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Do you know what would have been a smart move, developing and investing these technologies over 100 years ago when these ideas were first brought to market... unfortunately the world went with oil, and we've fought to the death for it ever since.
If they need 1600° to make steel, couldn't they just use the battery to get the first 1500° and then burn something for the last 100°? Seems an easy solution to avoid almost 94% of the emissions.
As children, many of us would use a magnifying glass to set paper on fire. With a tracking system to follow the sun, would it be possible to use this energy (paper burns at 454 farenheight) to heat your bricks, or boil water to produce electricity for your system to use?
@@johnnajera9659 Hi John -- fond memory! So some companies use concentrated solar power systems to generate both thermal and electric power. While these systems have many upsides (including being zero-carbon technologies), there are some limitations. Two big limitations are related 1) it requires a lot of space to deploy concentrated power at scale, and 2) when you do find the space, it's often not located directly next to the facility that requires heat, and it's very difficult to transport heat over distances -- it results in a lot of energy loss. An electric thermal energy storage system like Rondo's uses electricity is very energy dense and can be located within an existing facility -- right where the energy is needed. This is because it's very easy to transport electricity over distances with almost no loss. For these reasons (among many more), it's actually lower cost and lower impact to generate heat using electricity from photovoltaics and wind turbines with an electric thermal energy storage system.
@@rondoenergy4228 It might be interesting, small scale to have concentrated solar to boil water for steam turbines. Steam may be poised for a comeback.
@@rondoenergy4228 When are you coming to my country? 🤣. Closing nuclears because of politics, and planning around 80 MW renewable energy. Volcanic high-enthalpy areas under investigated, and electro intensive industries such as aluminium closing because the LNG price rises.
During the 1970's my Wisconsin neighbor designed a combination thermal solar and storage system using cans of distilled water in modular cabinets. The solar heated air was passed through the modules storing the heat for use later. Simple and effective.
Storing heat is a truly ancient and practical heating method. People used to put stones in the fire to heat them up during the day while the fire was in use for other things, and then over night the stones would release the built up heat to keep the area warmer. This is very similar to using heating inside a concrete floor. Heating the concrete up, it helps keep the heat more stable in the environment. Using a material as a heat sink really helps balance temperatures during the 24 hour temperature cycle. This is one of the reasons I love brick and stone buildings.
It gets even better when you create a solar barrier during the hotter times that lets light through during colder periods to store heat from the sunlight. If you really like it cool, you can just build underground for a fairly stable temperature
@@runed0s86 yeah, why here in the uk with every summer bringing new record breaking heat waves are even more torturous 🥲.. Most of our houses were built to store whatever heat that is gathered through the day into the night but when the heat continues we end up literally baking in our own tiny brick ovens.
I also love the idea of having multiple solutions working in parallel to reduce carbon emissions. As someone mentioned, it's not about finding the "best" solution, but rather the right solution for the application. And the potential for TES systems to capture and store waste heat from manufacturing processes is really exciting. It's great to see these kinds of technologies being highlighted in videos like this. Keep up the great work...
In terms of residential energy consumption, roughly 20% goes to creating hot water and more than 40% goes to heating the space in your home. This means any system of energy capture and storage, on a significant scale, could meet about 60% of annual residential energy needs in the US. All of a sudden, hot rocks sounds like a great idea!
Wow! The video starts with 4 minutes and 23 seconds of filler content and unrelated advertisements. That is amazing! I recommend just jumping right to 4:23 where he starts talking about the relevant subject matter (rock batteries)
Even if it can't get to the 1600⁰C for now, by heating the ore to about 1000⁰C, it means that the electric or fossil fuel component, only has to make up a gap of 600⁰C instead of the whole range from ambient to 1600⁰C. And that would still be a significant reduction. As fara as the tobacco plant is concerned, they most likely need hot air to control the humidity in the tobacco leaves they'll be using. This tec has great potential in all kin of heating applications from residential to industrial!
I'm thinking you could also use it to generate steam to run a turbine which could then power something like an induction or arc heater, which could then go higher. There would of course be an efficiency loss there but if the power that went in was originally free or very cheap, it might still be worth it.
@@Rig0r_M0rtis At industrial scale the steam would end up cheaper. Just look at how EV prices keep going up. They are running out of material to make batteries.
@@redsquirrelftw EVs have very specific requirements when it comes to batteries. But why do you think coal power is so expensive? It's not because coal is expensive, it's the whole setup with hight pressure and moving parts that can't economicaly stand up to solid state photovoltaics. Burning electricity to make steam to make electricity does not make sense.
Different applications have different ideal solutions. It's not a matter of "is this the best idea" it should be "Is this the right solution for the application." Multiple solutions working in parallel will help solve the overall issue of reducing carbon emissions, and I'm excited every time you showcase solutions, and showcase some of the best applications for it. Very well-done videos.
Exactly, this type of long-duration, slow-release storage is perfect for usages that never require rapid heat input anyway. There's no one perfect tool for every job, we need multiple tools to cover many types of jobs.
