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Post by pp251 on Jul 18, 2014 1:44:42 GMT 9.5
The temperature difference is much bigger. Cold tank is (on top) at ambient temperature and hot tank is (on top) at 500°C. This improve efficiency substantially. Here is some more information: www.isentropic.co.uk/our-phes-technology
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Post by seamus on Jul 22, 2014 8:42:31 GMT 9.5
Guys, what the hell are you arguing about in here... O.o ... ^_^
Batteries store electricity, right? They sound pretty useful. Moving on... =D
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Post by eclipse on Jul 22, 2014 12:14:16 GMT 9.5
(deleted as in wrong thread)
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Post by Roger Clifton on Jul 22, 2014 19:21:36 GMT 9.5
Guys, what the hell are you arguing about in here...? Seamus, the serious concern here is about scaling up batteries from a few kilowatt-hours to hundreds of megawatt-days. If that breakthrough can be achieved, solar and wind suddenly become viable non-carbon sources of power. That is, they won't be dependent on greenhouse-unfriendly gas backup, the Achilles heel of intermittent power sources. But I guess you knew that. The thread is now in two pages – perhaps the link took you past the main page?
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Post by eclipse on Jul 22, 2014 20:17:41 GMT 9.5
D'uh (at me!) I lost track of which thread we were in, and thought we were discussing car batteries. I'll delete the above.
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 22, 2014 22:38:44 GMT 9.5
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Post by ppp251 on Jul 23, 2014 18:45:37 GMT 9.5
Tom Murphy's conclusion certainly isn't 'ain't gonna happen' but that scaling lead batteries can't solve the storage problem. He explicitly repeats it in the comments: "Keep in mind that this post explicitly explores one possibility, and makes no claim that adequate storage is impossible."
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 23, 2014 19:59:30 GMT 9.5
Tom Murphy's conclusion certainly isn't 'ain't gonna happen' but that scaling lead batteries can't solve the storage problem. He explicitly repeats it in the comments: "Keep in mind that this post explicitly explores one possibility, and makes no claim that adequate storage is impossible." That is just a politically correct end statement of the author to not make enemies. If you consider the quantitative results, this conclusion is highly inconsistent and contrary to the data. In fact at one point Tom Murphy mentions that lead acid is the devil we know, and other storage techs have similar order of magnitude problems. Which is to say, the several orders of magnitude away from any sort of economic feasibility. I'll leave it up to readers to draw their own verdict. Read the article on the nation sized battery and judge for yourself.
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Post by ppp251 on Jul 23, 2014 21:24:24 GMT 9.5
"Which is to say, the several orders of magnitude away from any sort of economic feasibility." This statement is blatantly false. A number of different battery technologies are starting to be used in commercial enterprise. For example lithium batteries and vanadium flow batteries. Aquion (backed by Bill Gates) is an example of startup that has managed to get to commercialization of their scalable, environmentally friendly and competitive battery (it is priced similarly to lead acid, but much more durable). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquion_EnergyBesides large improvements in batteries, other electricity storage technologies are also possible and are already in full scale demonstration phase: heat storage (as in Isentropic above), compressed air (Lightsail, SustainX) and power-to-gas technologies (many up and running projects in Germany and elsewhere). Saying that electricity storage is "several orders of magnitude away" is a biased exaggeration. Electricity storage is right at the doorstep of the same kind of growth that PV and wind have been experiencing. And this is not even considering the fact that energy storage does not have to be only electricity storage. Heat storage and ice storage are already competitive and that is a substantial chunk of our storage needs.
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 23, 2014 23:46:01 GMT 9.5
Environmentally friendly batteries? What, it provides polar bears with cellphone batteries so they can chat about the weather with their polar bear mums? There is no such thing as environmentally friendly batteries. They are substantially burdensome on natural resources and ecological space in many ways.
If it needs billions of tons of manufactured chemicals to provide nation sized batteries, then it is NOT environmentally friendly. Most you could say is its less environmentally insulting than burning coal forever.
Please do not mistake tiny startups putting a drop in the bucket with something that works on a scale of say a few hundred kWh per person for 7 billion people.
