5 ms·

Note that none of these exotic storage systems have ever actually been deployed commercially. Yes, liquid nitrogen is used for things like cooling. But no one h

Note that none of these exotic storage systems have ever actually been deployed commercially. Yes, liquid nitrogen is used for things like cooling. But no one has deployed a grid-scale storage system using liquid nitrogen. Liquid hydrogen has been used in rocket launches, but has not been used for energy storage. These technologies are mature in applications besides energy storage. They are not at all mature in the context of energy storage. Grid-scale storage systems using these technologies remains the stuff of prototypes and white papers. This commenter is also incorrect in the claim that there is not enough renewable capacity to charge up storage. California , Hawaii, and other energy markets often hit days of excess renewable production. Proponents of energy storage promised that companies would swoop in to store and resell this excess energy. But this has not materialized, because energy storage is not nearly so simple or cheap as this commenter claims it is.

ncmncm 4y ago
You can insist until you are blue in the face that these are all untried and exotic, but you will be wrong throughout. And you know you are wrong as you say it. If in fact they were exotic and untried, billions of dollars would not already be committed to factories to produce them in industrial volume. The processes involved are used industrially billions of times worldwide every day. You only wish they were exotic because you imagine it would make nukes more appealing. But nothing can make nukes appealing. They get less so with each passing day.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  > If in fact they were exotic and untried, billions of dollars would not already be committed to factories to produce them in industrial volume. The processes involved are used industrially billions of times worldwide every day. Yes, for purposes different from energy storage. The massive amounts of ammonia synthesized through the Haber process for fertilizer production does nothing to demonstrate ammonia's viability for electric grid storage. Likewise the hydrogen used in space rockets has no bearing on the feasibility of electrolyzing water, storing the hydrogen, and converting it back to electricity. If anything, the fact that most hydrogen is produced through steam reformation highlights the difficulties of electrolysis at scale. We have plenty of experience with flywheels. Almost every car has a flywheel in it. Does that mean it's guaranteed to be extremely cheap and scalable to store electricity by spinning a bunch of giant flywheels? That's the kind of leap you're making here. When someone actually builds and operates a facility that takes in electricity, produces ammonia, and then taps that stored ammonia to produce electricity later, then we can actually measure real-world cost of such a storage system. Until then, it's just optimistic predictions. And optimistic predictions don't actually store any energy.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      > Electric ammonia synthesis plants are right now under construction all over the world. Source? I'm not finding any result for electric ammonia synthesis plants under construction right now. The best I could find is this [1] but it's not a plant under construction, and there still significant challenges to overcome to make this viable. > You imagine that engineers are idiots who cannot direct existing, familiar processes, unchanged, to new purposes. But engineers are not idiots. Neither are we. Those engineers have opted not to build any of the storage systems you listed. I agree they're not idiots. 1. https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/ammonia-synthesis-goes-electric/4012190.article https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/ammonia-synthesis-go...
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        Your search skills do not define the limits of investment or build-out.
        Manuel_D 4y ago
        There are no ammonia electric storage plants under construction. You write that there's many under construction, all over the world. Yet you fail to identify one such plant that's actually under construction.
        ncmncm 4y ago
        Ammonia synthesized electrically is not restricted in how it may be used. Identically the same ammonia will be used for many things: burned in combined-cycle turbines for power, burned in retrofitted cargo ships displacing bunker oil, made into fertilizer, injected as working fluid into warehouse-scale refrigeration systems, dissolved in water for window cleaner, used as feedstock in a thousand other chemical pipelines, sent abroad in tankers, mixed into hydrogen fuel to scavenge NOx. It is exactly its wide usefulness that makes it attractive. Similarly for hydrogen. Insisting that a synthesis plant must jealously direct every last liter produced to be tanked and later burned in a local peaker turbine is fetishism. The ammonia doesn't care, and neither does the synthesis equipment owner: any customer who pays is a good one.
pfdietz 4y ago
Every air separation plant (you know, the kind used to make oxygen for steelmaking) employs expanders for recovering energy from cryogenic nitrogen. This is an off the shelf technology.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  It's off the shelf technology for chemical processes. It's not off the shelf technology for energy storage. We have plenty of experience with flywheels. I bet there's millions of cars built every year that have a flywheel in them. Does that mean energy storage using giant flywheels is guaranteed to be insanely cheap and way cheaper than the existing storage systems? Just because we have plenty of experience using a given technology in one application doesn't mean it's guaranteed to be a smash hit in a different application.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Air separation is not a chemical process. It's a physical process, involving compression, heat exchangers, and expanders. You know, just like an energy storage system using cryogenic gases. None of this is magical unknown technology. The components are literally in use today and have been for years. Now, whether LN2 (or LAir) energy storage is practical is another matter. The efficiency seems poor unless you have a source of waste heat to juice the process.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      Air separation is mostly used for chemical processes [1] to isolate certain gases like oxygen or nitrogen. This is what I wrote in my previous comment: > It's off the shelf technology for chemical processes. It's not off the shelf technology for energy storage. The while point I'm making in these last few comments is that just because a certain technology is effective for one application doesn't guarantee it's effectiveness for a different application. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation#Applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation#Applications
      - 4y ago