- "It's not a matter of "is this the best idea" it should be "Is this the right solution for the application."" Realistically, what the potential buyers are looking for is "the best solution for the application".
fact check this : Over 20% of global emissions comes from industrial heat. ChatGPT The statement that over 20% of global emissions come from industrial heat is not entirely accurate, as the percentage varies depending on the source and the context: The International Energy Agency (IEA) notes that about 50% of total heat produced is used for industrial processes. This figure, however, does not directly translate to a percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that in 2010, emissions from electricity and heat production accounted for 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and emissions from industry (which would include industrial heat) were 21%. A study referenced by ScienceDirect estimated that in 2016, about 21% of global CO2 emissions resulted from the generation of industrial heat. The IEA also indicates that industrial heat makes up about one-fifth of global energy consumption and predicts that it could account for a quarter of global emissions by 2040, suggesting a growing trend. The U.S. Department of Energy mentions that industrial heat accounts for about 9% of the entire U.S. emissions footprint. While these figures highlight the significant contribution of industrial heat to global emissions, they vary and do not specifically confirm the claim that over 20% of global emissions come from industrial heat. The actual percentage depends on various factors, including the scope of the data (whether it includes all greenhouse gases or just CO2, for instance), the year of the data, and regional differences.
I joined Incogni a couple of months ago and it really helped clean out my email of clutter. Thanks for suggesting them. My Amazon account got hacked and they started sending about 1000 emails to my account per day. That isn't an exaggerated.... I am down to about 100 now. Way better than it was before. Most of the emails I get now are overseas and they don't deal with those data brokers yet.
Thermal storage was introduced to Australia about 50 years ago. Then, it was called "Heatbank" and used cast iron as the storage material. Then used a small fan to distribute the heat.
In NZ many power companies offered "Nightstore" heaters which heated a mass (I thought it was ceramic but I might be wrong) during off peak and released it on command/timer. 1970s I think.
The Open Hearth steel making process uses firebrick for energy storage, capturing the heat from gas escaping the furnace, then flowing air through that brick to preheat it.
@@peterkotara I've currently got one in my flat (apartment/condo) in the UK (Wales). They are a horrible means to heat your home if you aren't organised or happen to go away from home overnight. Modern ones probably have timers built in though.
I have been very interested in TES systems. I think these would also be great to capture and store heat from manufacturing processes. Once companies realize waste heat is a commodity to be used or sold you will see more buy in. Love your detailed but understandable explanations.
I think that will be a huge selling point for these. Just imagine an industrial plant capturing its heat in this and then converting it to electricity for its own needs and also putting it back into the grid while also having some solar panels and wind turbines to charge another one of these... This could potentially take care of 30%-50% of our electricity usage if done properly.
There is also the issue of storing cold. There once was an industry based on cutting ice from frozen lakes. These blocks of ice were stored in sawdust and in the summer use to renew the ice in ice based refrigerators.
I agree. While heat pumps have proven efficiencies, I'd like to see a cost benefit analysis of bringing lumps/bateries of cold stuff to warm places (or places that need cooling in the summer), in order to fill their "heat pipes" with something that can alleviate the energy costs of those there, during warmer months.
in Helsinki, Finland there are several big underground tanks / pools to store cold water. That water is chilled passively with sea water during winter and heat pumps are used during summer. Hot side of those heat pumps is pushed to district heat piping, mostly used for hot water during summer but of course some locations need a bit heat also during summer. And yes that cold is distributed around city as district cooling for cooling offices and homes. Storing the cold water also helps with midday sun as heat pumps only need to be powerful enough for 24h average, not for the highest peak cooling demand during afternoon.
I am a firm and long-time advocate of energy storage in heat And cold storage. I truly see great value in thermal management technologies, and implementing creative new innovations with the sterling engine as well.
13:06 For higher temperatures a steel manufacturer for example, might use a heat battery to recover heat from cooling finished materials and preheat raw materials. At lower temperatures, a different manufacturer could also incorporate heat pumps to improve waste heat recovery.
I like that idea also say if a sand unit was say 10000 units in volume at 1000f then could this be converted using Peltier to induction to heat up say 1 unit of steel the efficiency ratio may not be that great but if we are talking about free sun and wind energy then its a total win...???
@@Rig0r_M0rtis we already know Elon musk like digging tunnels, we just aim him at this project, I'm sure he'll get the government funding for it and even solve a few technical wrinkles. Polar-equator HVAC tunnels for all!
This is yet another solution to use to store energy. I am all for it. The thing is there should not just be one solution to cover all possible use cases. A lot of options leaves room for the best fit for the situation. I like having a large toolbox full of tools, not just one tool that kind of works for all possible situations.
Given the commonly held thought that most of LI-Ion batteries are going to go towards EVs, people are going to have to start giving serious thought to other forms of energy storage for microgrids. Thermal storage is interesting and would be a good pairing with a flow battery for a microgrid on a manufacturing campus.
Vehicle-to-grid and older Li-ion batteries with reduced capacity allows lithium-based batteries to support microgrids. Although agreed, more technologies = more better.
Lithium based batteries have decades of life in them, but after the first 15-20% degradation they're considered "spent" in vehicles. These "spent" batteries can still function for another 10-20 years in grid storage! It takes 5-10 years before enough second hand vehicle batteries enter the market since EV's only have been seriously popular for a years or two, but after that i would be surprised if batteries are specifically manufactured for grid use. There will probably be more second hand batteries than we can put in the grid. I guess most of them will just be recycled. All of this is assuming governments all around the globe actually enforce the requirement to reuse or recycle used lithium batteries.
