"If there was any doubt remaining that Alberta's nearly seven-month moratorium on renewable-energy projects was a political decision — made in the halls of power rather than in the offices of expertise — it was erased by internal documents released to the public last week."
My latest analysis for CBC, based on original reporting by @drewanderson for @thenarwhal
Here’s an Interesting Engineering article about an Israeli company that uses crushed rock as the basis of a thermal energy storage system that industries can use to help decarbonize their production process.
Gotta love green energy solutions that involve ubiquitously available materials!
#Physics is where I started and someday want to return, but currently focused on our great task.
New to #Mastodon, hoping to find a place where people can connect more authentically than #LinkedIn, without the algorithm or the corporate hype machines. #EnergyMastodon
Construction is done on Energy Vault's 25MWh gravity battery near Shanghai, which stores energy from wind turbines as big bricks hoisted high into a mammoth structure. Energy then dispatched in evenings when solar peters out. Grid connection is scheduled the fourth quarter 2023. #renewable#RenewableEnergy#EnergyStorage#Startups#China
I just published my Energy Energy Pickups: Highlights from 4 to 11 February 2024
-A dive on gravity batteries
-White hydrogen progresses while some call it pie in the sky
A new solid-state sulfur selenium battery developed by NASA could revolutionize air travel by powering planes with electricity instead of gas.
Airplanes require a lot of fuel to get and stay in the air. While flying, they release a wide variety of harmful pollutants into the air. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that commercial air travel accounts for 10% of U.S. transportation emissions and 3% of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
With this catalytic funding, our small collaboration to develop an open-source flow battery for stationary energy storage can further develop. We're planning on finalizing our small-scale benchtop kit (for R&D/educational use) before going to a larger cell design.
Very grateful for their support and belief in the project.
Energy-storing supercapacitor from #cement, water, black carbon
Date: July 31, 2023
Source: MIT
Summary:
Engineers have created a 'supercapacitor' made of ancient, abundant materials, that can store large amounts of energy. Made of just cement, water, and carbon black (which resembles powdered charcoal), the device could form the basis for inexpensive systems that store intermittently #renewable energy, such as #solar or #wind energy.
"'The material is fascinating,' Masic says, 'because you have the most-used human-made material in the world, cement, that is combined with carbon black, that is a well-known historical material -- the Dead Sea Scrolls were written with it. You have these at least two-millennia-old materials that when you combine them in a specific manner you come up with a conductive nanocomposite, and that's when things get really interesting.'
"As the mixture sets and cures, he says, 'The water is systematically consumed through cement hydration reactions, and this hydration fundamentally affects nanoparticles of carbon because they are hydrophobic (water repelling).' As the mixture evolves, 'the carbon black is self-assembling into a connected conductive wire,' he says. The process is easily reproducible, with materials that are inexpensive and readily available anywhere in the world. And the amount of carbon needed is very small -- as little as 3 percent by volume of the mix -- to achieve a percolated carbon network, Masic says.
"Supercapacitors made of this material have great potential to aid in the world's transition to renewable energy, Ulm says. The principal sources of emissions-free energy, wind, solar, and #tidal power, all produce their output at variable times that often do not correspond to the peaks in electricity usage, so ways of storing that power are essential. 'There is a huge need for big energy storage,' he says, and existing batteries are too expensive and mostly rely on materials such as #lithium, whose supply is limited, so cheaper alternatives are badly needed. 'That's where our technology is extremely promising, because cement is ubiquitous,' Ulm says.
"The team calculated that a block of nanocarbon-black-doped concrete that is 45 cubic meters (or yards) in size -- equivalent to a cube about 3.5 meters across -- would have enough capacity to store about 10 kilowatt-hours of energy, which is considered the average daily electricity usage for a household. Since the concrete would retain its strength, a house with a foundation made of this material could store a day's worth of energy produced by solar panels or windmills and allow it to be used whenever it's needed. And, supercapacitors can be charged and discharged much more rapidly than batteries.
"There is a tradeoff between the storage capacity of the material and its structural strength, they found. By adding more carbon black, the resulting supercapacitor can store more energy, but the concrete is slightly weaker, and this could be useful for applications where the concrete is not playing a structural role or where the full strength-potential of concrete is not required. For applications such as a foundation, or structural elements of the base of a wind turbine, the 'sweet spot' is around 10 percent carbon black in the mix, they found.
"Another potential application for carbon-cement supercapacitors is for building concrete roadways that could store energy produced by solar panels alongside the road and then deliver that energy to electric vehicles traveling along the road using the same kind of technology used for wirelessly rechargeable phones. A related type of car-recharging system is already being developed by companies in Germany and the Netherlands, but using standard batteries for storage.
"Initial uses of the technology might be for isolated homes or buildings or shelters far from grid power, which could be powered by solar panels attached to the cement supercapacitors, the researchers say."
It's great to read about all the progress being made in #solar technology lately, and the huge increase in capacity. In 2024 I want to hear more about grid-level storage. What projects are underway? What technological advancements are there? What's going to make a big enough difference that we can start decommissioning gas power plants?
"Researchers with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory said closed-loop #PumpedStorage#hydropower will have a lower carbon footprint throughout the lifecycle of the technology, from construction to decommissioning, than other renewable #EnergyStorage technologies like lithium-ion batteries. "
The hydrogen electrolyzer market size reached US$ 471.1 Million in 2023. Looking forward, Reports and Insights expects the market to reach US$ 3,241.5 Million by 2032, exhibiting a growth rate (CAGR) of 23.9% during 2024-2032.
How's the fossil fuelled, most privatized & wildly ballooning in cost energy grid in Canada also closest to failing in cold snaps? #DanielleSmith laughably blamed renewables but jokes on her: Alberta's grid stinks because of her & #JasonKenney's #UCP
One of those fun features of our #EnergyOnly market that literally designs those price spikes you're now paying at historic levels is #EconomicWithholding, which enables utilities to create scarcity & charge you more when you need them most