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> We have a cornucopia of viable storage methods in active development--viable meaning capable of being scaled up to global scale in 20 years or so. Do you hav

> We have a cornucopia of viable storage methods in active development--viable meaning capable of being scaled up to global scale in 20 years or so. Do you have more info on this? I’m skeptical of any claims of scaling to global scale that quickly.

tuatoru 5y ago
Form Energy's iron-air battery, for instance - good at the two days to two weeks duration, needed as backup for wind during prolonged calms. We already mine a great deal of iron; the extra needed globally wouldn't really be noticed. Others are working on iron-air also. At least a couple of teams are quite far along with hot rock energy storage. Good for the one week to one month timescale. Various other battery technologies for sub-day timescales - lithium for grid frequency stabilisation, flow batteries. I don't know of any active trials of ammonia energy storage, one of the most scalable candidates for seasonal storage, but ammonia engineering is very old and very widespread, so there don't appear to be roadblocks to scaling up rapidly once required. The YouTube channels "Just Have a Think"[1] and "Undecided with Matt Ferrell"[2] focus on this stuff, and do some research. Edit: you should be sceptical; well done! Scaling really does take forever. That's why the only viable technologies are those already lying around all over the place, being used for other things. 1. https://www.youtube.com/c/JustHaveaThink/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/JustHaveaThink/videos 2. https://www.youtube.com/c/UndecidedMF/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/UndecidedMF/videos
- pfdietz 5y ago
  Thermal storage in sand, good for weeks of storage at modest cost per kWh of storage capacity. Efficiency is meh, but that's ok. https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/07%20Day1-Zhiwen%20Ma_NREL.pdf https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/07%20D...
- roughly 5y ago
  This is great, thanks for the links!

tuatoru 5y ago

Form Energy's iron-air battery, for instance - good at the two days to two weeks duration, needed as backup for wind during prolonged calms. We already mine a great deal of iron; the extra needed globally wouldn't really be noticed. Others are working on iron-air also. At least a couple of teams are quite far along with hot rock energy storage. Good for the one week to one month timescale. Various other battery technologies for sub-day timescales - lithium for grid frequency stabilisation, flow batteries. I don't know of any active trials of ammonia energy storage, one of the most scalable candidates for seasonal storage, but ammonia engineering is very old and very widespread, so there don't appear to be roadblocks to scaling up rapidly once required. The YouTube channels "Just Have a Think"[1] and "Undecided with Matt Ferrell"[2] focus on this stuff, and do some research. Edit: you should be sceptical; well done! Scaling really does take forever. That's why the only viable technologies are those already lying around all over the place, being used for other things. 1. https://www.youtube.com/c/JustHaveaThink/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/JustHaveaThink/videos 2. https://www.youtube.com/c/UndecidedMF/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/UndecidedMF/videos

pfdietz 5y ago
Thermal storage in sand, good for weeks of storage at modest cost per kWh of storage capacity. Efficiency is meh, but that's ok. https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/07%20Day1-Zhiwen%20Ma_NREL.pdf https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/07%20D...
roughly 5y ago
This is great, thanks for the links!