@@pierregravel-primeau702 Some quick thoughts: 1. Not everyone will have parking for their EV outside their home/can leave it always plugged in. 2. Not everyone will want to allow V2G. 3. What if everyone is stuck in traffic at the same time and few EVs are plugged in? 4. What is the maximum discharge rate?
@@pierregravel-primeau702 One main issue is the supply of Lithium. We are already seeing huge spikes in the price of Lithium and we have barely begun the EV conversion. So we need to move away from Lithium for places where the weight of the battery is not relevant. There are several areas like the ones above and other battery formulations that are a better solution than Lithium for fixed implementations. They don't work well for cars and laptops as they weigh considerably more than a Lithium battery.
In the mid-1980’s New York Electric and Gas (NYSEG) gave away brick heat storage units to private customers. Their incentive was to help even out the electric production by having the heat storage powered at night during off-peek electric consumption. Our electric bills dropped dramatically by shifting our heating costs to nighttime electric. The unit was clean, quiet, and efficient. I’d like to see them produce a brick hot water tank. 😊
The biggest issue with thermal storage is typically the same with gravity storage, the volume of materials you need to store an appreciable amount of heat is usually ridiculous and impossible to do at any scale.
@@sephreed1938 Yeah, theoretically you could pump so much heat into a rock that it vaporizes if you wanted to, though it wouldn't be very useful in that state XD
A drop of a kilometer roughly translates to a temperature change of 10C. So unless the drop is really big, or the heat is slightly warm, thermal does way better.
For home use, yes. For industrial use, not really. If you build a thermal battery 3m tall under a typical industrial building of 200*150m, you got an 80.000kWh thermal storage under your feet. Make it parking lot-sized an you get several MWh. The point is that the thermal storage material is cheap or might even be free as garbage material from the construction site.
We get too hung up on the various forms energy takes. Energy storage is energy storage. Whatever we can do for an appealing mix of cost and efficiency is where it's at!
A couple of years ago everyone waa teyi g to develope the perfect battery for all situations. Now they are developing batteries for a more narrow use. This change of attitude has allowed a huge leap forward
This process could be made even simpler by using lenses to focus sunlight on the rock directly and increase insulation for heat loss.The more insulation the more efficient the heat battery. I run a gasifier that runs on wood pellets and is installed in a metal box full of sand which is then insulated with 4 inches of foam.I gatther the syngas to run a generator and run a gas kitchen stove and the heat lost is gathered in the sand mass and is used to heat my home. When availible I use gras clipins and leaves that have been pelletized to run in the gasifier. The pellet machine is run by the generator.
In the 70s, as a kid, we would put bricks on our wood burner and at night would put at the end of our beds to keep us warm. It worked perfectly during cold winter nights..
In Renew's Sustainable House Day many years ago, a house in Adelaide had a room full of rocks surrounded by thick insulation. In winter they were heated by a simple solar air heater in daytime and released heat into the (well insulated and well designed) house at night. In summer they slowed down the temperature rise. They didn't eliminate powered heating and cooling entirely but reduced the need for it.
@@furythree Expanded polystyrene all around as I remember. There would have been sufficient strength to support the fairly large mass of rock. It was around 2.5 x 2.5 x 4 m to have sufficient thermal mass. Adelaide winters are cool but sunny so you can store a bit of heat in daytime
As a new electrician I worked a lot in Jerusalem's Old City in Israel. The Jewish Quarter, destroyed by the Arabs when they conquered it in 1948, was rebuilt after Israel liberated it in 1967. All the apartments there were equipt with at least one electrically heated "rock box". Each apartment had two electricity meters, one regular meter for most of the electrical lighting and power needs, and one meter which only supplied electricity in the wee hours of the morning when demand was low. Prices were commensurately low. Rock Box heater fans would be turned on when it was cold, and insulation kept the heat in the rocks when the fan was off.
Thermal storage as a dump load for times of overproduction makes a lot of sense. Instead of curtailment that energy from solar or wind could be captured and used for low temperature heating needs like residential but we need a smart enough grid to offer that energy cheap to the end users at those times.
Wish there was a method for storing large amounts of heat for six months or more. Imagine how good all that blistering summer heat would feel in the dead of winter.
We used to keep ice from melting for enough time to then refrigerate stuff with it, so maybe what you're saying really is possible (my only guess is that it would have to be enormous to keep houses warm at winter)
My house has a massive crushed glass and concrete insulated foundation that exchanges heat with the house via forced air. Works really well to reduce heating and cooling costs when combined with solar and heat pump.
Food processing uses a lot of steam and heat, might be a real game changer there for either of the major 2 you mentioned. The Rondo system patent is one heck of a read... they've done the math and physics, it's a really well detailed set of information
@@bartytaylor2106 you know if you buy a package of frozen vegetables, that in their processing prior to freezing, they were blanched - eg dipped briefly in nearly boiling water, then dried and frozen ? It takes a lot of heat to maintain those volumes of water. There are many food processing steps that need heat, and they don't create junk food necessarily.
