Renewable energy battery problem

[Clay Shentrup]

Seth Woolley, of the Pacific Green Party, responded to my concern about the variable output problem with renewable energy, as follows:

> Batteries aren't needed with smart grids and dynamic pricing

I know this isn't related to voting, but energy is also a highly political issues with big implications for human welfare. And I thought this was an interesting proposition.

[Dale Sheldon-Hess]

Electric batteries are really poor energy storage anyway. I wouldn't say batteries aren't necessary, I would say they're not sufficient. But I wouldn't rely on smart grids and dynamic pricing as a guaranteed win. A lot of the necessary pieces for an effective smart grid are still being designed (mmm, superconducting interconnect) and it's not clear to me that dynamic pricing alone will be enough to encourage the necessary time shifting (which, hey, may include the use of batteries) and efficiency changes to entirely avoid shortages. While solar thermal (which stores energy as heat) is pretty good for providing baseload and even a bit of a peak near 5pm, even those installations typically include a gas-powered (i.e., non-renewable) backup, for good reasons.

We could, absolutely, dramatically reduce our use of fossil fuels while still maintaining our standard of living. But I don't think we'll be able to eliminate it and go 100% renewable--even with smart grids and dynamic pricing--anytime in the foreseeable future.

--

Dale (BS Elec.+Comp. Eng, although I never took power; former Westinghouse Electric Co. employee, but I worked in software)

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[Jameson Quinn]

Certainly a smart grid will make the storage problem easier to solve. So will storage at the point of generation (ie, pumped air, pumped hydro, molten salt storage in baseline solar). And point-of-use storage does not have to mean only batteries; for instance, flywheels are also a part of the solution.

But batteries remain key. All things considered, for anything from phones to laptops to cars, they will continue to beat fuel cells for the foreseeable future. And with a smart grid, car battery capacity will be a non-trivial contribution to time-shifting (ie, running your house or office off of your car, which is conveniently sitting near whichever of those has you in it).

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[Frank]

I am a Fan of preferring either a minimalistic approach or a "pull out all the stops" method, depending on the circumstance, to half measures. If making the conditions ripe for the market to drive the switch on its own does not work, by all means, use smart grids, dynamic pricing, batteries, solar panels, R&D credits, charge-while-You-shop stations, Mr. Fusions, liquid-to-electricity converters, etc., etc., etc., as quickly and simultaneously as possible.

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P.S.: I prefer to be reached on BitMessage at BM-2D8txNiU7b84d2tgqvJQdgBog6A69oDAx6

[Frank]

Not that any of what I just said is all that relevant. I really need to fully wake up before checking e-mail.

[Leon Smith]

It's very much an open question of whether or not a purely "renewable" solution can work.   You certainly need some combination of electrical storage (which is problematic) and being able to control demand.  (I'm very skeptical of dynamic pricing myself.)    Batteries are nowhere close to being a solution,  and their energy storage potential are still much greater than most other proposals, such as flywheels and pumped hydro.    See for example:

https://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/

But honestly,  I think the discussion is not very interesting,  because we already have a very good solution for baseload grid power:   nuclear fission.   It's already been scaled up *far* in excess of renewables on a relatively short time frame.   Look at France, for example.    And there are sufficient nuclear fuels available on Earth to sustain civilization at several times our current power levels for many millenia,  and quite possibly millions of years.

To me,  the far more interesting discussion is the transportation problem,  because there really isn't a viable alternative to oil.    Sure,  we can (in some cases) use electricity,  at least in the case of trains, commuter vehicles,  and in some cases delivery trucks.    We could use nuclear in the case of large boats.    But that still leaves long-distance trucking,  agricultural vehicles,  airplanes,  and probably a few other important classes of vehicles I'm forgetting about in the lurch,  still dependent on declining supplies of fossil fuels and contributing to global warming.

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[Dale Sheldon-Hess]

Relevant to this discussion: http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/03/batteries-whats-here-versus-what-we-need/

--

Dale

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Stephen Unger]

Regarding nuclear reactors as a "good solution", consider the following
two points:

1. Fukushima
2. Price Anderson Act.

Steve
............

Stephen H. Unger
Professor Emeritus
Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Columbia University
............

[Leon Smith]

On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:57 PM, Stephen Unger <un...@cs.columbia.edu> wrote:

Regarding nuclear reactors as a "good solution", consider the following
two points:

1. Fukushima

Which Fukushima?   Fukushima Daini,  which suffered the same set of circumstances but achieved cold shutdown safely,  by virtue of a slightly more modern design?    Furthermore,  we are far from done improving the safety of nuclear reactors.

