Submitted by lughnasadh t3_yw53j1 in Futurology
That’s sounds super inefficient. How much energy does the whole process use? Does it use as much as it can store?
You have to be careful with efficiencies though the only important metric is really cost usually because I mean keep in mind like a solar panel is only 20% efficient but it's super cheap so who cares.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/lughnasadh:
Submission Statement
There are bold claims about cost, but the really interesting thing about Energy Dome is its potential speed of deployment. As it uses existing common off-the-shelf materials it can overcome many of the supply chain bottlenecks that bedevil other grid storage battery solutions.
More details are here.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yw53j1/italian_startup_energy_dome_claims_its_co2_grid/iwhjofu/
>>That’s sounds super inefficient.
They claim the opposite.
In a research paper here they speak of an RTE (Radiative Transfer Efficiency) of 77%, and say the system's simplicity contributes to its efficiency, as it has only only two thermodynamic transformations: one compression and one expansion.
Amazing stuff. Battery + renewables tech are some of the most exciting things to keep an eye on these days.
Great video on this here:
Seems so much more promising than other potential solutions, like compressed air.
Nice, I'll check that out. Yeah I was thinking this would likely be better than air storage. Seems like it might simpler, and possibly more efficient.
Efficiency is very important for batteries.
77% isn't great for batteries (For example Tesla's Powerwalls are 90% round trip efficient (you get 90% useable A/C power for the 100% you put in (includes all the AC->DC->AC steps, plus battery losses)
Of course if these are 40% cheaper, than that's what really matters for some power sources. Especially as we super saturate with solar and other.
Outstanding. Now let's see the round trip $/KwH comparison over it's lifetime.
(I'm not dismissing this tech but the cost/KwH is really really important).
cost per KwH is really the king for grid scale storage.
I remember seeing this about a year ago and thinking it was BS, but looking deeper and realizing it wasn't and had competitive efficiencies as well (not finding those details in this article though).
In addition to being a viable storage solution without as much dependence on limited materials, there are a few other potential pros: scalability as adding more storage could allow for increasing storage (and the storage I expect is relatively cheap compared to the compression/extraction equipment); potential symbiotic with sequestration installations (e.g. If the storage requirements are seasonal, it could be used to liquid extracted carbon for transport/long term sequestration, you could potentially even use the heat generated in that process for other purposes (e.g. If sequestered the heat isn't needed for subsequent evaporation and could be used in industrial or generation applications). It could make sense to put these on retired coal plants where they are already discussing use of thermal batteries to make power for more cross utilization of similar systems. Even if the systems need to be different, the spring workforce would benefit from economies of scale related to the worker skill sets (and the abandoned coal storage would be suitable for the larger footprints)
if this is true and it does in fact work, its a game changer, even if its not as capable as rare earth material batteries.
Agreed.
I would point out that my understanding is the Powerwall neglects transmission and other losses to consumers. These would likely be more proximal to where the power comes in and thus big picture may be more competitive than 77% vs 90% (though grid scale would likely have that in common and the price basis you mentioned would still drive choice). Also batteries degrade and would likely have more significant maintenance/replacement costs. I know Powerwall can do larger installations, but believe they are more suited for end user demand whereas this is more grid scale.
It's important in context as well.
If I have the same energy source and in storage and retrieval I lose 50% then yes that's horrible.
But if I'm grounding wind and solar in the day because I just make so much that I don't need it. And at night burn coal because the sun goes away. Storing energy, even at a 50% loss is a huge win.
Right but of the battery is 70% then you are actually only getting 70% of 20% not even including the wasted power that the user has. Every step is a chance for more and more to be lost so we want to minimize that loss as much as possible.
We don't necessarily need 1 single type of battery for the entirety of the world to focus on, though.
Perhaps this replaces a large number of lithium battery uses, but if it doesn't make sense for bigger things like an electric car then we can still use the old tech. If it's made how they claim, it should be drastically better environmentally even if only a portion of the world's lithium ion battery uses are met.
No audio on this video. Also, if a big Lithium battery has a fire, it's not going to be another Lake Nyos tragedy (1986, Cameroon, 1,700 dead, CO2 suffocation).
Just to be contraion, but when the spot price of electricity is negative (which happens often in Australia) it actually pays to be inefficient.
Wait they pay you to waste electricity in Australia sometimes?