I'm a Canadian, so the concept of cheaper and more ecological/efficient heating is always a bonus here. Especially as my brother lives somewhere that the most common sources of heat are wood and propane, followed by electrical.
Dear Matt Ferrel, on presentation you showed some advantages of Brick and Rock Battery System. Please share some technical informations of this type of TES i.e.: What is the selfdischarging time of thermal energy storage system? What is energy efficiency storage calculated from electricity to electricity? What is a volumetric capacity of energy storage system when the required temperature at the outlet of gas is at least 500 deg of C? Regards. Antoni
Omg such a simple and elegant solution. I've been thinking of getting a lithium based battery for my house to trade the peaks and save money, but really this is what I need instead!
Seeing how we get twice the energy from the sun as thermal versus photons, it only makes sense to store it that way. Especially if we can stop with the expensive photovoltaics and just do solar heaters.
Great idea! I just discovered them a couple of weeks ago, read a paper on their properties and testing (took place in Alaska) and I love them! Unfortunately, the pricing for those panels differ so much I can't really figure out how much does that cost.
They are hard to make, and crazy expensive to buy, though low temp versions would perhaps be more DIYable. I do want to experiment with that at some point.
I love the idea of storing thermal energy with so many applications, and district heating seems like a fantastic way to increase efficiency! I hope the technology is ready to pick up the pace soon and that it benefits everyone we share this world with.
Very good video. I love all of the technological advances we are seeing for making this a more sustainble wold. It's good to see how many different countries are working on resolving the problem of reliance on fossil fuels. And your videos contribute to opening our eyes, educating us, and giving us hope for a better future.
1500C air would still be useful for steelmaking or other higher temp apps. You'd preheat the charge to 1500C then finish it off with much less gas or electricity.
Would love to see you cover Thermo-electric energy storage and conversion in one of your videos Matt. Malta is a spinoff from Google's project X division and is currently deploying the tech in the industry Round trip efficiency is definitely not something to brag about, but with Renewables getting dirt cheap through economies of scale and newer tech (perovskites, high power offshore wind etc), the extremely low input cost of electricity more than makes up for the lower round trip efficiencies of Thermo-electric energy storage and conversion
My question is how big do these things have to be? Imagine having solar panels in the winter that heats these bricks, then at night heats your house. Each house having their own set of bricks. It would be a cool option for a cabin.
The problem is winter sun doesn't have enough energy even if you covered your house in solar panels, even a heat pump with a COP of 3 probably wouldn't be able to get enough energy. You need large scale renewables as the energy source because the amount of energy required to heat a house in winter is closer to 80kWh per day than 8kWh. Also what these heat batteries don't promote is that if they are heated up using spare electricity it is only 100% efficient whereas a heat pump is more like 300%. For your scenario using a heat pump to raise a two cubic metre insulated box of water up to 55°C for extracting heat passively until it's down to 20°C would provide about 80kWh of heat energy for closer to 25kWh of mains electricity. The other alternative are solar collectors to directly warm the water using the winter sun, that could be even cheaper to run as at it's most basic all you need is a black box to absorb solar radiation.
@@augur1975 anyway solar is very inneficient and very polluant. But nuclear energy need a way to store excess energy. The most obvious choice is to buy energy when it's at it's cheapest (during daytime) to gather excess from nuclear and to use it for your house during night. So the question remain, how much energy can these bricks hold?
Random loosely related fact is that recently Roman concrete recipe and method was recently rediscovered. It reduces the amount of material needed compared to modern concrete.
Hi Matt Nice, new video. As always when I see energy storage revolving around heat energy, a big flag goes up for me. IF the energy (from solar, wind, etc.) is ultimately going to be "degraded" from electricity to heat as the useful commodity, all well and good. BUT if that electricity was wanted later, one has killed off ~ 66% in the transition - this because 33 % is what one gets back as generation electricity starting from heat. Very important that the public understand this, I feel, as I am constantly talking to lay groups that are mislead by the nature of heat storage as a method: it it not generically valid. Might be worth a good disclaimer about this very issue before jumping into the meat and bones of the discussion, say at t=4:40. with best regards, Domenico.
Indeed, heat storage is really only good if you only need heat as the output product. Converting to electricity from heat is horribly inefficient, but these companies are not suggesting this at all.
So what? That would still mean in the end you would get a decent amount out of it which is better than literally letting it go to the wind. The issues here is catching some of the otherwise wasted energy of renewables in environmentally friendly way and you cant get more environmentally friendly than brick and rock.
@@outlander234 The "so what" is that renewables already require vast amounts of land and infrastructure to maintain. They have been promised to tax and rate payers (often along with land expropriation measures) as adequate means of replacing current sources of electricity, - the thermodynamicaly highest grade of energy mankind has. To waft away 66% of that yield immediately as heat from the start now means you have to consume 3x the amount of whatever primary source you have -whether coal or wind - to compensate. You have now lost a lot of the ability to even justify any carbon footprint for EVs, etc., in cases where the current could have fed a grid. This is ethically in-excusable engineering practice in power-hungry times, and any government agency that doesn't think that through deserves to lose the next election. If you want to melt steel or run high temperature chemical processes, burn a primary heat source like gas in the first place - oh wait, some people thought a crumbly old Russian regime could help us with that....
