Innovations for a new era of energy storage | Transforming Business

To store the increasing amount of clean energy coming from renewables, we need batteries. Without them, there’s a risk of stalling the transition away from fossil fuels. Stationary thermal batteries or heat batteries are growing in popularity for industrial processes and district heating. In this episode of Transforming Business, we look at some simple, natural, and cost-effective materials, squirreling away energy as heat to be used when needed.

Chapters:
0:00: The heat is on
0:36: Sand, the new kid on the block
2:45: The fatal flaw of renewables
3:53: The more established players
8:10: Decarbonizing heat
9:26: Caveat & Credit

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[ben_sch]

"We're entering an era when the sustainability officer and the financial officer can love each other" 😂😂 succinctly put

[nick_vash]

Recently there was an article about concrete energy storage. The concept is adding some stuff into the mixture and then the final product, let's say foundation of a building, could collect small amount of electricity for cubic meter.
If it is a tall building the capacity could be enough to supply the households for a night.

[FunWithBits]

We have a heat storage system in our backyard, but it runs in reverse. We basically bought a large water blatter, cooled it during the night, and then used the coolness during the day.

[Avatar_]

This is the kind of innovations we want in this era.

[johnransom]

I had a solar water heater. There were 3 panels on the roof collecting heat in tubes that was pumped down to a heat exchanger in a huge insulated tank. One sunny day would give us a couple days of hot water. It would take at least 4-5 days of cloud to bring the tank down to room temperature. There was a tankless water heater that could deal with variable temperatures. Sometimes it would have to mix cold in to bring the temperature down to a safe one

[johnmahoney]

11:10 - 11:13 These rocks are more or less free. And have very, I would say "very minimal environmental impact." The autonomic itchy eye tick kind of caught my attention. These ideas are formidable. Loving the innovations!

[RobynKLaczy]

What a great balanced and hopeful story.

[daledupont]

Imagine what could be done to save the planet and people if the money put into weapons was put into this type of technology.

[php]

Imagine what pure salt could do instead of sand. One of the big issues with desalination plants is what to do with all the salt brine left behind. Salt batteries sound much better than sand batteries for thermal mass energy storage.

[thegreatdane]

it's nice to see a report about energy storage for once. It is the key to making wind and solar a reliable source of energy. We could build millions of windturbines, but it won't matter if we can't store the energy for the days where the wind doesn't blow.

[benbrown]

Thermal storage makes absolute sense. Imagine if no fossil fuels needed to be used for domestic space heating at the very minimum... Combined with ultra insulation, whether vacuum panels in the silos or in homes, much higher standards of preventing heat loss or gain, it could be a game changer in the palliative care of our dying climate.

[seckinbilgic]

The idea of ​​reverse water storage is also great. They run the hydroelectricity in reverse, and when the sun goes down, it runs in the right direction.

[pjacobsen]

The video states that there is a shortage of sand. That is only true for the kind of sand used in the construction industry, sand that has to have sharp edges to lock together in concrete, or on a stable road base. But the sand needed in these 'sand batteries' don't need those properties. It could be beach sand, or sand from a desert. Those types of sand are unsuitable for construction, but there is certainly no shortage of them (Just ask any Egyptian).

[DanSolowastaken]

The point about sand being scarce is really a conversation about cement specifically. It really isn't as big a problem globally as it might be in any unregulated market. Regardless any geotechnical engineer could source the right material within a half hour's trucking. Almost everywhere there is a landfill there is also a quarry/sandpit. Every battery type could be sourced locally with as much diversity as houses.

[Viktor_Shcherbyna]

Interesting calculation:
1) The silo of 4 meter wide and 7 meter hight has 220 tons of sand (with perfect conditions, without insulations and any other equipment). Once heated to 600 celsius degrees it will store about 112 gigajoule of energy.
2) The swimming pool (mentioned in the video) of 25 meter long and presumably 15 meter wide and 1.5 meter deep will have 565 tons of water. It will need 2.4 gigajoule of energy to heat this water by 1 celsius degree.
3) Thus, in perfect conditions (there is no energy loss anywhere) this silo will allow to heat the water in the pool by 50 celsius degree for once. Or, imagine that it will be used to maintain the temperature of water. Suppose the water in the pool loose 1 celsius degree per 1 hour, the silo will allow to maintain the temperature in the pool for only 2 days, in perfect conditions (so, in real conditions it will be not more than 1 day). Not much!

[kennethferland]

Video missed Graphite as a storage medium, I think it actually hits the highest temperatures, enough to cover ANY industrial need because Graphite can be hotter then the melting point of steel.

[svettnabb]

To be fair, the sand harvesting issues that are mentioned are only a problem with concrete sand, which is very finite due to the quality requirements. Normal rough sand that is used in the video is as really not an finite resource.. You can even just crush and grind rocks to make that kind of sand.

[-gi]

In Canada, the use the sand battery to store the heat when the summer, and uses the heat to warming up the building when winter

[grbkset-]

There was a story about waste heat from a computer farm used to heat public swimming pools. The large mass of water helped computers cool now efficiently and the pool for free heat.

[MM-sfrl]

In-floor radiant heat is a very accepted, proven solution. The simplicity is a winner.