Furthermore,  James Hansen disagrees:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es3051197?source=cen

[Jameson Quinn]

The reason I gave the link I did for flywheels is that it is about a kind of flywheel in development that promises to be price- and density-competitive with batteries for 750-lb systems (that is, several times cheaper than current, more-overengineered flywheel designs). Yes, it still requires rare earths for the magnets, but there are potential ways around that part too.

Some guy in his garage is nothing like the scale we need, I realize.

As to nuclear power: yes, it is the most technicaly-feasible solution out there today, and compared to coal it is ludicrously safe in every way. But NIMBY-ism is a fact of life. And even aside from NIMBY-ism, there are valid concerns of cost and weaponizability. I'm sorry, but I just don't see us making any real progress to squaring that circle, while I do see wind and solar growing by leaps and bounds.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Dale Sheldon-Hess]

On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 4:57 PM, Stephen Unger <un...@cs.columbia.edu> wrote:

Regarding nuclear reactors as a "good solution", consider the following
two points:

1. Fukushima
2. Price Anderson Act.

Zero people have died from nuclear-related injuries at Fukushima. The highest peer-reviewed  estimate for additional cancers (i.e., those above baseline) is 100 cases (mostly thyroid cancer, which is both easily detectable and has a high survival rate.)

The PA second-tier insurance pool has about $11,600M, and over it's 60+ year lifetime has paid out a total of about $151M. But why should the existence of an insurance pool be an argument against a technology? Auto manufacturers could have used one in 2008, for instance.

--

Dale

[Warren D Smith]

My impression from examining chart below is that the "aluminum
economy" is wanted:
Refuel your car by turning in your aluminum oxide and getting back
aluminum metal
which you stick into your car's Al-air battery and off you go. The oxide
is then re-converted to metal at a electrolytic smelting plant somewhere
where electricity is cheap.

Aluminum has the greatest energy density (effective, per unit volume)
of any substance in the table below and also is the cheapest substance per kg
among those which will be available in the era after nonrenewable
energy sources like
coal are gone. It also would be extremely safe and environmentally non-damaging.

Stuff MJ/kg (ox*) MJ/liter (ox*) $Cost/kg (year 2014)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gasoline 46.4 34.2 1
Fat 37
Thermal-Coal 30 20 (if one solid lump) 0.066
Batteries 0.1 to 0.9 0.3 to 4.3
TNT 4.6 7.6
Boron 58.9 (18.3) 137.8 (45.0) 5000
Silicon 32.2 (15.0) 75.1 (39.8) 3.1
Aluminum 31.0 (16.4) 83.8 (64.8) 1.9
Lithium 43.1 (20.0) 23.0 (40.2) 95
Hydrogen 121 depends on pressure, but very low

* Actually one would have to carry around, not just the Lithium, but after some
energy extraction the lithium oxide Li2O, which weighs 2.15 times as much.
Hence Lithium's per-mass energy density really is effectively
substantially lower than
43.1, really between 20.0 and 43.1. Similar effects also happen for
Aluminum, Silicon,
and Boron, specifically Al2O3 weighs 1.89 times as much as Al2;
SiO2 weighs 2.14 times as much as Si; and B2O3 weighs 3.22 times as much as B2.
Observe that this factor is smallest for Aluminum and largest for Boron.

Aluminum-air and Silicon-air batteries both have been made, with the former
having decades of commercial success. Oxygen, Silicon, Aluminum are
the 3 most
abundant elements in Earth's crust in decreasing order. Boron is about
90 times rarer than aluminum, in turn Lithium is about 50 times rarer
than Boron,
and in turn Beryllium about 10 times rarer than Lithium.

The "boron economy" is stupid because boron is too rare & expensive to make. (It
also has a very high melting point and is very hard, two other reasons
it is hard to deal
with.) It is simply absurd to propose you should refuel your car with
$200,000 worth
of boron. The "hydrogen economy" is stupid since H is too
dangerous/explosive and has
far too low volumetric energy-density. Any high-pressure hydrogen
tank would be a bomb
causing many car crash fatalities. Rechargeable batteries are stupid
since too expensive,
do not last long enough, inefficient, low energy density, toxicity and
environmental disposal
problems. Beryllium is stupid since toxic and very rare. Lithium is
stupid since rare and
also has some toxicity issues, e.g. LiOH is a toxic and corrosive substance.

