212: Sand Batteries - It’s Getting Hot

Matt and Sean talk about using sand to cut down on energy storage costs. Thermal energy storage is getting really hot now, but will it work for homes as well?
Watch the Undecided with Matt Ferrell episode, How a Sand Battery Could Revolutionize Home Energy Storage • How a Sand Battery Cou...
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00:00 - Intro & Feedback
11:26 - Home Sand Batteries Discussion

[@sarahloy2699]

Greenhouses are being built now with heat storage in the soil underneath. All summer the circulation brings heat into the soil and cooler air into greenhouse to prevent overheating. All winter it does the opposite. There are some large examples in Canada.

[@johnfithian-franks8276]

Hi, you two, my son has just finished having a heat pump and solar installation done. He has had to remove all his radiators in his five bedroom house and had a lot of disruption and mess, but he and his partner have gone from a £300:00 a month bill (we live in the UK) to getting money from the power company and have a bonus of more hot water that they can use, this to me is a great system and well worth the time and money they have put into it. I am always getting annoyed with the UK over the waste of resources compared to other countries ( an example is refuse plaints) here in the UK we build one and then dispose of the heat and other gases produced into the sky whereas in other countries they build a plaint and the build houses around the area to benefit from the heat and gases by diverting these waste elements to help others.

[@robertroberts5218]

The carefully insulated the pipes 4 feet underground because the ground is a heat sink that's going to steal all that heat that they generated in the wood stove

[@zapfanzapfan]

If storage is going to be dirt cheap it has to be made of dirt... and sand is close enough. It doesn't have to be very big, just big enough that you can charge it when electricity is cheap one windy night and then discharge over a couple of days. District heating systems definitely should look into it.

[@andrewknots]

Not sand… I have a 500l water tank as part of my heating circulation which acts as a heat reservoir

[@tomjcarty]

Storage heaters were electric heating elements in bricks... the famous sand heaters of today are just a return to that. In some cases the option of blocks for heat storage is even explored... in Ireland here we heated our storage heating as it was called in the 1990's with cheap night time electric rate called Nightsaver in the then state owned ESB.

[@pixelpusher220]

regarding solar energy pay back. The industry missed one great marketing concept. Use 100% solar energy for the production of future panels. That way there's literally zero time required to offset the energy used to create a panel.

[@iglapsu88]

Preaching to the choir Matt. Keep on keeping on! Love what you do!

[@WayneMacDonald1]

Time to go see if I can find those plans for the Maine wood-fired sand battery...

[@hayatullahrahimi4690]

I had independently thought about this idea

[@bvspecials]

This make me think of the old German Kachelofen, that was a central stove in the house that was also a kind of central heating in the 19th century

[@16jocko]

Very good, enjoyed it greatly, but when are those “THAT MATT” T-shirts going to be available? My son Matt needs one.

[@stuartblanchard7527]

Well, just some insight for the 4’ depth and insulation comment. The winter frost depth ranges from the neighborhood of 40” to over 70” depending on where you live in the state. So it’s possible you may have some concerns with frost at the 4’ mark if you live north of Bangor. However, that’s with traditional Maine winters, like the kind where my grandmother used to walk across the frozen Kennebec in Augusta to get to school as a kid. With winters rapidly warming, this is likely a moot point. Very interesting that UMaine had plans like that from the 70s. Love the content and discussions, let the spice continue to flow.

[@johnseberg6989]

The internal temperature of a wood stove can be 900°F. The insulation matters regardless of the frost line. I wouldn't go as far as to say the insulation wasn't necessary.

[@vincentwilkes9611]

Ga Power was doing thermal storage back in the early '80s/.

[@t3ck3r]

Sean is there going be be a audio book of The Sinister Secrets of Singe ? I hope so. Thanks

[@RyuuKageDesu]

The argument over the negative effects of sustainable tech. reminds me of the old story about a group cutting a path through the jungle. Men cutting the brush, men keeping the tools sharp, men cooking to keep everyone fed. One guy climbs a tree, and shouts down, "Wrong way!" Someone yells back, "Who cares!? Were making progress!"

[@daveh6356]

Love 'em. Especially the idea of TES coupled with smarter, collective ground-source heat pumps for town houses. Passive ground-source heat pumps seem huge, by creating an active ground sources with sand or gravel, hot & cold sources should be possible within a smaller footprint.

[@kalrandom7387]

On your rant about the New York subway, besides the items you mentioned every person that is in there is a 100° thermal battery, that's not held within themselves it is being radiated out. The humidity now a lot of that is probably the moisture in everybody's breath. Enjoy your next subway ride.

[@leahlaplaca8523]

LCA life cycle assessments of products

[@HobbesNJoe]

Matt, would you please do a video on bio digesters? It’s another old-school technology accessible to DIY-ers. Check out the Need To Grow documentary for more. Thanks!

[@joshentheosparks7492]

My wood stove is located in a 10 foot deep basement. The soil already functions as a passive heat battery. I am working on plans to build a sandbox that is plumbed into the indirect coils of a water heater with a valve for mixing with the fuel oil steam boiler water. The indirect water heater is also set up to function as a tempering tank for the electric hot water heater. My current winter heating costs average $200 a month for a 2000 square foot, mostly uninsulated, New England home. I havnt needed to turned my steam boiler on in 2 years.

[@DeuceDeuceBravo]

I'd like to figure out how to use an underground sand battery for heating a pool.

