000 cycles. This system can run for decades.
Utility-scale Li-ion batteries are good for an order of magnitude more than that. "LFP chemistry offers a considerably longer cycle life than other lithium-ion chemistries. Under most conditions, it supports more than 3,000 cycles; under optimal conditions, more than 10,000 cycles." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery...
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1945-7111/abae37/...
This is the paper that claims 10,000 cycles under optimal conditions.
But if you read it, they measure Equivalent Full Cycles, and it seems that implies 10000 cycles at partial discharge, not full discharge.
The paper calculates everything at nominal discharge upto 80%. Meaning, the installed capacity has to be 25% more than paper value, leading to increased costs.
Add to that, batteries are complex to manufacture, degrade, lose capacity, etc. You need high level of quality control to actually ensure you are getting good batteries. This means, the cost of QA and expertise increases. They are costly to replace, even at an avg of 3000 cycles (roughly 10 years). Bad cells in one batch accelerate degradation and are difficult to trace out. Batteries operate best at low temperatures, so the numbers may vary based on installed location and climatic conditions.
A turbine and co2 compressor system is dead simple to manufacture, control and maintain. A simple PLC system and some automation can make them run quite well. Manufacturing complexity is low, as there are tried and tested tech. Basically piping, valves, turbines and generators. These things can be reliably run for 30 to 40 years. Meaning, the economics and cost efficiency is wildly different.
With such simplicity, they can be deployed across the world, especially in places like Africa, middle east, etc.
On the whole, batteries are not explicitly superior as such. There are pros and cons on both sides.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
If 1 watt is 1 joule per second then, honestly, what are we doing with watt-hours? Why can’t battery capacity be described in joules? And then charge and discharge being a function of voltage and current, could be represented in joules per unit time. Instead its watt-hours for capacity, watts for flow rate. Watt-hours… that’s joules / seconds * hours? This is cursed.
A watt of power multiplied by a second of time has an agreed upon name called joule, but a watt second is also a perfectly valid SI name. A watt is a joule of energy divided by a second of time, this is a rate, joule per second is also a valid name similar to nautical mile per hour and knot being the same unit. Multiplication vs division, quantity vs rate, see the relationship? Units may have different names but are…
So when I torque all 20 of my car's lug bolts to 120 n-M, I've exerted 2/3 of a W-h? So if it takes me 4 minutes, I'm averaging 10 watts? That's neat. I wonder what the peak wattage (right as the torque wrench clicks) would be; it must depend on angular velocity.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#135As always, diversity in the energy ecosystem is a huge plus. Time and time again we see that 'one size fits all' is simply not true so I'm a fan of alternative approaches that use completely different principles. This enables the energy ecosystem to keep exploring the space of possibilities efficiently. I hope this continues to be developed.
> Time and time again we see that 'one size fits all' is simply not true
Do we though? It feels like we're still in the stage where we're just trying to figure out what the best solution is for grid-scale storage, but once we do figure it out, the most efficient solution will win out over all the others. Yes, there may be some regional variation (e.g. TFA mentions how pumped hydro is great but only makes sense where geography supports it), but overall it feels like the world will eventually narrow things down to a very small number of solutions.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is that a relevant comparison? Is anyone gathering natural gas in giant balloons near habitations or workplaces?
Yes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_holder
...huh, yeah, I don't love that either. Seems sketchy.
> putting houses around gas holders was discontinued in the UK.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#137I have two solar panels that can generate around 960w/hr. Both panels cost around $400 ($200x2). Cheap.
Storing that energy is quite expensive. an Anker Solix 3800, which is around 3.8kwh, costs $2400 USD. To store 10kwh would cost $7200 USD (which gets us more than 10kwh).
If that cost asymmetry can come down then it becomes feasible to use solar power to provide cheap/local electricity in poor countries at a house scale.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#138no mentioning of storage overhead? how much energy being wasted for each charging and discharging cycle?
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#139> The tried-and-true grid-scale storage option—pumped hydro [--> https://spectrum.ieee.org/a-big-hydro-project-in-big-sky-cou... ], in which water is pumped between reservoirs at different elevations—lasts for decades and can store thousands of megawatts for days. > Media reports show renderings of domes but give widely varying storage capacities [--> https://www.bloominglobal.com/media/detail/worlds-largest-co... ]—…
> big yikes for something coming out of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Besides the unit flub, there's an unpleasant smell of sales flyer to the whole piece. Hard data spread all over, but couldn't find efficiency figures. Casual smears such as "even the best new grid-scale storage systems on the market—mainly lithium-ion batteries—provide only about 4 to 8 hours of storage" (huh, what, why?).…
i think it had something to do with CO2 can be made into supercritical state relatively easily, not for nitrogen or other common gases.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
likely a matter of location. desal tends to be on the coast and near cities which tends to be pretty valuable land, making giant evaporation ponds a tough sell.
You don't use ponds, you run the desalination to as strong as practical and follow up with either electrolysis or distillation of the brine. But once summer electricity becomes cheap enough due to solar production increasing to handle winter heating loads with the (worse) winter sun, we can afford a lot of electrowinning of "ore" which can be pretty much sea salt or generic rock at that point. Form Energy is working…
Not that it's super relevant to this discussion, but I think the largest individual machines operated would probably have to go to high energy particle accelerators like the LHC at CERN or those operated by Fermi Lab.
Billions of dollars in cost, run 24/7 with virtually no downtime during regular operations, in underground tunnels with circumferences in the tens of miles, and all throughout is actively-coordinated super conductors and beam collimation in a high-vacuum tube attached to absurdly complex, ultra-sensitive, massively-scaled instrumentation (not to mention the whole on-site data processing and storage facilities). Certainly open to bring convinced otherwise, but aside from ISS in pure cost, so far it's my understanding that those are the pinnacle of large-scale machines.