Batteries have fundamental energy density limitations. You can increase a factor of 10 over lead acid but not a million. With nuclear, you have that factor of a million. Its basically a fully charged battery that lasts years and can power cities reliably for all those years.
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 23, 2014 23:52:55 GMT 9.5
gigaom.com/2014/07/20/behind-the-scenes-of-aquion-energys-battery-factory-the-future-of-solar-storage/"Aquion is now selling its first battery stack product, the S-10, for $850 per stack (2 kWh each). Seven or eight battery units make up a stack. Twelve stacks make up a module, which runs for around $11,000. At those prices out of the gate, Aquion is selling its batteries for below $500 per kWh — on par with lead acid batteries, but they last longer without degrading and are guaranteed for at least 3,000 cycles. If the batteries are charged and discharged, say, once a day, they should last for more than eight years. Those prices are just the beginning. Aquion’s goal is to drop its prices below $350 per kWh by the end of 2015 and to make them progressively cheaper after that, getting the cost under $200 per kWh by 2020." At current price, this Aquion nation sized battery would come in at 336 billion kWh * 400 = 134400 billion USD. That's 134 TRILLION dollars. At the future price of $200/kWh, 67200 billion USD. 67 TRILLION dollars. And you have to buy that every 10-15 years or so. All this to avoid having to deal with our ideological and unscientific resistance towards nuclear power.
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 23, 2014 23:57:42 GMT 9.5
Just to be clear on this as well: the Aquion battery stores around 0.25 kWh from the figures, you would need some 1300 BILLION of those batteries for the nation sized battery. And those aren't button-cells!
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Post by ppp251 on Jul 24, 2014 0:10:36 GMT 9.5
"67 TRILLION dollars."
So what? Fossil fuel costs are even higher.
"the Aquion battery stores around 0.25 kWh from the figures"
No it doesn't. At $200/kWh and 3000 cycles storage costs are $0.06/kWh.
"All this to avoid having to deal with our ideological and unscientific resistance towards nuclear power."
There are good reasons to avoid nuclear power, ranging from costs to safety, proliferation and inadequacy to address climate issue.
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 24, 2014 1:55:41 GMT 9.5
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 24, 2014 2:05:26 GMT 9.5
"So what? Fossil fuel costs are even higher." Nope. US coal consumption of 80 million tons/year for example, at $100/ton, yields 8 billion/year. Not 67000 billion. That would take about 8000 years of coal consumption to get the price of the battery. In energy equivalents, still thousands of years of coal consumption to pay for the battery. 0.25 kWh = energy not $$$. Pay attention!! "No it doesn't. At $200/kWh and 3000 cycles storage costs are $0.06/kWh." Apart from the above fact that you are not paying attention or are just confused about $ and joules. This figure of yours is... Wrong, interest rate is not zero. You've got to triple that, about. Plus add cost of wasted energy in the battery. Add operational and maintenance cost, staffing costs... You won't get under $20 cents/kWh. "There are good reasons to avoid nuclear power, ranging from costs to safety, proliferation and inadequacy to address climate issue." That's funny because all of those arguments you put up are WRONG or IRRELEVANT to nuclear power. Maybe you don't read Bravewclimate? but you do post on the forum, pretty weird guy you are.
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 24, 2014 3:02:59 GMT 9.5
Slight correction: US coal consumption is 10x bigger, so 800 years etc.
But perhaps it is more realistic to compare nuclear at this power level of 2 TWe that Tom Murphy assumed.
Modern nuclear is around $5/Watt, so 10 trillion USD.
Already we see that the nuclear GENERATION fleet has a total cost 1/7th that (67 trillion) of a speculative future battery STORAGE tech fleet. And that DOESN'T INCLUDE THE COST OF THE WIND AND SOLAR GENERATORS YET.
