Stanford Energy Solutions Week 2022 | Long Duration Storage

[@christophersmith5303]

It is hard to believe that the environmentalist don't understand how toxic Li-ion batteries are - perhaps it is because most of the worst damage is not in our backyard. Batteries are an essential part of energy and they will have a role in transportation and other portable uses, but true environmental impact for things like pump and heat storage systems are FAR better for grid storage solutions than the current battery chemistries. I am confident we will have less toxic batteries at some point, but we are still many years away from displacing the current chemistries. When did "environmentalists" forget that industrial and toxic pollution is also important? Again, we NEED batteries, but we MUST use them smartly with a true cost/risk vs benefit analysis because they have a huge up-front cost and if used improperly the environmental pollution costs can be much worse than the CO2 emissions reductions. Excellent discussion and this video deserves far more views.

[@arcusmc]

Tidal energy is never mentioned. Why is that? There are great systems available.

[@jussi3378]

Fantastic discussion

[@compunuke]

I didn't understand the claim that open loop pumped storage must have a dam. Obviously an open loop source without a dam would have to be a large river because the pump volume requirements would be large to make the project viable. Racoon Mountain PSH, for instance, is on the Tennessee River. Of course, the river has numerous dams but Racoon Mountain didn't create the need for them. Perhaps, in the US, there just aren't enough viable sites with a potential upper reservoir and a sufficient lower open reservoir water flow unless the project also includes a dam. I wonder if the environmental resistance is more about fish kills for which a closed system provides more control. Can someone comment more about environmental resistance to open loop systems if a dam is not part of the project?

[@arcusmc]

Who keeps picking lithium as the battery chemistry for these stationary systems? Can you investigate them to make sure they aren't on the take? It makes no sense to not use a more ubiquitous chemistry like the ones available in redox flow batteries. Lithium should be for cars and mobile electronics.

[@vijshanker]

The best approach would be just to create a complete industry of energy storage apart from power generation and distribution companies. They can have thermal, pumped or battery storage. This company will act as an interface between power generation and distribution companies. Anyone generating power from renewable sources will go to the energy storage industry which in turn will supply power to the distribution companies.

[@craigjenquin1114]

Are you suggesting that all renewable generation should move through systems of energy storage before hitting the grid or being delivered to consumers? I agree that renewable generators should partner with nearby storage projects to buy up excess energy at peak generating hours, but the volume of energy returned from storage is not the same as the volume going in.

[@schmetterling4477]

@@craigjenquin1114If we want to use most of the capacity of a smart grid, then buffering on both ends of transmission lines is necessary. Having said that, most people seem to think that renewable energy is only an electricity generation problem. It isn't. There is a much larger thermal energy market. Once we are including that, the entire infrastructure design changes very considerably, because now we may end up with an enormous hydrogen surplus that can be stored chemically, or we might use local geothermal storage to heat homes during the winter.

[@pv0315]

what an awesome discussion.

[@mohebalikalani2115]

thank you, we can prevent these phenomena like cyclone and flood by using this hot seasonal atmospheric condition, recent years in summer, geothermal energy happens in surface of coastline, there are many countries in coastline with seasonal hot weather and water condition by using this energy not only is economical but also reduce global warming like Japan, China, India, Mediterranean countries, Iran, Mexico, Us, Canada, (Africa and Arabian countries....) . I invented new method base on air pressure rules and quantum physics ionization sea water minerals like H+, k+, li+, mg++ in strong dynamic magnet and electrical field for producing electricity and fresh water and fertilizer that I mentioned in my profile.

[@najibyarzerachic]

Great discussion. On the topic of pumped hydro storage, why cant we just build the storage along the coasts . In those cases you won't have to build the lower reserviors as sea is unlimited reservior already there for you.

[@compunuke]

I'm not an expert, but I suspect there may be issues with pumping 100 billion gallons of seawater to the upper reservoir. These lake size upper reservoirs don't have sealed bottoms so we would be introducing salt brine somewhere that might have significant environmental consequences.

[@najibyarzerachic]

@@compunuke there are concrere structures built in sea or along the shore without much issue from salt water.

[@schmetterling4477]

@@najibyarzerachic So where are you pumping that water to? Can you show us on a map where you would build that reservoir?

[@najibyarzerachic]

@@schmetterling4477 many places along the pacific shore. Where there is a hill along thr shore you can build one optimising the size of your reservoir based on price and availiblity of land. Even better solution would b moving the water from the missippi river system over the rockies. Fill the reservoir on top the rockies when grid demand is low . Let the water flow to the colorado river basin while running the tubines when demand is high. Storage and drought issues solved in one go.

[@schmetterling4477]

@@najibyarzerachic So you can't tell me where you would build this. That's the end of the story.

[@russelldesilva1560]

The answer is already there. If you use nuclear as baseload you don't need energy storage. The amount of energy storage and grid connectivity improvements needed for a mostly wind/solar supply means LCOE is not an honest measure of cost. Ramping up nuclear is a better bet than hoping for energy storage breakthroughs. This is definitely valuable work, but we already have a reliable and safe way to de-carbonize the grid.

[@schmetterling4477]

Are you going to pay for that? If you aren't, then who is? Are you one of those fellows who likes to spend other people's money on your pet technology? ;-)

[@armwrestlingprofessor]

The key is in the name "baseload" can't address our varying energy needs in real time. If you had a generation capacity of 100% nuclear, you'd definitely need some storage in order to smooth out the supply and demand. Nuclear is also one of the most expensive forms of energy due to the bureaucracy involved. "The nuclear plant can't be built until the weight of the paperwork exceeds that of the reactor itself" is a common quote from the industry

[@AO-rb9yh]

46:50 Not listening to environmentalists is how we got into this situation in the first place.

[@freeheeler09]

And not listening to the climate physicists!