The Huge, Weird Batteries of the Future

As the planet gets hotter, engineers are racing to find ways to store energy on a massive scale, clearing the way for a transition to renewable electricity.

#energy #powermoves #bloombergquicktake

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[BarelySentientBraincell]

We have a similar device here in Czech Republic. It's called Dlouhé Stráně and it's an absolute technological marvel, built right into a natural reservation with esthetics and ecology in mind. I've been to multiple hikes there and an excursion. Some people hate it, because they cut a hill top flat, but I try to see the bigger picture. It's amazing.

[felixyusupov]

One overlooked pump storage option is the Salton Sea and Pacific Ocean in California. Pump water out of the Salton Sea at night using geothermal energy and produce hydroelectric power during the day by adding Pacific ocean water to the Salton Sea. The surface area of the Salton sea is 343 square miles. There is a 225 feet of elevation difference between the Salton Sea and Pacific Ocean. They have already bored a hole in the mountain between the imperial valley and San Diego to transport fresh water. They could drill another one for this battery storage idea. Another advantage is you effectively reduce the high salinity of the Salton Sea while improving air quality of the imperial valley by covering the entire dry lake bed.

[claudiot.crameri]

Switzerland has many pumped hydro powerplants already and we build even more. In my valley is a project with 1350m head and 1050 MW installed electric power. It is a very neat form of energy storage.

[wilsoneashoian]

For 33 years I worked as an electrical engineer for a place that had pump storage facilities in California (the largest one) that was built in the 60's. We were no longer able to use it as pump storage because the pump and generators (synchronous motors, transformers, auxiliary equipment, and etc.) were old and cost of repair and maintenance were exceeding the benefits. There is a cost for everything. You can’t get something for nothing. One rewind would cost $5M and one transformer refurbishment would cost $1.5M……..

[yggdrasil]

You should do a series on all these alternatives. There are about 20 contenders, including Sodium batteries, Redox flow, gravity, liquid air, H2, heat capacitors, etc. All of these could be scaled to GWh.

[jamesgleeson]

Lots of kudos to engineers involved in these projects

[vast]

I think its worth mentioning that the type of salt used in the electrolysis that produces hydrogen would favorably be a non chlorine salt

[chriscavanagh]

Small modular reactors, specifically designed to replace the existing coal, oil and gas boilers in existing power stations have a great future: all of the downstream power generation facilities: the turbines, generators, power conditioning, control and reticulation is already in place. So a major target to retro fit existing power stations nuclear units in the micro 50MW, small to 300MW and full sized with multi unit up to 1GW is still the best way to go, for quick CO2 reduction. We just have to get over the bad press that nuclear has had for decades.

[eamonglavin]

Pumped hydro is great, it allows for massive energy storage at *reasonable* costs there needs to be more initiative globally to support more projects like this though so that more significant energy storage is available

[jrjubach]

Their company is called "Form energy, " specifically leaving the "e" in energy as lowercase, because that makes their initials "Fe, " which is the chemical symbol for iron. Brilliant.

[anshude]

We started using the mobile from about 15 to 20 years ago. Though battery tech has improved hugely, we still need to charge the phone atleast once a day. Nothing really revolutionary has happened beyond incremental improvements which happen in any other field.

[jp-umfr]

There has been one of these systems in Wales for many, many years. Never been been able to find out the running costs, maintenance costs and efficiency - odd that.

[anandsharma]

All I understood from this video is that iron-air batteries are crazy complicated, even though the process is "just" rusting and unrusting iron.

[zzyzx]

Hopefully we can get these ginormous batteries in service ASAP to help with the energy crisis especially during the summers and to help rebuild after floods

[douglaslund]

This technology has been used for decades, especially in Canada & Russia. There’s nothing new here, it’s been extensively used in many countries.

[backwoodsbungalow]

3:24 Northfield Mountain, Massachusetts; 50 year-old pumped hydro storage. 1.2 GW peak output. 7:40 iron air battery.

[marklee]

A battery based on the property of iron to rust and derust sounds ingenious. Hope it can be made to work!

[Sembazuru]

Hey, I remember going to visit the Northfield Mountain pumped storage facility as a teen. My grandparents lived in Amherst (also where I ended up going to college) so one summer when I was visiting my grandfather took me there for one of their public tours. It's so large that I couldn't really get a grasp of the scale while visiting.

[MegaSilverStacker]

Nuclear is the best form of energy hands down!

[giuseppeliberati]

We should talk about "energy matrix transformation" instead of "energy transition"....the system has to include broader elements i.e. Water Management.