Hydrogen availability
Discussion
jjwilde said:
All these insane energy storage schemes while battery storage just quietly takes hold in the real world.
Surely due to the hopeless inefficiency of some of these schemes they are destined to go bust? Or do they get some sort of feed in grant to protect them?
What's the biggest battery to date? 500MWh?Surely due to the hopeless inefficiency of some of these schemes they are destined to go bust? Or do they get some sort of feed in grant to protect them?
An acquaintance is part of a team trying to build an energy store using a huge blob of liquid iron as the thermal reservoir. Forgotten the temp they were considering, but it might have been 2000K ... anyway, really quite hot. Assuming the minor detail of "potential fire hazard" could be dealt with, it could be deployed pretty much wherever it was needed. No emissions (apart form accidental discharge of many tonnes of very white hot liquid iron), no need for mountains or mines.
jjwilde said:
All these insane energy storage schemes while battery storage just quietly takes hold in the real world.
Surely due to the hopeless inefficiency of some of these schemes they are destined to go bust? Or do they get some sort of feed in grant to protect them?
There's loads of potential for non-battery storage at industrial scale. One obvious benefit is how the cost of storage scales. If you want to double the storage capacity of a system based on batteries, you need to double the number of batteries, and the batteries are your system, so you'll be roughly doubling the cost of your system; the cost of storage scales roughly linearly. If you want to store twice as much liquified air (and you're not trying to change your peak power input/output), you just need a bigger tank, which is a relatively simple bit of kit compared to the rest of your plant.Surely due to the hopeless inefficiency of some of these schemes they are destined to go bust? Or do they get some sort of feed in grant to protect them?
Evanivitch said:
jjwilde said:
All these insane energy storage schemes while battery storage just quietly takes hold in the real world.
Surely due to the hopeless inefficiency of some of these schemes they are destined to go bust? Or do they get some sort of feed in grant to protect them?
What's the biggest battery to date? 500MWh?Surely due to the hopeless inefficiency of some of these schemes they are destined to go bust? Or do they get some sort of feed in grant to protect them?
Actually wikipedia has a list of what's being built at the moment:
Edited by jjwilde on Monday 8th March 13:15
Gary C said:
jjwilde said:
TheRainMaker said:
Surprised he didn’t do it before, only 11 places to fill it up.
That is never going to work.
I know, if only there was some kind of very cheap, very efficient fuel we all already had in our houses that can be generated by numerous means...That is never going to work.
Natural gas powered cars will never catch on
Otispunkmeyer said:
Gary C said:
jjwilde said:
TheRainMaker said:
Surprised he didn’t do it before, only 11 places to fill it up.
That is never going to work.
I know, if only there was some kind of very cheap, very efficient fuel we all already had in our houses that can be generated by numerous means...That is never going to work.
Natural gas powered cars will never catch on
Evanivitch said:
The experimental site that has been funded is co-sited with a landfill gas power station...
ETA Bury was the concept site with landfill gas, the Telford plant is next to a CCGT.
Thanks for putting me straight.ETA Bury was the concept site with landfill gas, the Telford plant is next to a CCGT.
Edited by Evanivitch on Monday 8th March 09:53
Ironically this new plant will be almost a neighbour of the Air Products Carrington industrial gas site which refurbished its air separation unit only a couple of years ago.
Evanivitch said:
dvs_dave said:
There’s loads of potential sites in the UK for [pumped storage].
There's not. We have limited geography that allows for it, and fewer sites where it would be environmentally palatable.Edited by dvs_dave on Monday 8th March 01:46
Obviously the actual viability of each is different, but of the 1000 potential sites identified, a good number of them would almost certainly be viable. Even more so if seawater schemes are factored in....got quite a bit of that in the UK!
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/pumped-hydro-storage...
dvs_dave said:
This study would suggest otherwise, plus others out there in a similar vein that I’ve come across.
Obviously the actual viability of each is different, but of the 1000 potential sites identified, a good number of them would almost certainly be viable. Even more so if seawater schemes are factored in....got quite a bit of that in the UK!
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/pumped-hydro-storage...
It's a big jump from 1000s of options in a desktop study to assuming dozens will be viable. At the moment only 2 sites, completely unrelated to the desktop study, have been upscaled to a larger output.Obviously the actual viability of each is different, but of the 1000 potential sites identified, a good number of them would almost certainly be viable. Even more so if seawater schemes are factored in....got quite a bit of that in the UK!
