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So it uses concrete which is VERY BAD and also needs a lot of it, but at maybe 1/6th the impact of regular concrete.[1] It's unclear how this works out in the
by abalone 8y ago
So it uses concrete which is VERY BAD and also needs a lot of it, but at maybe 1/6th the impact of regular concrete.[1]
It's unclear how this works out in the end. Exactly how much cement do they need to scale this up? What's the CO2 impact per MW of storage, for example? I would say anything that involves significant CO2 emissions is not an ideal candidate for renewable energy storage.
[1] From the article: "Energy Vault would need a lot of concrete to build hundreds of 35-metric-ton blocks... [but they've] developed a machine that can mix substances that cities often pay to get rid off, such as gravel or building waste, along with cement to create low-cost concrete blocks. The cost saving comes from having to use only a sixth of the amount of cement that would otherwise have been needed if the concrete were used for building construction."
- montalbano 8y agoI missed that bit in the article, thanks for pointing it out. So they are already developing ways to reduce c02 output of concrete production, nice. This would change c02 balancing estimates greatly.
- azernik 8y agoYou may have meant this, but just to clarify - they're developing methods of lowering the CO2 output (and financial cost) of their concrete weights, not concrete in general; they do this by not having to meet the structural strength requirements of regular concrete.
- Fjolsvith 8y agoSo, how does the CO2 emissions of concrete production compare to that of Lithium ion battery production? Wouldn't it be mitigated by only being created once and then have a very long lifetime of utilization (vs the battery form of storage)?
- pinko 8y agoDepends on how much the inferiority of the concrete vs. that used for construction affects its durability and longevity. It needs to be able to withstand weight from blocks above, impact whenever it or an adjacent block is moved, and corrosion from any metallic material within. I could almost imagine these blocks needing to be tougher over time than something made from cement used in construction, to avoid crumbling under those conditions.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]