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>liquified air energy storage. I wonder if this may be helpful. Let me answer this: No, it would not be helpful, because on pretty much all metrics (capital an
by D_Alex 8y ago
>liquified air energy storage. I wonder if this may be helpful.
Let me answer this: No, it would not be helpful, because on pretty much all metrics (capital and operating costs, efficiency, flexibility, size etc) this technology is way worse than battery storage.
Unfortunately - today - a lot of money which could be sensibly used deploying cost effective technology such as solar and wind power (and to a lesser extent battery storage) is wasted pursuing fundamentally flawed concepts (such as compressed air energy storage, and now this liquified air), which have no chance of being competitive .
- dsign 8y agoHorse stables were in their day a cost-effective solution to transportation, and those steam engines had no chance of ever moving a couple of meters on the rails...
- blkhawk 8y agoI think there a physics problem there. The efficiency is way worse than charging almost any type of battery. So unless material for any type of battery becomes completely unavailable (including say Iron and sulfur or lead), the power free and you manage to build your Air Liquifier with less resources than batteries it will always be a stupid way to spend resources.
- Angostura 8y agoThey are claiming efficiencies of 60-70% compared with batteries of nearly 90%
- D_Alex 8y agoOK, I have thought about this a bit (I have worked on gas liquefaction plant design), and I do not believe this claim. 70% is about the maximum thermodynamic efficiency of any heat engine operating between -190 degrees and ambient. And the best efficiency you can expect in liquefaction, in a very complex and large plant, is circa 50% (1). Combined with storage losses, I think the overall cycle efficiency cannot be more than 25% or so. Happy to review and comment on any back-up to their claim. (1) see eg here: https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=893357213721903;res=IELENG https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=8933572137...
- Angostura 8y agoThank you for that thoughtful and informative reply.
- Angostura 8y agoWhat do you make of the claim that this technology is better for long term storage than battery storage?
- D_Alex 8y agoI see what they are getting at. My initial thoughts are: 1. There will be considerable losses in storage. Evaporation in LNG tankers is around 0.05-0.1% of their cargo capacity per day. This is around the same as the self discharge rate for Li ion batteries, which have higher cycle efficiencies. 2. The claim could be that the overall cost of complex liquefaction equipment to use up a little bit of energy per day over say summer months combined with large relatively simple storage tanks to hold the liquified air until say winter could be cheaper than having very large batteries. This is possible... but: 3. This would have to compete with for example production of hydrogen by hydrolysis, which would be cheaper, easier to store, and have similar cycle efficiencies. Finally: Consider that none of the current LNG import terminals attempt to extract energy from the re-gasification of liquified gas. This seems to be the low hanging fruit of liquified air technology, but it is not economically attractive. So I sincerely doubt that the described scheme would make economic sense.