[@christeam4973]

The comment about the subway is something I've been considering with regards to the Tube in London. Both would make great geothermal sources for district heating systems and would, hopefully, have a cooling effect on the tunnels. But cost and political will would no doubt get in the way.

[@robertweekley5926]

Solar PV should be Designed as a "Modular Expandable System" not just as to Structure, but as to Permitting, Commissioning, and Integration. Example: a "Starter" System, of just 4 Panels of 250-270 Watts per Panel, for a "1 kW System" that is already "Permitted" and Approved for Expansion, to 2 kW, 5 kW, 10 kW, with simplified Paperwork, Electrical Integration Planned, as a basic idea! The "Starter System" could be larger, or even smaller, if great planning was its framework. Solar PV Systems, could be Split/Hybrid, such as part of the Project is "Grid Integrated" and part is "Off Grid" with Non Grid Connected Circuits, using Batteries or other Energy Storage Systems.

[@offgridwanabe]

What I like about technology is that it is getting smaller, years ago I made an AC coupling and used CT clamps to stop my export of power all my experiments took up a whole room now you can get it all in a box smaller than a big screen tv.

[@robertweekley5926]

I wonder if Sand Batteries could be Hybridized, with Water, or Oil?

[@steve32627]

I've never understood the thought process of saying renewable energy infrastructure takes more energy to produce than it will make. For one, thermodynamics tells us that energy isn't created or destroyed. What we call 'generators' do not generate anything. They are simply conversion machines that turn one form of energy into a more versatile energy such as electricity. Along that thought process, when has a natural gas generator ever been a net positive device? Never. Not only do you have the initial build, but its entire life is spent turning one form of energy into electricity at a best case scenario 60ish percent efficient. It's running at a 40% deficit every moment it's running. We simply use energy to build devices that will transform various existing forms of energy into something we can benefit from.

[@markgrant7035]

On Free Solar Topic: I had my Tesla solar install completed on April 16 and city inspection sign off on December 6th. Almost 9 months of free solar generation. Tesla were their own worst enemy as they just couldn’t get the correct design plans filed so inspection could pass in 3 failures. Tesla cash purchase agreement was set payment due upon city inspection passing. I received PTO on December 20th, 14 days later!

[@qkktech]

Sand batteries love central heating. For Tallinn it is meaningthere is airfield near city and quarry near it - that means when you connect those two and sand battery + molten salt battery inside it you got airfield that never needs ice removal 😊. But at grid scale it is needed to do so that you store energy at summet and take out winter. But combining molten salt batteries and sand battery will render so that lower cycle efficiency of salt battery is not a problem you capture that heat into sand. I did my own calculation so that molten salt battery is not going to heat sand enough. For my house there is ok to have like 30 000kwh storage in sand and 20kwh molten aalt battery buried under driveway you do like 4 m hole insulate it do heat pump pipes insulate even more then sand battery then inside it you put molten salt battery. then you cover it and can park your car on top of that . in my case i can just use the same sand and limestone I dig out inside my battery and concrete walls. So in my location it is all local. Maybe in my case 4m deep will render allready to uranium mine and then radon leaking outside that pit but some otrer locations it do.

[@TheIgle]

Do you have any idea what the hard costs that wouldn't be reduced as a part of a 50% installation? Home penetrations, connections to the system, etc. If its like 3% of the cost, its almost a pure win to do whatever you can do TODAY. But if its 25% of the cost, those hard cost push the payoff term out. Do you have this information for your installation Matt?

[@TheIgle]

Cooling the subway? Heatpump all the things!

[@patrickmckowen2999]

👍

[@c0smicC0wb0y]

Solar doesn't solve the root of the climate problem, nuclear does. How do we power the furnaces producing steel for large construction projects, and tell me how many solar panels and wind farms (both of which will be effected negatively the further along we get into adverse climate change) we'll need to smelt steel girders... We need clean energy production that isn't using rare or difficult to aquire elements that only further damage our environment in their production (looking at you lithium batteries). Nuclear is a proven technology that society shuns and ignores because of propaganda and unfounded fear. We don't need panels and wind farms, we need reactors.

[@robertweekley5926]

Interesting, that you haven't read, heard, or discovered, that the Area of a Nuclear Power Plant + Its "Safety Margin Zone" if set up with Solar Panel & Batteries, could both Potentially Produce The Same, or Greater Output, in both kW & kWh, without producing "Spent Uranium Rods, that need to be Safely Stored away from humans for thousands of years. Oh, and, I did work for The Canadian Nuclear Power Generators in Pickering, as well as visited with Contractors that worked, for Months, on its "Refurbishment!" Not a "Nuclear NIMBY", but our Manufacturing Facility did get "Irradiated" just from machining "Control Rods" that came from the Pickering Reactor! So, I have a touch closer experience, than just "Dudes" that have none! Also, I help a "3 Mile Island" Engineer, in a Move, from Pittsburgh, and saw many of his "Scram" Printouts, from the Numerous "Faults" that he had , in Boxes if Printouts! So, yeah, Nuclear, we still have little Understanding of it, but, it's not a "Panacea" for Extra Electric Power!" Just a few thoughts to chew on!

[@heartobefelt]

Gee , 25 minute video on ? ? ? ? Two guys gasbagging talking creppp. i came looking for a video on sand battery . fast forward . fast forward . fast forward . NUP