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Post by ppp251 on Jul 24, 2014 3:03:33 GMT 9.5
"US coal consumption of 80 million tons/year for example, at $100/ton, yields 8 billion/year. Not 67000 billion." You planning to replace battery every year? Also include health and climate costs. IIRC total costs for coal come somewhere around 18cents/kWh, so much higher than market price (difference is of course paid by the public). "Apart from the above fact that you are not paying attention or are just confused about $ and joules. This figure of yours is... Wrong, interest rate is not zero. You've got to triple that, about. Plus add cost of wasted energy in the battery. Add operational and maintenance cost, staffing costs... You won't get under $20 cents/kWh." I could cherry pick just as easily: 3000 cycles is minimum and is guaranteed, and they've reached 5000 cycles in the lab and battery is still working. Lithium battery is also somewhere in this ballpark. It's pretty much certain that electricity storage costs (levelized) will drop below $0.1/kWh by 2020. "That's funny because all of those arguments you put up are WRONG or IRRELEVANT to nuclear power. Maybe you don't read Bravewclimate? " I do read BNC, but I only recently started posting. There are a lot of false claims out there and should be addressed. Particularly nuclear blindness prevents people to objectively assess potential of renewable energy and that should be addressed.
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 24, 2014 3:24:50 GMT 9.5
"You planning to replace battery every year?"
You planning on making the battery last 800 years?
"Also include health and climate costs. "
Absolutely, I did. That's why I compared nuclear which has much, much lower health and climate cost than a 336 billion kWh toxic manganese dioxide battery. Nuclear at today's price is 7x cheaper than the battery at future price.
"3000 cycles is minimum and is guaranteed, and they've reached 5000 cycles in the lab and battery is still working.'
Addendum: 3000 cycles is guaranteed by a small startup company. If it goes bankrupt, so does your guarantee. Even if you use 5000 cycles or even 10000 it doesn't change the argument. You are nitpicking, a pathetic attempt at diversionary argument, not winning the argument.
"Lithium battery is also somewhere in this ballpark."
Then it is in the same pathetic loser situation that I have now repeatedly demonstrated.
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 24, 2014 3:29:35 GMT 9.5
"There are a lot of false claims out there and should be addressed. Particularly nuclear blindness prevents people to objectively assess potential of renewable energy and that should be addressed."
The reverse is true. People are negatively blind to nuclear and positively blind to the downsides and issues with solar and wind. You clearly have not read BNC or you would be well up to date.
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Post by ppp251 on Jul 24, 2014 3:37:00 GMT 9.5
"You are nitpicking, a pathetic attempt at diversionary argument, not winning the argument."
You are nitpicking, because as soon as you've seen that $200/kWh makes sense you started with interest rates, operation costs, etc.
"You planning on making the battery last 800 years?"
No I don't, but 3000 cycles makes about 10+ years of lifetime. Also note that Murphy's numbers are if everything was electrified with renewables, not just coal.
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 24, 2014 19:30:11 GMT 9.5
"You are nitpicking, a pathetic attempt at diversionary argument, not winning the argument." You are nitpicking, because as soon as you've seen that $200/kWh makes sense you started with interest rates, operation costs, etc. "You planning on making the battery last 800 years?" No I don't, but 3000 cycles makes about 10+ years of lifetime. Also note that Murphy's numbers are if everything was electrified with renewables, not just coal. No, you are still failing to comprehend the enormity of the problem. $200/kWh batteries make sense in some markets - for a few hours of storage. What we need is ONE WEEK. So multiply your cost/kWh accordingly (since battery system cost scales almost proportionally to the dominant cost, battery capacity) I've shown you that nuclear would cost 7x less than the battery IF SOLAR AND WIND GENERATORS COST NOTHING - and - IF the optimistic cost projections pan out.
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Post by ppp251 on Jul 24, 2014 21:34:58 GMT 9.5
"No, you are still failing to comprehend the enormity of the problem."
And you are failing to comprehend the urgency.
"$200/kWh batteries make sense in some markets - for a few hours of storage.
What we need is ONE WEEK."
We don't yet need one week of storage, because we can install A LOT of renewables before this. Denmark is 30% wind and it's aiming 50% by 2020. Without electricity storage breakthrough, just heat storage and heat pumps (which is cost effective today).