ncmncm 4y ago

You can insist until you are blue in the face that these are all untried and exotic, but you will be wrong throughout. And you know you are wrong as you say it. If in fact they were exotic and untried, billions of dollars would not already be committed to factories to produce them in industrial volume. The processes involved are used industrially billions of times worldwide every day. You only wish they were exotic because you imagine it would make nukes more appealing. But nothing can make nukes appealing. They get less so with each passing day.

Manuel_D 4y ago
> If in fact they were exotic and untried, billions of dollars would not already be committed to factories to produce them in industrial volume. The processes involved are used industrially billions of times worldwide every day. Yes, for purposes different from energy storage. The massive amounts of ammonia synthesized through the Haber process for fertilizer production does nothing to demonstrate ammonia's viability for electric grid storage. Likewise the hydrogen used in space rockets has no bearing on the feasibility of electrolyzing water, storing the hydrogen, and converting it back to electricity. If anything, the fact that most hydrogen is produced through steam reformation highlights the difficulties of electrolysis at scale. We have plenty of experience with flywheels. Almost every car has a flywheel in it. Does that mean it's guaranteed to be extremely cheap and scalable to store electricity by spinning a bunch of giant flywheels? That's the kind of leap you're making here. When someone actually builds and operates a facility that takes in electricity, produces ammonia, and then taps that stored ammonia to produce electricity later, then we can actually measure real-world cost of such a storage system. Until then, it's just optimistic predictions. And optimistic predictions don't actually store any energy.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    > Electric ammonia synthesis plants are right now under construction all over the world. Source? I'm not finding any result for electric ammonia synthesis plants under construction right now. The best I could find is this [1] but it's not a plant under construction, and there still significant challenges to overcome to make this viable. > You imagine that engineers are idiots who cannot direct existing, familiar processes, unchanged, to new purposes. But engineers are not idiots. Neither are we. Those engineers have opted not to build any of the storage systems you listed. I agree they're not idiots. 1. https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/ammonia-synthesis-goes-electric/4012190.article https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/ammonia-synthesis-go...
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Your search skills do not define the limits of investment or build-out.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        There are no ammonia electric storage plants under construction. You write that there's many under construction, all over the world. Yet you fail to identify one such plant that's actually under construction.
        ncmncm 4y ago
        Ammonia synthesized electrically is not restricted in how it may be used. Identically the same ammonia will be used for many things: burned in combined-cycle turbines for power, burned in retrofitted cargo ships displacing bunker oil, made into fertilizer, injected as working fluid into warehouse-scale refrigeration systems, dissolved in water for window cleaner, used as feedstock in a thousand other chemical pipelines, sent abroad in tankers, mixed into hydrogen fuel to scavenge NOx. It is exactly its wide usefulness that makes it attractive. Similarly for hydrogen. Insisting that a synthesis plant must jealously direct every last liter produced to be tanked and later burned in a local peaker turbine is fetishism. The ammonia doesn't care, and neither does the synthesis equipment owner: any customer who pays is a good one.

pfdietz 4y ago

Every air separation plant (you know, the kind used to make oxygen for steelmaking) employs expanders for recovering energy from cryogenic nitrogen. This is an off the shelf technology.

Manuel_D 4y ago
It's off the shelf technology for chemical processes. It's not off the shelf technology for energy storage. We have plenty of experience with flywheels. I bet there's millions of cars built every year that have a flywheel in them. Does that mean energy storage using giant flywheels is guaranteed to be insanely cheap and way cheaper than the existing storage systems? Just because we have plenty of experience using a given technology in one application doesn't mean it's guaranteed to be a smash hit in a different application.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Air separation is not a chemical process. It's a physical process, involving compression, heat exchangers, and expanders. You know, just like an energy storage system using cryogenic gases. None of this is magical unknown technology. The components are literally in use today and have been for years. Now, whether LN2 (or LAir) energy storage is practical is another matter. The efficiency seems poor unless you have a source of waste heat to juice the process.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Air separation is mostly used for chemical processes [1] to isolate certain gases like oxygen or nitrogen. This is what I wrote in my previous comment: > It's off the shelf technology for chemical processes. It's not off the shelf technology for energy storage. The while point I'm making in these last few comments is that just because a certain technology is effective for one application doesn't guarantee it's effectiveness for a different application. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation#Applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation#Applications
    - 4y ago