3 ms·

My point was that, if you stop and start frequently, the balance of the network will be extremely hard to maintain so you'll get blackouts that can span wide ar

My point was that, if you stop and start frequently, the balance of the network will be extremely hard to maintain so you'll get blackouts that can span wide areas or even the whole net. Even if that wasn't the case, I'm not sure that Swedish industries CAN scale down even if they wanted to, because the cost to start up again would be greater than shutting down.

lstodd 5y ago
It's like, surely you can "scale down" an electric smelter. Only that would mean almost rebuilding the furnaces afterwards. And it's sort of "simple" for the iron smelters. Try to shut down an aluminium smelter at an hour's notice. I'm not sure if it wouldn't be cheaper to build a completely new facility afterwards.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Many such smelters already act as grid connected batteries. Since they store heat, they can vary their electrical loads and get paid for doing so. Pretty much anything that heats, cools or pumps water can do this, but the big users are the easy place to start. There's even startups trying to melt aluminum purely to use it as a storage medium: https://www.alcircle.com/news/azelio-recycled-aluminium-to-store-solar-energy-batteries-unwanted-57070 https://www.alcircle.com/news/azelio-recycled-aluminium-to-s...
  - lstodd 5y ago
    Eh. I'm talking about primary smelters, the ones that take bauxite as input. You just can't. It'll ruin the chemical composition, the electolysers, you'll have to throw out (somehow, very expensive in itself) a lot of fluoride in various nasty forms, electrolyzer lining, electrodes, etc. This would cause weeks of delays and $ tens of millions lost. It just can't be done. And it's never done unless a hydroelectric dam fails or something of that magnitude. alcircle.com is just barely less insane. but just barely. Even NaK eutectic makes more sense.
  - tmikaeld 5y ago
    I've seen similar by Salt-X, they use molten salt. Glad science is being done on this, but it seems hard, the salt causes korrosion issues, so it doesn't last long.

lstodd 5y ago

It's like, surely you can "scale down" an electric smelter. Only that would mean almost rebuilding the furnaces afterwards. And it's sort of "simple" for the iron smelters. Try to shut down an aluminium smelter at an hour's notice. I'm not sure if it wouldn't be cheaper to build a completely new facility afterwards.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Many such smelters already act as grid connected batteries. Since they store heat, they can vary their electrical loads and get paid for doing so. Pretty much anything that heats, cools or pumps water can do this, but the big users are the easy place to start. There's even startups trying to melt aluminum purely to use it as a storage medium: https://www.alcircle.com/news/azelio-recycled-aluminium-to-store-solar-energy-batteries-unwanted-57070 https://www.alcircle.com/news/azelio-recycled-aluminium-to-s...
- lstodd 5y ago
  Eh. I'm talking about primary smelters, the ones that take bauxite as input. You just can't. It'll ruin the chemical composition, the electolysers, you'll have to throw out (somehow, very expensive in itself) a lot of fluoride in various nasty forms, electrolyzer lining, electrodes, etc. This would cause weeks of delays and $ tens of millions lost. It just can't be done. And it's never done unless a hydroelectric dam fails or something of that magnitude. alcircle.com is just barely less insane. but just barely. Even NaK eutectic makes more sense.
- tmikaeld 5y ago
  I've seen similar by Salt-X, they use molten salt. Glad science is being done on this, but it seems hard, the salt causes korrosion issues, so it doesn't last long.