"I've shown you that nuclear would cost 7x less than the battery IF SOLAR AND WIND GENERATORS COST NOTHING - and - IF the optimistic cost projections pan out."
Yes, that's true. It looks that without an order of magnitude cost reductions we won't be able to use batteries for this kind of storage.
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 24, 2014 23:26:14 GMT 9.5
I'm not failing to comprehend the urgency. My plan is to power countries with nuclear power like France has done. France has gotten to 80% nuclear power in just 15 years. That's much better than countries with renewables plans such as Germany who are failing utterly to power their country with wind and solar. In stead they guzzle just as much fossil fuel as they did before they threw a hundred billion to wind and solar.
Denmark - this is mostly powered by fossil fuels, and they can export power to Scandinavia and such, where reliable fos fossil and hydro plants are. That doesn't work when all of Europe is in the same boat - trying to power Europe with 80% wiind and solar is something entirely different than powering one of its tiniest members with a small fraction of power from wind.
"Yes, that's true. It looks that without an order of magnitude cost reductions we won't be able to use batteries for this kind of storage."
Now you see what I'm afraid of. Batteries are very conventional things, conventional chemical products, we can't expect order of magntitude cost reductions.
we need a week of nation sized storage, and we need it fast. We needed to solve the climate problem 50 years ago, and we didn't bother. So we let it get worse. And we're still letting it get worse: energy consumption will at least double, even with the best of energy efficiency technology, over the next several decades.
The time for 20% solutions is long past due. In 1990 we needed an 80% reduction. Factor 5x less. We've dabbled with marginal energy sources such as solar and wind, resulting in a continued need for reliable fossil generators, resulting in increased emissions. So now, we need a 90% cut. Factor 10x less. By 2050, we need a 95% cut. Factor 20x less. That is very difficult. We can't dabble with 1.2x less plans with wind and solar, we need the 20x reduction plan.
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Post by ppp251 on Jul 25, 2014 2:52:19 GMT 9.5
"France has gotten to 80% nuclear power in just 15 years."
Which doesn't imply that it can be today repeated let alone repeated on global scale. There are serious barriers when scaling nuclear to global levels. First of all, there is not enough uranium to do that. You need breeder reactors to get the job done. But the problem is that breeders are expensive and there's not much experience with these type of reactors. This translates into slower buildout and this is not something you'd want when facing an urgency.
Another issue is lack of expertise. China is trying to scale nuclear and it's going slower than scaling wind. That is probably because of lack of expertise. Building nuclear is very complex project which requires highly trained professionals. These people don't just pop up out of thin air, but educational programs need to be implemented and years of training are needed.
Another issue is safety. From a pure statistical point of view accidents happen. We've had 3-5 meltdowns out of 400 reactors, which is about 1%. If thousands of nuclear reactors are built worldwide, then even with an order of magnitude improvement in safety we'd still get meltdowns every ten years or so. This isn't really acceptable.
There is a perspective from risk management point of view: climate change means increasingly unstable political situation in the world. Building thousands of nuclear reactors in an increasingly dangerous environment does not strike me as a good idea.
So scaling nuclear to global levels is not something that would be just straight forward and it is highly questionable if it can be done fast enough to address the urgency of emissions reduction.
"That's much better than countries with renewables plans such as Germany who are failing utterly to power their country with wind and solar."
This is a flawed comparison. Germany does NOT have a plan to make country renewable in 15 years, but in 50 years (until 2050). They are not failing, they are right on track. If they chose to transition to renewables faster, then they would do so. But they didn't. This shows that they don't understand the urgency of emissions reduction, but it doesn't show anything about renewables not being able to scale faster than they chose to scale them.
If there was a real sense of urgency (such as 1973 oil spikes when France was utterly dependent on oil imports for electricity) then many countries would chose to build renewables much faster. It's the political will and sense of urgency that's lacking, not scalability.
"Denmark - this is mostly powered by fossil fuels, and they can export power to Scandinavia and such, where reliable fos fossil and hydro plants are. That doesn't work when all of Europe is in the same boat - trying to power Europe with 80% wiind and solar is something entirely different than powering one of its tiniest members with a small fraction of power from wind."