I agree and disagree. I think that this idea is clearly reasonable if A) our energy source is heat or B) our end goal is to heat something. Company is directing for option B. I would love to see this idea in option A also. You argue against MrFatuchi that the investments in renewables are partially wasted. My counter argument is that badly timed energy production from renewables will most likely boost the business of various energy storage systems. So the storage efficiencies are expected to improve (although there will be always quite some loss). Still, the proportion that saves factory from burning gas or goal could benefit the company and the environment. Personally I am wondering why the excess wind energy is not stored near its production? How about flywheel or compressed air etc. without the transfer to electricity in between? I am not an engineer or physicist, so somebody smarter than me could explain the reasons....
@@anomymouse5043 Hello and thank you for this reasoned (and civil!) response. It is uncommon to see folks not coming back on me about these things all emotional... I think we actually agree overall. In my urgency to provide a very terse response I skipped over the important nuances you mention. Any chemical engineering, metal processing or similar concerns using large amounts of thermal energy exactly for the necessity or at least high "thermodynamic value" of a high temperature of some contact medium value will ALSO almost invariably find methods of using (often the same stream) for lower temperature needs around the plant. Such hot water, air, etc., may simply wind up just preheating stock flows or even merely heating the plant spaces. The loss constituted by simply "blowing away" , say, 250C hot air would be considered unconscionable and any engineer not finding SOME use for that might soon be looking for other work. Heat exchangers are the important and pervasive details of plant design. As for your final query, it sounds a bit odd, although I might be misinterpreting - please correct me. Wind energy IS primarily first converted to current by "dynamo", and with that immediate battery storage does turn out to be best at this point in time (often >93% eff.)
Very good, this means renewable energy is getting closer to the production chain of everything we use day to day. This has come up as a key argument against renewables, that they can't be used to make things, unlike fossil fuels. It's nice to see this quite effectively opposed with these heat storage and distribution systems.
Really cool video. Personally i see advancements in geopolymers as a more sustainable route in concrete than the brick storage method but i still like and see the potential application of storing heat energy this way. Definatley a great alternative to oil furnaces and other fossil fuels. I will say that in many cases with a wood stove that really depends on the situation. So for normal amerocan suburban and urban lifestyle, yeah burning wood is probably not going to be sustainable. But for people who live out with plenty of wilderness, you can avtually harvest quite a bit of wood from dead or dead standing trees and fallen branches. You dont need to log at all if you have (i believe) it was around 5 acrea of forests area to harvest from per household. Is this methid going to heat everyones homes? No but when blanket statements are made like "burning wood is unsustainable" thats not really the whole truth. Nor is the opposite.
Our City (Sheffield, UK) has a 'district heating' system, it's not as big as it used to, but all the council (government) buildings in the city are heated by a central system from the furnace that burns household waste etc atm, it also generates electricity... There was talk about expanding it again, but i'm not sure what ever happened to that..
Thermal storage looks like a great idea. But I wonder, if ~20% efficiency from solar batteries is not worse, than using vacuum thermal collectors (that can heat up to crazy temperatures too) and then pipe that heat to thermal storage.
EXACTLY!!! As thermal storage is becoming a big thing, why not get 100% of energy from sun instead of just 20%. It makes no sense! I'm sure people will eventually see the light ;)
I think costs of piping that heat outweigh the benefits. I am no expert but just thinking how great those pipes have to be insulation wise to not get radiation of that heat that goes nowhere... You might end up with same percentages. I think the mirrors and molten salts he mentioned at the end is better solution.
LOL I was typing up a comment about to ask if you had coordinated with city beautiful when you got to the point where you mentioned it yourself. Good stuff, I subscribed
brilliant! in the energy storage business, there are many options. You could raise a VERY heavy weight up in the air with a pulley system, then lower it to turn a crank, storing mechanical energy. You could spin a heavy wheel (flywheel), then later use it's fast spin to release mechanical energy. You could charge a plate up to a high voltage, storing eclectic charge. You could use chemicals in a battery that react with one another, releasing electric charge (most batteries today)... But this is so simple. Slowly raising heat into an isolated system, to later released as heat, no converting to electricity or mechanical energy... and if you need mechanical energy, just use the heat to boil water and turn a turbine! simple yet practical. Im just wondering the energy density of the battery and how much energy you could get out of them? and 1500C is not bad for now. hopefully they could get more!
Someone should design a small one of these that can be attached to a computer. A lot of people run a gaming pc and just open the window to get rid of the heat because it heats up their room too much. Being able to put that energy in a brick battery during the day and release it into the whole house heating when it's needed would be great for reducing heat waste. Or even more efftive in server farms that also pretty much just push the heat out of the building to cool the computers.
Funny enough, this kind of heat storage would actually work really well in places you wouldn't think need or want it, namely desert and high plains. They still get cold enough to need heat, but lack of infrastructure around heating means they over-pay for it to great detriment. Down-side is that it's only effective in high density use areas like cites and industrial parks
It’s interesting that companies are looking into storing energy in the form of heat. This idea has been around for many years in the form of night storage heaters. I can remember 50 years ago we were installing night storage central heating in big warm air unit that were sourced I believe from Canada. They worked in a similar way to your American gas furnaces. A company in the U.K. Aga. Made a cooker that used bricks inside a cast iron range cooker to store energy to cook with during the day. The disadvantage was if the elements inside the bricks failed, it was a mammoth task to dismantle and rebuild the range cooker.