True, they make a "megapack" or something that is being installed grid scale. I own two powerwalls and Solar (bought before Elon went off the deepend, but I think the economics are still about the best for Tesla Solar). So my generation is on the roof (I never charge from the grid, except for an impending storm). My current reading match up about with the spec sheet (for Month to date in Nov : 287kWhr in and 250kWhr out (and battery 87% charged as of noon, it normally charges to 100% by about 1pm if I'm not doing a lot of high energy items at home)
Yeah, but if you can store solar or wind power that nobody can use at that moment it‘s not a 23% loss but a 77% win. If that power replaces fossil fuel power you would have to produce at night or in winter, it would be a huge win.
> Lake Nyos tragedy
The size of Energy Dome's C02 bladders are miniscule in comparison to the amount of C02 released at Lake Nygos.
That tragedy released 1.2 cubic kilometer of gas. Here's a 1 cubic kilometer cube for scale; it dwarves the whole of Lower Manhattan.
Mining metals is not something we should continue to do. Technology moving us away from metals is good
Yes, agree. But for a system such as this I think that would be common against all alternatives, the difference might be that the CO2 could allow for more capacity, or a reduced initial cost (making it more widely feasible) and potentially having additional future scalability benefits.
They call it an energy dome but it’s not even red, much less shaped like a stepped cone.
At this scale, they are claiming/aiming for a levelized (all in 30y lifetime) cost of ~$50\MWh, which would be substantially better than the best existing options.
Thanks for the YT link. That was worth the watch
Is this a joke or something? Humanity literally cannot exist without mining "metals".
You can move mining to space but that doesn't change the need for them.
Oh, RTE means "Round Trip Efficiency". The paper's abstract doesn't make clear if this is a theoretical number from their numerical model (aka best case), or measured efficiency (real world). And ya, 77% is terrible compared to batteries, but possibly still useful in cases where you have so much overproduction at zero cost (really only solar) that it's still useful to throw out 1/4 of the energy.
Humanity literally can exist without mining, and did for a very long time. Mining is horrible for the environment, not that you care
The fact these don't need the exotic elements to function, coupled with not needing major tech breakthroughs makes these incredibly viable.
Looks like a closed loop extractor setup like you'd use in biomass extraction
What batteries use rare earth metals?
Humanity's history is literally defined by the metals we could mine and use.
Before metals we were, very literally, banging stones together.
Everything is bad for the environment, even reddit, but here you are..
Yes. The coal plants fight wind and solar for the right to not turn off and make it up for when the sun goes down. However they can't pay rooftop to turn off, so they are month by month losing the war. In Aus we install 200MW every month of rooftop. If everyone had rooftop as cheap as us they could do the same.
Well that just sounds like a liquid air battery with more steps?
Liquid Air Batteries are by far the best possible solution I've seen, to support a full renewables grid and help sequester carbon.
They can harness and store over-peak power for months for later discharge
Can be constructed with standard piping and tanks already mass available
Sellable liquid nitrogen and oxygen created as primary course of function
Purifies air of other pollutants as a primary course of function
- Isolates atmospheric CO2 as a primary course of function, path to long-term sequestration.
The first two grid scale plants are going online within the next two years.
This isn't carbon negative and requires a lot of additional infrastructure to manage the CO2, which will surely leak to some extent. It seems roundly inferior overall.
Efficiency is important as it relates to cost.
A battery that's 98% efficient at a cost of $350 per kWh is less cost-effective at scale than a battery that has 70% efficiency at a cost of $50 per kWh.
You also have to consider real world factors unrelated to direct efficiency such as scalability, supply chain, and complexity of manufacturing.
An extremely efficient battery that requires the most advanced manufacturing facilities in the world, using materials from a dozen different mines spread across 3 continents, is going to be much more difficult to scale than an average efficiency energy storage solution that uses (relative to industrial projects) ubiquitous off the shelf components.
In our current situation perfect is very much the enemy of good enough.
I wonder how this compares to Highview Power from the UK which uses liquid air. And already has some working installations.
To my understanding, the benefits from co2 come from being able to compress it into a liquid at room temperature leading to an efficiency advantage, and simpler, probably cheaper systems to build.
But moreover, I don't see any reason why both couldn't be viable in different situations, with liquid air near sources of waste thermal energy, etc.
Their projected round trip efficiency is worse at the low end and break even at the high end. They share the same cheap industrial construction components.
Is just seems less valuable overall, especially as its not carbon negative. Like yeah hybrid cars help, but less valuable than full electric
The startup cost difference isn't negligible, and it could easily be used with a carbon capture project.
And I'll wait for third party tests on either's efficiency before I believe the real world numbers.
