3 ms·

Molten salt batteries?

• tombert 8y ago
  I remember hearing from Bill Nye about an idea to pump water to lift up pillars during the day to store potential energy, then release those pillars overnight. I wonder if that's being implemented anywhere.
  • johnydepp 8y ago
    Yes there's a documentary on Netflix about modern islands... There are few places where it's already done successfully
  • rescripting 8y ago
    Something like Pumped Storage Hydroelectricity? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit... There are several of these facilities in the US, although no new ones have been built in quite some time. I believe that as the price of solar goes down, more of these styles of facilities will open.
    • rsynnott 8y ago
      The trouble with pumped storage is that it's usually only economical to do where you have suitable geography which can be economically connected to the grid. It's by no means useless, but other storage mechanisms are needed.
  • thomaslangston 8y ago
    Pillars, not that I know of. NPR did do a story recently about Hydro-electric energy storage though: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=620288114 https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...
  • rhplus 8y ago
    Yes, mountain lakes as batteries was covered in a recent episode of Planet Money. US and China both have dam systems online that can act as giant batteries: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=620288114 https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...
  • trymas 8y ago
    Water is already used for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...
• raldi 8y ago
  Indeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Pr...