The Surprisingly Retro Future of Batteries

Renewable energy may be the way of the future, but in order to store that energy to make our grids more sustainable, we might need to take a look back at some battery technologies of the past.

Hosted by: Michael Aranda

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[jan-Juta]

Aren't hydro-batteries more popular and efficient than rail storage to store energy as gravitational potential?

[tttITA]

Train storage is the only gravity-powered battery? Well, dam.

[freshoutofcrabs]

Another type of gravity storage involves pumping water uphill and storing it behind a dam. Then, when needed, releasing it through turbines to generate power on-demand.

[lordshipmayhem]

I recall a college Economics class back in the 1980's. The topic was a lake in the Alps, created by a dam. During the day, they drained the lake and generated hydroelectric power, and during the night, they ran those same impellers in reverse and pumped the water back into the lake. Our instructor asked us, "How could this possibly make economic sense?" (Students: Blank looks.)


Well, electricity was cheaper overnight when most of the households were asleep and factories quiet, and more expensive during the day with everyone going about their business in homes, factories, offices and schools. So it earned money during the day generating the power, and cost far less overnight "recharging the battery" overnight and consuming power. I was surprised at that.

[Thanatos]

You missed pump-stored hydroelectric, a technology that's already used in a couple places and is very efficient.

[benpalmer]

"modern flywheels use space-age materials like carbon fibre composites and spin in a vacuum, while levitating on superconductive magnetic bearings"
That sentence is so sci-fi 😂 love it

[maryjaneraine]

Thank you for having captions right away! Us HoH and Deaf viewers appreciate it

[BigEvy]

What about filling a room with treadmills and kids, waiting until you need power, then supplying the room with red bull and brownies.

[JorgeStolfi]

I can't tell whether he used "capacity" instead of "power", or use "MW" instead of "MWh". Either way, that is wrong.
And the video missed pumped hydraulic storage, which is already in use now.
And lead-acid batteries are not "bad for the environment". They work for many years without releasing any chemicals at all, and at the end the lead is easily, economically, and totally recycled. They are just more expensive, per capacity, than some of those other alternatived

[antiisocial]

Great video! The first part really had me pumped! I was bursting at the seams! The second part was quite the thrilling roller coaster with all the ups and downs! That last part put a real nice spin on the whole piece!

[kudr]

At 3:00 "With a capacity of about 50 MW ..." - what you mean by "capacity"? MW is unit of power. Energy storage capacity is usually measured in energy units.

[itsthevoiceman]

Something about Michael's presentation skills makes his videos seem really short. Love it!

[BenjaminCronce]

In case someone is wondering why carbon fiber, something light, is a good material for storing rotational energy. It's because kinetic energy of a system increases with the square of velocity and only half of its mass. Carbon fiber has a high ratio of tensile strength to mass, allowing it to spin really fast, making up for any loss of it being so light by being so fast.

[bartzrt]

"Capacity" in Watts? C'm on guys, you can do better than that.

[spastikman]

- This video needs to be 10x longer. Modern techniques of compressed air storage account for the problem with heat loss and bring that efficiency rating up to 70-80% (Adiabatic CAES).
- Then there's also LAES with an efficiency of 60-75% BUT it can be placed anywhere. No caves, inclines, dams, or super expensive facilities needed.
- Flywheels are no good for massive grid storage. They're not only price prohibitive and dangerous if things go wrong, but they don't scale up the way other storage solutions do. They're good for small systems. Not for powering a city.
- Then pumped hydro. This is a pretty big one. Very great tech that's in use today. Location prohibitive, and also not ideal for the environment since you need to potentially wipe out an ecosystem to build one. But a great tool to have along with the others (except flywheels, so far)


this is a topic I hope to see many more videos about. Not just from you but from all YouTubers

[Oskiirrr]

Great video! You seem to have made an error. You talk about capacity in units of Watts which... simply doesn't make sense. Please do not add to common confusion about electric power and energy and use the right units

[KnighteMinistriez]

Awesome video. I hope we renewable energy here pretty soon. I learned a lot watching this.

[karlnowakowski]

A big one you missed is pumped hydro which Australia is spending a bit of money on at the moment.

[stvp]

Always a pleasure to hear his mellow voice

[abrenos]

This is an awesome video great work man