And, as someone who enjoys going offroad/off grid for longer than an electric will allow, I absolutely see the use case for hybrids.
CO2 batteries? Wouldn’t you just charge the fuck out of these, through away the key, and celebrate the end of climate change?
Also efficiency is largely irrelevant if system cost is low and we are talking about storing renewable energy. Pumped hydro is considered viable and it’s far less efficient than 70% but it uses already existing technology and can use existing infrastructure as well (pumping water uphill into a reservoir to later be put through an already existing hydro plant for example).
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75% round trip efficiency is surprisingly good, similar to pumped hydro.
I mean, compressed air is an awful energy storage method, so better than that is not an accomplishment
You don't have any numbers showing a lower start up cost, but blindly assert it must be better, while "waiting for numbers", wherein numbers projected are worse for your case - yep.
"Using it with carbon capture" is less efficient than the system which does both since much of the power your saving is then earmarked for capture, not going back to the grid.
Try another analogy: peaker planets are incandescent bulbs, your compact florescence are better to be sure but led have no mercury and last longer and use less power still.
Why are you so defensive about finding out there are even better options available?
This might just be the stupidest comment I've seen in weeks. Congratulations.
We literally named the ages of human progress by the metals we were able to use. Bronze age, iron age, then silver and gold for mythical ones.
People will still dump more into the sky
I believe that would be lithium.
Because I doubt that a more complex system that requires extreme cold, and excess thermal energy and the storage of both will have both efficiency and cost advantages over a similar, less complex system that can function at ambient temperatures.
As this is a battery, it would be a one time carbon capture energy price, and then would be a form of sequestering it. It wouldn't be a constant input.
And until both are proven in the real world, where both are currently in the process of doing so. I don't think claiming one is so much better that the other has no use is warranted.
That is a better analogy than hybrids. Still don't think it's very applicable based on what I've seen.
You should read up on what rare earth metals are. Lithium isn't one of them. They're on the opposite side of the product table. It's not even "rare" in the conventional sense. It ranks between lead and cobalt in abundance in the Earth's crust. Finally, it takes up only about 2.5% of the weight of a typical EV battery. Yes, we're currently in short supply during the rapid run-up in the EV market but it's also nearly perfectly recyclable, meaning eventually exhausted EV batteries will become a major source of lithium in new ones. That is, unless we move to another battery chemistry by then!
Coolio. Thanks for reading up so I don't have to! What is the answer to the original question then?
So it turned out to be a good idea to move on from the stone age? It didn't stop us using stone completely, but it did allow us to progress.
Same thing going on here.
The most critical part of this design is that utilizing the CO2 phase change from liquid to gaseous form and back limits overall pressure on system components to about 1200 psi, probably averaging closer to 850-900.
This means that the tanks, piping, manifolds, etc. do not have to handle high pressure like they would with a compressed air system, and can be built much more cheaply while still maintaining good safety margins.
You are underestimating the difficulty and especially the expense of dealing with cryogenic liquids, especially over the long term. Both the initial and ongoing maintenance costs of cryogenic pumps, seals, and pressure vessels is FAR more expensive than the very modest requirements for liquefying and storing CO2.
Just the fact that you can indefinitely store arbitrarily large quantities of liquefied CO2 in a room-temperature pressure vessel is a HUGE Advantage over dealing with cryogenic liquids. Bulk CO2 storage tanks and all the associated manifolds, valves, piping, and associated ancillary equipment don’t need to operate at high pressures or extreme temperatures, which means that they can be manufactured and maintained at far lower expense
MWh is nothing. That thing looks $$$ for putting out only 200 MWh. BUT, it looks really cheap to run.
about the dumbest shit i've ever read. thanks for the laugh
Likely to have very poor efficiency by reason of the thermodynamics of Carnot engines. Delta T is low, efficiency =1−T^C T^Hor 1 - Delta T. CO2 has latent heat of 353.4 kJ/kg, not as bad as water (2256 kJ/kg) but not as good as R22 refrigerant (232) or heptane o hexane (mid 300s). You aren't going to release the storage fluid, so its constituent doesn't much matter.
Yes we can exist without mining. Hope you're willing to give up every comfort, amenity and convenience you have. You want us to live like cavemen without any material and scrounging just to stay alive, no thanks mate.
lughnasadh OP t1_iwhjofu wrote
Submission Statement
There are bold claims about cost, but the really interesting thing about Energy Dome is its potential speed of deployment. As it uses existing common off-the-shelf materials it can overcome many of the supply chain bottlenecks that bedevil other grid storage battery solutions.
More details are here.