Lower temp thermal storage is perfectly useful for steel production as a preheater for another energy source that is only needed for the last few hundred degrees.
We have been using TES at a home based level successfully for 3.5 years so far. Basically, we send excess generation from our solar panels directly to the hot water cylinder, and once it's at temperature it's thermostat opens and further excess generation is exported to the grid. Our hot water cylinder has been :off grid" continuously for 3.5 years so far, and we have yet to suffer a cold shower. With this we have bypassed the need for dedicated "expensive" batteries but of course depend on the grid for night time power. With 16 panels and a 6kw inverter we have zero power bills averaged out over the year.
Out of the box, it is said nuclear plants have to use water to produce steam when exposed to the rods, what if in relation to the size of the volcanic rock battery you say you want to produce x amount of heat you calculate the size of the rod in relation to the desired output. Thus producing heat until the rod cools down.
I love how gradually the big inovations in battery technology have become more down to earth. Batteries started as state of the art mysterious chemichal devices, and most of the ones we use for smaller batteries still use the same principle, but the biggest inovations for larger batteries were like, "pump water uphill" and now just "heat a big brick"
Best channel on UA-cam. At the beginning of this video it is stated: "Wind and solar are intermittent, so we need to have cheap, reliable energy storage...." Tens of thousands of people will hear this and think 'ok, this is what I will vote for' assuming that we can simply do this. But what people don't realize is 1) it's not clear we can have cheap energy storage and 2) it's not clear that we can get there quickly. So the politicians who are trying to regulate and legislate fossil fuels away are truly setting us all up for real hardship. I'm all for a clean, net zero future, but it's going to take longer than a millenial's attention span. Right now the USA is trying to take it's most abundant and relatively clean fuel off the table- natural gas- without having the storage question answered. Big mistake!
i think the more types of storage system the better, we should be tapping into everything. of course i think these systems would be better used in colder climates.
Great as long as all the details are considered and complications avoided. Being simple can remain a complicated problem if thermal or contamination issues are missed.
Good video as always Matt! Interesting and fun you use an aerial shot of Blast Furnaces 6 & 7 at Tata Steel in IJmuiden where I work. There are actually "Windverhitters" or Hot Blast Stoves that are first heated by process gasses and some natural gas, and then cooled by air which feeds the Blast Furnaces. And coke is used to reduce the iron ore, and in the process of making coke from coal, gas is produced that, with other proces gasses, is used to make electricity and steam, to power the site. We do recuperate a lot of energy, mostly to heat our buildings and water, central town heating was considered, but sadly never rolled out... Now we are transitioning to Hydrogen, and have a brand new 380KV station almost on site to bring in power from new offshore wind farms, we will be connected directly to that. The six 120m axis height wind turbines in the back came on grid in 2022, but are not ours. Also some byproducts are used as building materials, especially the sharp sand that forms when quenching slag from the Blast Furnaces, goes directly to the neighbor cement factory. That factory doesn't produce their own cinder though.
Similar technology has been used in the glass industry for a long time, we call them checker packs, the structure they are in are called regenerators, the exhaust of the furnace goes through them, heats up then we switch directions and the intake combustion air comes through the checker packs to get preheated. Saves absolutely tons of gas
High efficiency in storing and converting the most primal form of energy. It is so simplistic that it is amazing It wasn't thought until now. I would really lile to work on this field
i can agree these systems work, I have had a system similar to this running at my house here in alaska for 7 years, my temps are running closer to 180f we have almost 24hour daylight and no heat load in the summer so I am storing the energy in a rock battery. this caries my heat loads for months into the winter and preheats my domestic hot water year round. it has offset my gas bill by around 50%
This Technology is absolutely amazing. It has the capability of change the future of so many different industries. I look forward to being able to continue to work with companies like this. Being an electrician by trade and to be involved in change the future is absolutely awesome. We will be able to tell our grandchildren that we worked on these first units as they continue to change the future.
I love the simplicity of the traditional heating element, but there may be even more efficiency to be tapped by using heat pumps. This would also increase the complexity and maintenance, but depending on the scale it should work.
i anticipate the problem with storing high enough temps to melt steel is simply a materials science issue, cause with that much energy, exotic materials will be required to keep everything safe and functional.
this thing will be great.. we can integrate the battery with newly built home, just place it at basement or under the basement.. looking forward for this tech in the future..
In 1976 I was working with a company that was building solar furnaces to heat homes. I was designing and building the electronic controls for the furnace. A blower ran air over the solar collector and then over the stones which were used for storage. The stones were simple cobble, available from most gravel and sand suppliers. The project was not a success, frankly, I believe because it was simply ahead of its time.
Also things like Rocket MASS heaters for your home where you burn wood or pellets in the heater, these style of heaters are VERY efficient, there is only a small amount of fine ash left after the burn. The outlet from the fire box goes through a Mass of rock, gravel bricks etc, which warms up via latent heat, and that mass stays warm for 30 to 40 hours after the fire has gone out, It is a great Idea but a lot of people don't know about them. Too many people today only want heaters that plug into a wall outlet, or are built-in reverse cycle air conditioners.