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/pumped-hydro-storage...
Evanivitch said:
It's a big jump from 1000s of options in a desktop study to assuming dozens will be viable. At the moment only 2 sites, completely unrelated to the desktop study, have been upscaled to a larger output.
I don’t disagree, but neither am I here to discuss my definition of “loads” vs yours. But think about it this way, even if only 3% of those possibilities are viable, that’s still 30 locations, which is a lot of opportunities for such a thing.
Either way, my point is that investment in pumped hydro should have been much greater from the start and formed a critical part of the UK’s overall renewables strategy. It doesn’t make any sense why wasn’t, and it still seems to be a blind spot.
Evanivitch said:
dvs_dave said:
This study would suggest otherwise, plus others out there in a similar vein that I’ve come across.
Obviously the actual viability of each is different, but of the 1000 potential sites identified, a good number of them would almost certainly be viable. Even more so if seawater schemes are factored in....got quite a bit of that in the UK!
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/pumped-hydro-storage...
It's a big jump from 1000s of options in a desktop study to assuming dozens will be viable. At the moment only 2 sites, completely unrelated to the desktop study, have been upscaled to a larger output.Obviously the actual viability of each is different, but of the 1000 potential sites identified, a good number of them would almost certainly be viable. Even more so if seawater schemes are factored in....got quite a bit of that in the UK!
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/pumped-hydro-storage...
Max_Torque said:
On our crowded little island full of Nimbys and rare Newt fanciers, frankly, the advantages of just being able to put some batteries in some shipping containers are really significant.. I simply don't think there is the social or political will to do big engineering projects any more, look at schemes like the Cardiff bay barage and the like, which just seem to get bogged down in paperwork and never go anywhere.
The Cardiff Bay Barrage has been in place for a few decades and not produced an Watt, and was never designed to.dvs_dave said:
I don’t disagree, but neither am I here to discuss my definition of “loads” vs yours.
But think about it this way, even if only 3% of those possibilities are viable, that’s still 30 locations, which is a lot of opportunities for such a thing.
Either way, my point is that investment in pumped hydro should have been much greater from the start and formed a critical part of the UK’s overall renewables strategy. It doesn’t make any sense why wasn’t, and it still seems to be a blind spot.
You've just applied an arbitrary success factor, which entirely unfounded.But think about it this way, even if only 3% of those possibilities are viable, that’s still 30 locations, which is a lot of opportunities for such a thing.
Either way, my point is that investment in pumped hydro should have been much greater from the start and formed a critical part of the UK’s overall renewables strategy. It doesn’t make any sense why wasn’t, and it still seems to be a blind spot.
Great efforts went into finding suitable sites in the UK. They found 2. One was Dinorwig, the other was Exmoor. There was good reason for it to support the nuclear generators, but you can't go tearing apart mountains in national parks with limited grid connections.
Evanivitch said:
You've just applied an arbitrary success factor, which entirely unfounded.
Great efforts went into finding suitable sites in the UK. They found 2. One was Dinorwig, the other was Exmoor. There was good reason for it to support the nuclear generators, but you can't go tearing apart mountains in national parks with limited grid connections.
This issue of storage was covered by David MacKay in his book "Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air". He quotes a UK capacity of 26 GWh of pumped storage at 4 sites and estimated that it could realistically be increased to 100 GWh. The capacity required to cover calm periods, like the last 7 days, he estimated at 1200 GWh.Great efforts went into finding suitable sites in the UK. They found 2. One was Dinorwig, the other was Exmoor. There was good reason for it to support the nuclear generators, but you can't go tearing apart mountains in national parks with limited grid connections.
Sadly I have to agree with Max_Torque about the lack of willpower to take on major engineering schemes.
However battery storage on the above scale would be incredibly expensive. The biggest one on the list posted earlier - the CEP Kuri Kuri project - is expected to cost about £1.5 bn for 4800 MWh. That works out at close to £400 bn for 1200 GWh.
Mikehig said:
This issue of storage was covered by David MacKay in his book "Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air". He quotes a UK capacity of 26 GWh of pumped storage at 4 sites and estimated that it could realistically be increased to 100 GWh. The capacity required to cover calm periods, like the last 7 days, he estimated at 1200 GWh.
And yet it's purely speculation unless you've done site surveys.Mikehig said:
Sadly I have to agree with Max_Torque about the lack of willpower to take on major engineering schemes.
