Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and we have that. It's called Li-ion batteries.
They are good for about 1000 cycles. This system can run for decades.
yes because maintenance is free
CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
201–210 of 320 posts
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#202>The company uses pure, purpose-made CO2 instead of sourcing it from emissions or the air, because those sources come with impurities and moisture that degrade the steel in the machinery. So no environmental advantages. It's supposedly 30% cheaper than lithium-ion, but BYD cars have sodium-based based batteries on the road right now which CATL says will end up being 10-20$/kwh (10x cheaper than current batteries). So…
If it is barely cheaper than lithium, it's much more expensive than traditional pumped storage. Yeah, it's expensive to build, but then cheap to run for decades. It's nice that we explore alternatives but this just seems like investor bait
AFAIU, pumped storage can only be built in very few locations around the globe.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see this as complementary to other energy storage systems, including sodium ion batteries; each will have its own strengths and weaknesses. I expect energy storage density cost will be the critical parameter here, as this looks best suited to do diurnal storage for solar power systems near out-of-town predictable power consumers like data centers.
Maintenance of the system is my biggest question. Lot of mechanical complexity with ensuring your gas containment, compressors, turbines, etc are all up to spec. This also seems like a system where you want to install the biggest capacity containment you can afford at the onset. All of that vs lithium/sodium where you can incrementally install batteries and let it operate without much concern. Maybe some heaters if t…
> Maybe some heaters if they are installed in especially cold climates.
Sodium batteries can operate down to -40C. There are very few places on Earth where they would need a heater.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Think of those numbers as one kind of in extreme case argument.
Another reality is that most of the global grid scale energy usage is not transport via mobile batteries that benefits most from high energy density lithium batteries that pack maximal energy from least weight.
Battery farms don't move, they can use other battery chemistries that are cheaper in resources and weigh a lot more per energy unit than lithium while still powering cities, smelters, processing plants, etc.
As for desalination in general, yes, there will be a lot more of that in coming years, fresh potable water supplies are stretched from a global PoV.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems unlikely since they can use the same factories and the raw material cost is significantly lower.
It's not panacea. Only lithium vs sodium is cheaper and they can use lower grade graphite which is just slightly cheaper (overall 30% reduction). Rest is same while it's a new manufacturing process. Meanwhile 99.99% production is focused and will be continued focused LFP.
That entirely depends on how large the market for stationary storage is going to be. On top of the price, sodium has advantage of being safer and usable in wider temperature range.
Who in their right mind would pay 40% more to pick a dangerous and fussy product just because it's a bit smaller and lighter for their home?
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#206"First, a compressor pressurizes the gas from 1 bar (100,000 pascals) to about 55 bar (5,500,000 pa). Next, a thermal-energy-storage system cools the CO2 to an ambient temperature. Then a condenser reduces it into a liquid that is stored in a few dozen pressure vessels, each about the size of a school bus. The whole process takes about 10 hours, and at the end of it, the battery is considered charged. To discharge th…
And I suppose the whole thing is a closed system? Which means, none of the CO2 would be released to the outside?
Not intentionally during normal operation. I'm sure those things are gonna leak like hell, but still, it's just CO2 so it's not as bad.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#207>The company uses pure, purpose-made CO2 instead of sourcing it from emissions or the air, because those sources come with impurities and moisture that degrade the steel in the machinery. So no environmental advantages. It's supposedly 30% cheaper than lithium-ion, but BYD cars have sodium-based based batteries on the road right now which CATL says will end up being 10-20$/kwh (10x cheaper than current batteries). So…
To cite and expand on lambdaone below [1]:
> Clearly power capacity cost (scaling compressors/expanders and related kit) and energy storage cost (scaling gasbags and storage vessels) are decoupled from one another in this design
Lambdaone is differentiating between the costs to store energy (measured in kWh or Joules) and the costs to store energy per time (which is power, measured in Watts). If you want to store the whole excess energy that solar panels and wind turbines generate on a sunny, windy day, you need to have a lot of power storage capability (gigawatts of power generated during peak power generation). This can be profitable even if you only have a low energy storage capability, e.g. if you can only store a day worth of excess solar/wind energy, because you can sell this energy in the short term, for example in the next night, when the data centers are still running, but solar panels don't produce power. This is what batteries give you -- high power storage capabilities but low energy storage capacities.
Of course, you can always buy more batteries to increase the energy storage capacities, but they are very expensive per energy (kWh) stored. In contrast, these CO2 "batteries" are very cheap per energy (kWh) stored -- "just" build more high pressure tanks -- but expensive per power (Watts) stored, because to store more power, you need to build more expensive compressors, coolers etc. This ability to scale out the energy storage capability independently of the power storage capability is what Lambdaone was referring to with the decoupling.
For what is this useful? For shifting energy over a larger amount of time. Because energy storage costs of batteries are so high, they are a bad fit for storing excess energy in the summer (lots of solar) and releasing it in the winter (lots of heating). I'm not sure if these "CO2" batteries are good for such long time frames (maybe pressure loss is too high), but the claim most certainly is that they can shift energy over a longer time frame than is possible with batteries in an economically profitable fashion.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
What people care about when talking about EVs and consumption is generally how much distance they can cover. If you take away the distance factor and just report power, it becomes meaningless/almost useless.
Many people think of driving in time rather than distance. I'd say it's actually more common to say a city is 3 hours away rather than 200 miles. What makes kW less useful is really just that most EVs don't advertise their capacity very prominently. But if you knew you had an 80 kWh battery and the car uses 20 kW at freeway speeds, then it's easy to see that it'll drive for 4 hours.
I understand all this but the most important question for me is definitely still "how much distance can I cover on a charge"? That's why I prefer kWh/100km.
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
This pretty much
You can liquefy CO2 at a higher temperature than N2
Re: CO2 batteries that store grid energy take off globally
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
True. Otherwise we would be using square meters for measuring gas mileage instead of miles-per-gallon (or litres-per-km) [1]. [1] https://what-if.xkcd.com/11/
> miles-per-gallon (or litres-per-km) [1]. The UK is metric except for distance and beer. So the disgusting ‘miles-per-litre’ is presumably needed too.
Meaning the ideal (cursed) unit of fuel consumption has units of 1/m^2