Thanks for another great video! I love Thermal Energy Storage systems. It's always better when you have the laws of physics on your side - and it's far more efficient to make and store heat in a central location, then move it to where it's needed, than continually burning fuel every time you want heat.
Fun fact, I learned recently that we already have these things in many old homes here in Germany (Nachtspeicherheizung, night storage heating), some single room units working with bricks and going up to 650°C. Used before the 70s at night to level out demand. Fell out of favour hard (through I see them a lot in real estate ads for cheaper houses). It would be easy to repurpose these for the times that the grid is at negative energy prices due to wind. Through legal and slow companies are in the way.
Storing heat like this could have so many small-mid scale uses. Imagine an airport being able to cheaply heat their runways and taxiways so ice/snow aren't issues anymore?
There are some obvious flaws in these systems. First, the electricity must be converted to heat the massive stone\brick storage. It would take less energy to convert the electricity into heat direct used by the receiver. Second, heat retention in the medium is not permanent and energy is lost by the process of thermal transfer. Third, it will take more energy to transfer the heat from the medium than it would to convert the original electricity to a direct heating source. Lastly, the space needed to provide enough medium to retain enough heat is extremely large.
A good measurement of our civilization is by how hot and how cold we can keep something and for how long. If we can master plasma and get fusion power going would be pretty huge.
Most of Steel's CO2 emissions come from production of virgin steel, from both mining and the actual process of manufacturing steel, by pushing oxygen into the iron, and emitting co2. Production of virgin steel is unnecessary if you just need STEEL, but virgin steel is required for the most part to mix with recycled steel to get highly precise alloy mixes. It is very difficult to get certain elements out of an alloy with steel, so recycled steel is usually mixed with virgin steel to balance out the proportions of contaminants from the recycled steel. What's needed here, definitely is MASS carbon capture, as virgin steel making largely HAS to produce co2 with the current processes. But the bonus of steel is that it is done in an enclosed facility, unlike concrete (though the production of clinker can also be carbon captured, but most poured concrete emits co2 too). There are interesting alternatives though, as steel can apparently be made with hydrogen without co2 production. Swedish company Hybrit created green steel this way. If hydrogen becomes much cheaper, then this form of virgin steel production might take over completely. We can only hope. But the use of heat batteries could definitely help metalmaking as an industry be more efficient in its energy use, even if entirely run on electricity.
A brick battery is just another name for a storage heater. They have been in use for a century or more. My grandmother used to put a brick in the oven, during the day, and then remove it, wrap it in a piece of blanket, and pop it into the bed to warm the bed up. My neighbour has one in her lounge. It's just a stack of bricks in a sheet metal box, with electric elements passed through it. .
Do you think storing heat is a smart move? The first 100 people to use code UNDECIDED at the link below will get 20% off of Incogni: incogni.com/undecided.
If you liked this video, check out Solar Panels Plus Farming? Agrivoltaics Explained ua-cam.com/video/lgZBlD-TCFE/v-deo.html
Do you know what would have been a smart move, developing and investing these technologies over 100 years ago when these ideas were first brought to market... unfortunately the world went with oil, and we've fought to the death for it ever since.
I think storing heat is a good idea but it's so early in its stage of development to say if it is worth it or not
That's the kind of news that makes my day. Thanks for all of the research that you do.
I solved the riddle… Uranium
If they need 1600° to make steel, couldn't they just use the battery to get the first 1500° and then burn something for the last 100°? Seems an easy solution to avoid almost 94% of the emissions.
Hey Matt, we appreciate the spotlight you're putting on thermal energy storage! Thank you for including us in your video.
Nice to see you're tackling energy store with a different approach. Well done guys!
As children, many of us would use a magnifying glass to set paper on fire. With a tracking system to follow the sun, would it be possible to use this energy (paper burns at 454 farenheight) to heat your bricks, or boil water to produce electricity for your system to use?
@@johnnajera9659 Hi John -- fond memory! So some companies use concentrated solar power systems to generate both thermal and electric power. While these systems have many upsides (including being zero-carbon technologies), there are some limitations. Two big limitations are related 1) it requires a lot of space to deploy concentrated power at scale, and 2) when you do find the space, it's often not located directly next to the facility that requires heat, and it's very difficult to transport heat over distances -- it results in a lot of energy loss.
An electric thermal energy storage system like Rondo's uses electricity is very energy dense and can be located within an existing facility -- right where the energy is needed. This is because it's very easy to transport electricity over distances with almost no loss. For these reasons (among many more), it's actually lower cost and lower impact to generate heat using electricity from photovoltaics and wind turbines with an electric thermal energy storage system.
@@rondoenergy4228 It might be interesting, small scale to have concentrated solar to boil water for steam turbines. Steam may be poised for a comeback.
@@rondoenergy4228 When are you coming to my country? 🤣. Closing nuclears because of politics, and planning around 80 MW renewable energy. Volcanic high-enthalpy areas under investigated, and electro intensive industries such as aluminium closing because the LNG price rises.
During the 1970's my Wisconsin neighbor designed a combination thermal solar and storage system using cans of distilled water in modular cabinets. The solar heated air was passed through the modules storing the heat for use later. Simple and effective.
