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Greece will soon have the cheapest power in Europe if they run the program intelligently. Greece has immediate access to deep ocean for cheap storage, and plen
by ncmncm 4y ago
Greece will soon have the cheapest power in Europe if they run the program intelligently.
Greece has immediate access to deep ocean for cheap storage, and plenty of sunshine and wind year-round. Transmission lines out to the rest of Europe could make them a major exporter.
- krasin 4y ago>Greece has immediate access to deep ocean for cheap storage I am curious about what you mean, can you please elaborate?
- amelius 4y agohttps://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/german-institute-successfully-tests-underwater-energy-storage-sphere/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/german-institute-suc...
- chrisco255 4y agoThis is a lab test. HN gets almost daily 'lab test' breakthroughs in batteries and energy tech and yet, turning those breakthroughs into practical, engineered services remains quite elusive.
- FunnyBadger 4y agoIt takes a MINIMUM of 20 years to go from "lab to fab" or "science experiment in a lab to productively useful in real life". Maybe this indicates that clock has started but the requirement for that 20 years is 20 years of fully funded R&D (small R, big D) - otherwise bump the 20 years up to infinity without continuous funding.
- ncmncm 4y agoThat's fine, we don't have enough renewable generating capacity to charge up storage from yet. After will be the right time to build storage. But pumping water and air, driving winches, and building pressure vessels are all mature tech.
- ncmncm 4y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31543516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31543516
- krasin 4y agoThank you. I was not aware of this approach.
- tintor 4y agoCheap storage of what in deep ocean?
- ncmncm 4y agoEnergy.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoDeep sea pumped storage? Where they use energy to pump water out of underwater concrete spheres and allow the water to rush back in to turn generators?
- AndrewDucker 4y agoNothing seems to be happening with that in the last few years https://hackaday.com/2022/02/02/underwater-tanks-turn-energy-storage-upside-down/ https://hackaday.com/2022/02/02/underwater-tanks-turn-energy...
- ncmncm 4y agoThat is one alternative. Another is to pump air down a hose to force water out of a deep cavity. A third is to winch a float down toward a seafloor-mounted pulley. Methods that put the electrical equipment on shore are generally cheaper than the ones that put it at the sea floor. Energy storage is mostly freshman-level physics (E = Fx, E = mgh), chemical schemes excepted. Undersea methods can often be adapted to an under-groundwater form. The winning energy storage methods will be the cheapest ones, even at the expense of round-trip efficiency. But forms that are shippable, such as liquified ammonia synthesis, have an advantage than can overcome both higher cost and lower efficiency. Most places will rely on a mix.
- Proven 4y ago
- FunnyBadger 4y agoHow long before that gets banned also just like Desal was banned California beause of environmental impacts (both saline and temperature).