Don't mix electricity and energy too much. Denmark's electricity supply was nearly 100% coal powered in the 80s and now it's about 45% renewable, so it's a big improvement (most of it obviously wind). I do not see a problem if Denmark and Norway/Sweden are trading electricity. It improves efficiency. Trading electricity should be more widely pursued also by other countries.
Europe has a long way to go before hitting 80% of wind and solar. So far we get about 8% of wind and about 3% solar. There are no obstacles to double that right away. If there was political will this could be done in a matter of years. Real issues start to arise later, beyond 30% wind+solar. But utilizing heat storage can manage that until 40-50%. Only after that large scale electricity storage is needed. But 40-50% is quite a substantial contribution, especially because it combines heat sector with electricity sector (it is starting to be implemented in Denmark and Germany). Which means you also get emissions reductions from heat sector. I don't see any real reason why nuclear would be in any significant advantage in this regard.
"Now you see what I'm afraid of. Batteries are very conventional things, conventional chemical products, we can't expect order of magntitude cost reductions."
I'm not worried about that. There was no need for batteries in the past because we had fossil fuels (which are essentially a stored battery). So noone was really bothered by this. This is now changing and some very significant improvements are being made. Not just batteries but other means of storage too.
But there is also this issue: natural gas is being used as a hydrogen source for fertilizers. Unfortunately it's way cheaper to use natural gas than electrolysis of water so without a price on carbon nothing can really compete. If we do put a price on carbon then food prices will go up quite significantly. So this is something that will have to be dealt with somehow. Note if we solve this hydrogen problem we also solve long term energy storage problem, because hydrogen (or methane via methanization) can be stored in underground caves for many months.
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Post by cyrilr on Jul 25, 2014 20:15:39 GMT 9.5
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Post by ppp251 on Jul 25, 2014 22:57:02 GMT 9.5
"Please read some of the articles on BNC on nuclear power."
This is exactly the reason why I am posting. There's a lot of wishful blindness, weak arguments and misleading claims among nuclear proponents. This repeatedly false arguments have to be addressed.
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Post by David B. Benson on Jul 26, 2014 9:06:43 GMT 9.5
Could we attempt to stay on topic? The topic of this thread is Utility Scale Batteries and by slight extension, battery near-equivalents such as pumped hydro and pumped argon thermal storage. Such are, at most, for overnight charging and daytime generation.
This is not a thread about the virtues and defects of various forms of primary generators. There are other threads for such topics or else feel free to start your own.
Thank you.
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Post by Greg Simpson on Jul 26, 2014 11:20:24 GMT 9.5
... argon gas (why not air?) ... I think the energy going into rotational states of the gas degrades the performance, so monatomic gasses are preferred. The recovery journey for the heat would not be as efficient as the inventor claims. The maximum theoretical efficiency, that is, the maximum fraction of the heat that can be converted to work is the fraction of the absolute temperature through which it is moved. So if he maintains a temperature difference of 30 kelvin with an average of 300 K, the return journey can only yield 10% efficiency, max. First of all, they are talking about a 450 K temperature difference, not 30 K. Secondly, they claim the Carnot limit doesn't apply. I don't think I agree on the second point, but it is not a simple question. Even if it works, it still won't be affordable.
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Post by ppp251 on Jul 27, 2014 0:09:33 GMT 9.5
Carnot limit does apply, but only for discharging. Charging is done by moving heat from one place to another (as in heat pumps), that's why overall efficiency can be higher. Overall efficiency is product of charging 'COP' and discharging 'Carnot'.
They claim 70-80% round trip efficiency (as in pumped hydro), but I doubt they'll get it on the first demonstration plant. Having a stable thermal front that moves through gravel storage medium seems quite challenging.
On the cost side, this is very cheap. Cheaper than pumped hydro, if they get it to work.
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Post by jagdish on Aug 13, 2014 16:06:59 GMT 9.5
Hydro storage may be more useful at utility level. Battery may be more practical at user level.
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