Silicon perhaps would be better than aluminum but I doubt it because it is more
expensive, lower electric conductivity, harder, brittle, higher
melting point (1687K
versus Aluminum's 933K).

CONCLUSION: embarrassingly stupid proposals for the "hydrogen economy" (and
also to a much lesser extent, Boron & Lithium) have dominated
discourse. Nobody seems
to be talking about, what seems clearly superior -- aluminum as an
energy storage medium.



--
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)

[Clay Shentrup]

On Thursday, March 6, 2014 5:57:42 PM UTC-8, Steve wrote:

Regarding nuclear reactors as a "good solution", consider the following two points:

1. Fukushima

A lot of people would say Fukushima is a testament to the safety of nuclear. What exactly is your argument about Fukushima?

[Matthias Bendewald]

Just to maybe expand your point of view (maybe different from the optinion in your country)

Here in Germany the government turned by 180 degrees and decided to get rid of nuclear energy until 2022. Just some months before they decided to keep nuclear reactors online for a longer time. (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomausstieg#Deutschland_2000.2F2011.E2.80.932022)

Nuclear energy is regarded as "good" by about 8% of the Germans, another 12% are undecided. (http://www.prcenter.de/Umfrage-Mehrheit-der-Deutschen-fuer-Atomausstieg.311466.html)

[Steve Cobb]

Now that Germany is feeling the grip of Russia's hand on its vulnerable parts, I wonder if Germans have come to appreciate energy self-sufficiency.

[Clay Shentrup]

On Monday, March 10, 2014 6:32:47 AM UTC-7, Steve Cobb wrote:

Now that Germany is feeling the grip of Russia's hand on its vulnerable parts, I wonder if Germans have come to appreciate energy self-sufficiency.

Why don't you go outside your Berlin apartment and ask them? :)

[Clay S]

Warren, your advocacy for an "aluminum economy" by touting the impressive theoretical energy density and low material cost of aluminum-air batteries, while overlooking the practicalities of their regeneration, constitutes a fundamental miscalculation of their real-world viability.
Your enthusiasm for aluminum's energy density and abundance, while technically accurate in isolation, glosses over the insurmountable energetic and economic barrier of "recharging" these systems. An aluminum-air battery is fundamentally a primary cell; its "recharge" is not a simple electrical input, but an energy-intensive industrial process.
Consider the brass tacks:
 * Astronomical Regeneration Energy Cost: To convert the discharged aluminum oxide back into metallic aluminum requires the highly energy-intensive Hall-Héroult electrolytic process. This consumes 13-17 kWh of electricity for every kilogram of aluminum produced. Given that 1 kg of aluminum delivers only about 8.1 kWh of energy in the battery, you are facing a net energy deficit in the "recharge" cycle. Even at highly optimized industrial electricity rates, the cost for the electricity alone to regenerate enough aluminum for 1 kWh of output is $0.08 - $0.21 per kWh delivered. This is the recurring "fuel" cost, vastly overshadowing the mere cents per kWh required to electrically recharge a lithium-ion or sodium-ion battery.
 * Recurring Material Cost, Not Amortization: Unlike rechargeable batteries where the upfront capital cost is amortized over thousands of cycles, an aluminum-air system means you're effectively "buying" your fuel (the aluminum anode) with each discharge. The low per-kilogram cost of raw aluminum is deceptive; it's a recurring expense for a consumable, not a one-time investment in a rechargeable component.
 * Logistical Nightmare and Environmental Footprint: Establishing and maintaining the immense infrastructure required to collect spent aluminum oxide, transport it to centralized, energy-guzzling smelters, and then distribute fresh aluminum anodes is a logistical and environmental undertaking of staggering complexity and cost. This directly contradicts any notion of a simple, clean, or inexpensive "fueling" mechanism competitive with an electrical grid.
While lithium-ion and emerging sodium-ion batteries face their own challenges, their fundamental principle of direct, highly efficient electrical recharging provides a orders-of-magnitude advantage in lifecycle cost and practicality. They amortize a single capital investment over thousands of cycles with minimal incremental energy cost.

To propose an "aluminum economy" as a viable alternative without a clear, energetically favorable, and logistically sound regeneration pathway is to ignore the very thermodynamic and economic realities that govern energy storage. The appeal of aluminum's theoretical energy density crumbles when confronted with the actual energy cost of its perpetual resurrection.