However battery storage on the above scale would be incredibly expensive. The biggest one on the list posted earlier - the CEP Kuri Kuri project - is expected to cost about £1.5 bn for 4800 MWh. That works out at close to £400 bn for 1200 GWh.
I was all for tidal lagoons. By no means perfect, but certainly part of a portfolio of lower generation.However battery storage on the above scale would be incredibly expensive. The biggest one on the list posted earlier - the CEP Kuri Kuri project - is expected to cost about £1.5 bn for 4800 MWh. That works out at close to £400 bn for 1200 GWh.
Meanwhile Cardiff Bay has had approx £1Bn spent to become a leisure destination that produces zero power. Swansea apparently needed a business model...
Evanivitch said:
dvs_dave said:
I don’t disagree, but neither am I here to discuss my definition of “loads” vs yours.
But think about it this way, even if only 3% of those possibilities are viable, that’s still 30 locations, which is a lot of opportunities for such a thing.
Either way, my point is that investment in pumped hydro should have been much greater from the start and formed a critical part of the UK’s overall renewables strategy. It doesn’t make any sense why wasn’t, and it still seems to be a blind spot.
You've just applied an arbitrary success factor, which entirely unfounded.But think about it this way, even if only 3% of those possibilities are viable, that’s still 30 locations, which is a lot of opportunities for such a thing.
Either way, my point is that investment in pumped hydro should have been much greater from the start and formed a critical part of the UK’s overall renewables strategy. It doesn’t make any sense why wasn’t, and it still seems to be a blind spot.
Great efforts went into finding suitable sites in the UK. They found 2. One was Dinorwig, the other was Exmoor. There was good reason for it to support the nuclear generators, but you can't go tearing apart mountains in national parks with limited grid connections.
What’s needed for this particular performance profile is long- duration pumped hydro. Stuff that can “charge up” gradually, storing a tremendous amount of equivalent GWh, which is then released over a longer period of time, say a week, during periods of low wind power output.
Political will and nimbyism are the biggest obstacles to overcome, not the physical ones. Although it should be an appreciably easier sell these days now that there’s a greater understanding amongst the general public of the challenges at hand. And it’s not as if a few lakes and a dam are horrendous polluting eyesores, and no where in the UK is a long way from anywhere, let alone grid backbones.
It doesn’t bear thinking about what an equivalent grid scale chemical battery solution would involve, even though it’s not yet possible.
dvs_dave said:
At same time you’re arbitrarily pooh poohing it because in the 60s when they were looking for sites suitable for short-duration load balancing for the nukes, these two sites were the most viable for that particular purpose. Energy storage to balance the inherent intermittency of wind power was not even a twinkle in anyone’s eye at the time!
What’s needed for this particular performance profile is long- duration pumped hydro. Stuff that can “charge up” gradually, storing a tremendous amount of equivalent GWh, which is then released over a longer period of time, say a week, during periods of low wind power output.
Political will and nimbyism are the biggest obstacles to overcome, not the physical ones. Although it should be an appreciably easier sell these days now that there’s a greater understanding amongst the general public of the challenges at hand. And it’s not as if a few lakes and a dam are horrendous polluting eyesores, and no where in the UK is a long way from anywhere, let alone grid backbones.
It doesn’t bear thinking about what an equivalent grid scale chemical battery solution would involve, even though it’s not yet possible.
Now what we should do is build a barrage between Fleetwood and Barrow and flood Morecambe bay.What’s needed for this particular performance profile is long- duration pumped hydro. Stuff that can “charge up” gradually, storing a tremendous amount of equivalent GWh, which is then released over a longer period of time, say a week, during periods of low wind power output.
Political will and nimbyism are the biggest obstacles to overcome, not the physical ones. Although it should be an appreciably easier sell these days now that there’s a greater understanding amongst the general public of the challenges at hand. And it’s not as if a few lakes and a dam are horrendous polluting eyesores, and no where in the UK is a long way from anywhere, let alone grid backbones.
It doesn’t bear thinking about what an equivalent grid scale chemical battery solution would involve, even though it’s not yet possible.
Dont care about power, just that if we could flood it enough, Morecambe would be underwater and I could have a beachfront property
win win.
(except for work being under water, doh, always forget about the station)
Seriously, we have exceptional tidal lagoons in this country, just the environmental damage would I believe be unacceptable to many.
Gassing Station | EV and Alternative Fuels | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff