Yeah, I think massive chemical batteries for storing excess electricity to facilitate a contrived green energy market is a bad idea.
So uh. I guess those coal and natural gas power plants would fare better in a fire. Something seems wrong there but OP clearly wouldn’t possibly post something on the Internet that was utterly detached from reality.
Energy storage is just that. Fire is frequently quite good at releasing said energy.
Lithium? poof.
Oil? yup.
Nat gas? mmhmm.
wood? yup.
Coal? dang.
Guess all we got left is water - I’m sure that doesn’t have any specific regional requirements…
So tell us champ: what energy storage you got all figured out from that armchair?
Nuclear though, never had a problem with excess heat at one of those. /s
Was gonna list it but I figured our energy-tzar OP would just complain about radioactive minerals being like batteries with more steps.
None. Use demand shaping instead. I like electrolysis of water, but desalination might make more sense in some regions. I suppose you could even redirect excess electricity to certain computational work.
I imagine you, like many, just don’t understand the insane engineering feat that is an electrical grid. Everything is realtime - Every time someone’s AC kicks on the grid must adapt and provide more power immediately. Power storage is a godsend to this process and in terms of relative age … is very new. With regard to power storage - there are very few ways to hold it that don’t run some risk of fire or other calamitous failure mode. That includes water - but I was being coy when making my statement implying it wouldn’t burn.
To your comment: you could use salt/sea/undrinkable water for energy storage but it comes with regional requirements (elevation change typically) in addition to the water. It’s not one size fits all and definitely doesn’t work in many regions.
Regarding your two options which you offered to create potable water (not to store energy:) Both are wildly inefficient and have one or more major drawbacks to them. Topically - one of these drawbacks is their massive energy requirement. So you provided a way to burn energy faster - not store it ;)
If we build out our GHG-free power capacity beyond our electricity demand, efficiency isn’t an issue. We need fresh water. We need hydrogen and oxygen. I’m sure there are other convenient things to produce whenever electricity demand falls off. These energy storage and reselling schemes are just destroying value.
We have sufficient generation. It’s a question of cleanliness, efficiency, and consistency. Consistency comes with storage and enables cleaner methods, while inconsistent, to be used.
Using your example: what need do we have for food storage? We have grain right now - and we’re growing more! Who needs water storage - we have wells!
Hydrogen and oxygen? Yeah we have that. What technology, currently available, are you suggesting we all switch over to, again? While I’m at it: last I checked stored hydrogen and oxygen have a tendency to uh… burn… and very “energetically.”
You seem fond of the tin foil - you are apparently worried about “big lithium” or some such… wait until you hear about “big energy.”
If you are genuinely posting and not acting in bad faith I imagine you need to broaden your view a bit.
I’m not sure what you mean. Natural fresh water supplies are stressed in many regions. We need hydrogen to fuel vehicles and for the production GHG-free steel and fertilizer. Oxygen of course is necessary for medical and industrial applications. Safely handling hydrogen and oxygen is a solved problem and these gases are not polluting if you have to vent to atmosphere. It only makes sense from a wasteful, financially extractive perspective to store extra electricity by environmentally questionable means instead of actually using that energy right away.
We’ve been talking about energy and energy storage up till now. You’ve been mostly ‘on track’ with said responses up till this point - albeit overly generic and somewhat disconnected from reality… In the last couple responses you’ve jumped from water care to what I can only imagine was the first two Google results when looking up hydrogen / oxygen paired with energy.
Is the other guy okay or did his shift end?
Look. Here’s a sobering bottom line: if it were technologically feasible to “replace batteries” we would have already. Hydrogen powered x isn’t functionally acceptable because:
a) It stores like shit.
b) boom (pressure or rapid combustion - take your pick)
c) It is shockingly (hah) hard to get oxygen and hydrogen to split efficiently. Very few sources of hydrogen are actually energy positive or more efficient than what we already have in more convenient, safer, higher density forms.
I’m all for progress… but armchair warriors that claim the “moral high ground” by shitting on what works currently - while not being able to provide a single other suggestion beyond what they got drip fed from their feed and distilled by their echo
groupchamber need to sit the fuck down. Want to “stick it to big battery?” Go back to landlines. Put a crank back on your car. The list goes on.I digress. Back to energy storage: if you’ve got some brilliant solution - get to it. We’re waiting.
Back to energy storage: if you’ve got some brilliant solution - get to it. We’re waiting.
No to storing joules in environmentally questionable batteries. Use the energy immediately to produce useful, necessary stuff like fresh water and hydrogen.
This is why you don’t use battery chemistries that can
thermally run awayautoignite in grid storage. The plant was using LG JH4 batteries, which use an NMC chemistry. I don’t think that LiFePO4 cells were as ubiquitous when this plant was first constructed, so the designers opted for something spicy instead.This shit is why you use LiFePO4. It can’t
thermally run awayautoignite, it lasts longer, and the reduced energy density doesn’t really matter for grid storage. Plus, it doesn’t use nickel or cobalt so the only conflict resource is lithium.EDIT: LiFePO4 batteries can enter thermal runaway, but they can’t autoignite.
I don’t think we should be storing and reselling electricity at all.
Feelings based or data driven opinion?
Read that and was like… fuck me why am I debating the guy when I coulda just asked that. Cheers.
There’s no IRL data for the specific model I’ve described, but I’m not sure what you mean by “feelings based”. Using otherwise excess energy instead of storing it is a considered, rational strategy.
The document linked doesn’t go into detail for good reason. It’s a bunch of half cooked ideas distilled to make a good read… but misses a lot of key points. Most notably: it hand waves through storage.
The electrical grid is a lot like a pressure system in a sense: we have a lot of equipment that is designed to work at a very specific pressure. Outside of those ranges things break. The article mentions feeding back into the grid which is fine and well… but fails to mention how that needs to be managed so as to not blow the whole thing up. Also that solar system you have isn’t going to be feeding shit back into the grid without a buffer… which is storage… for the same reason that you likely will struggle to have a solar home without batteries. The sun is variable and your “stuff” needs a very specific range of power. Too much? zap. Too little? brownout. Either way: rip electronics.
The very things you are suggesting as solutions to power storage literally require it to work.
There’s no IRL data for the specific model I’ve described,
This is feelings based. Thanks for clarifying.
Ever seen what happens when a coal mine catches fire? Link
I guess we should just go back to water mills right?
back to water mills
Hydroelectric has grown up since then. See: hoover dam
Dams are actually really bad for the environment. They were sold as good because they don’t burn coal but it turns out that blocking rivers interferes with everything along it.
Hydroelectric dams have also claimed more human lives than any other type of power plant.
I’m pretty sure cancers and other health issues have killed way, way more than hydroelectric.
Not including the climate change thing…
It’s complicated, but in terms of direct kills, hydro power takes the cake. If you’re also considering indirect kills, fossil fuel power is far and away the worst offender and I think that’s before you even account for climate change deaths:
This is a shitty Texas-based company cutting corners, who also had fires in 2021 and 2022. There are plenty of battery storage facilities operating safely.
As someone living in Texas presently: you could have saved yourself a full sentence:
This is a shitty Texas-based company cutting corners…
to
Texas company
or honestly:
Texas
Would be sufficient. Any Texan that doesn’t own x texas-based-company is tired of that company’s bullshit. It’s one of the few things natives and transplants agree on.
This PSA brought to you by the makers of: y’all, you all, and all y’all.
What are the alternatives?
Mechanical energy storage, like pumped hydro or flywheel. Thermal energy storage, like molten salt.
Electrochemical isn’t entirely off the table either: less-volatile chemistries are available, and better containment methods can reduce risks.
Non-electrical chemical storage methods are available: electrical energy can be used for hydrogen electrolysis, or Fischer-Tropsch hydrocarbon fuels. Fuel cells, and traditional ICE generators can recover the energy put into those (relatively) stable fuels, or we can export it from the electrical generation industry to the transportation industry.
There’s also avoiding (or minimizing) the need for storage at all, with “demand shaping”. Basically, we radically overbuild solar, wind, wave, tidal, etc. Normally, that would tank energy prices and be unprofitable, but we also build out some massive, flexible demand to buy this excess power. Because they are extremely overbuilt, the minimal output from these sources during suboptimal conditions is more than enough to meet normal demands; we just shut off the flexible additional demand we added. We “shape” our “demand” to match what we are able to supply.
There’s also avoiding (or minimizing) the need for storage at all, with “demand shaping”. Basically, we radically overbuild solar, wind, wave, tidal, etc. Normally, that would tank energy prices and be unprofitable, but we also build out some massive, flexible demand to buy this excess power. Because they are extremely overbuilt, the minimal output from these sources during suboptimal conditions is more than enough to meet normal demands; we just shut off the flexible additional demand we added.
Bingo.
Find an engineer or an engineering channel to better understand the grid. Energy generation - clean or otherwise - has to be adjusted in realtime… further: the above statement doesn’t clearly understand or solve for over generation vs under generation. There’s a fix: a reservoir. In other words: storage. This (storage) is present everywhere from the grid to almost literally every circuit board.
You’re picking a fight with batteries/energy storage - then making an argument about something unrelated. “Storing cooked beef sure is hard” is not properly solved with “the store stocking more beef.” They are tangentially related… but not the same thing.
edit: clarity / punctuation
Clearly, storing steam in tanks for demand surges is the most efficient form of energy storage (as in Factorio)
I would prefer to use energy rather than store it, but yes, pressure vessels are preferable to chemical batteries.
Yeah, that’s probably true. I was mainly being silly and making a factorio reference. On the other hand, with the intermittent/cyclical nature of renewable energy, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to look into ways to store it for times when demand outstrips supply. Maybe there’s something I’m missing? I’m not an expert in energy grids or anything.
Yours is the third reply to me that makes a Factorio reference over the past month. I didn’t realize it was a game until yesterday. I guess I should give it a try.
You’re correct that intermittent power from wind and photovoltaic solar needs to be managed somehow. There are certain energy intensive, productive processes that can be conveniently ramped up or slowed down to meet this requirement. I just think such a system would be more responsible and less exploitative than building these massive battery facilities for speculating on the electricity supply.
Your half-joking idea of converting excess electricity to steam makes sense because steam is itself a useful product that’s needed for heating buildings as well as various industrial processes. Converting it back into electricity isn’t ideal, but that’s all you can do with a chemical battery in comparison.