Storing heat is a truly ancient and practical heating method. People used to put stones in the fire to heat them up during the day while the fire was in use for other things, and then over night the stones would release the built up heat to keep the area warmer.
This is very similar to using heating inside a concrete floor. Heating the concrete up, it helps keep the heat more stable in the environment.
Using a material as a heat sink really helps balance temperatures during the 24 hour temperature cycle. This is one of the reasons I love brick and stone buildings.
It gets even better when you create a solar barrier during the hotter times that lets light through during colder periods to store heat from the sunlight. If you really like it cool, you can just build underground for a fairly stable temperature
This is why large stone mantles exist. Also, in old homes, the rocks heat up and the heat spreads through the rock walls.
@@runed0s86 yeah, why here in the uk with every summer bringing new record breaking heat waves are even more torturous 🥲.. Most of our houses were built to store whatever heat that is gathered through the day into the night but when the heat continues we end up literally baking in our own tiny brick ovens.
True, even star trek use their phaser on rocks to heat them up on some episodes...LOL
@@spookymunky1 it prepared me for visiting a friend in the states when his AC was broken
I also love the idea of having multiple solutions working in parallel to reduce carbon emissions. As someone mentioned, it's not about finding the "best" solution, but rather the right solution for the application. And the potential for TES systems to capture and store waste heat from manufacturing processes is really exciting.
It's great to see these kinds of technologies being highlighted in videos like this. Keep up the great work...
It will be interesting to see how the brick battery stacks up against the competition.
😂
🏆
You're on fire with the puns/dad jokes.
Ok take my thumbs up. Good puns deserve recognition.
Looks like the competition may have hit a wall!
In terms of residential energy consumption, roughly 20% goes to creating hot water and more than 40% goes to heating the space in your home. This means any system of energy capture and storage, on a significant scale, could meet about 60% of annual residential energy needs in the US. All of a sudden, hot rocks sounds like a great idea!
Residential heating is nothing compared to what industry needs. The residential population is not bad guy here.
Better Insulating Materials have to be discovered this would Exponentially increase efficiency!
@@onegreenev no bad guy on either side, just better and better renewable solutions for our energy needs, I love it!
@@Certago You have no idea what you're talking about.
@@mrdanger4851 So you left out the word cheap. The world doesn't need $2,000,000 closets.
Wow! The video starts with 4 minutes and 23 seconds of filler content and unrelated advertisements. That is amazing! I recommend just jumping right to 4:23 where he starts talking about the relevant subject matter (rock batteries)
Even if it can't get to the 1600⁰C for now, by heating the ore to about 1000⁰C, it means that the electric or fossil fuel component, only has to make up a gap of 600⁰C instead of the whole range from ambient to 1600⁰C. And that would still be a significant reduction.
As fara as the tobacco plant is concerned, they most likely need hot air to control the humidity in the tobacco leaves they'll be using.
This tec has great potential in all kin of heating applications from residential to industrial!
I'm thinking you could also use it to generate steam to run a turbine which could then power something like an induction or arc heater, which could then go higher. There would of course be an efficiency loss there but if the power that went in was originally free or very cheap, it might still be worth it.
@@redsquirrelftw It's never free and the steam turbine setup would probably be more expensive than an electrical battery.
@@Rig0r_M0rtis At industrial scale the steam would end up cheaper. Just look at how EV prices keep going up. They are running out of material to make batteries.
@@redsquirrelftw EVs have very specific requirements when it comes to batteries. But why do you think coal power is so expensive? It's not because coal is expensive, it's the whole setup with hight pressure and moving parts that can't economicaly stand up to solid state photovoltaics. Burning electricity to make steam to make electricity does not make sense.
@@Rig0r_M0rtis Kinda like burning coal to make solar panels and steel trubines to generate power... (and: 'burn electricity' ???)
Reduction in 30% on operating costs with cheap solutions means we will say goodbye to cement gas emitions soon. I hope every company will see this
Different applications have different ideal solutions. It's not a matter of "is this the best idea" it should be "Is this the right solution for the application."
Multiple solutions working in parallel will help solve the overall issue of reducing carbon emissions, and I'm excited every time you showcase solutions, and showcase some of the best applications for it.
Very well-done videos.
Exactly, this type of long-duration, slow-release storage is perfect for usages that never require rapid heat input anyway. There's no one perfect tool for every job, we need multiple tools to cover many types of jobs.
- "It's not a matter of "is this the best idea" it should be "Is this the right solution for the application.""
Realistically, what the potential buyers are looking for is "the best solution for the application".
Over 20% of global emissions comes from industrial heat. This is an untapped market. Thanks Matt for this great piece!
fact check this : Over 20% of global emissions comes from industrial heat.
ChatGPT
The statement that over 20% of global emissions come from industrial heat is not entirely accurate, as the percentage varies depending on the source and the context:
The International Energy Agency (IEA) notes that about 50% of total heat produced is used for industrial processes. This figure, however, does not directly translate to a percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that in 2010, emissions from electricity and heat production accounted for 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and emissions from industry (which would include industrial heat) were 21%.
A study referenced by ScienceDirect estimated that in 2016, about 21% of global CO2 emissions resulted from the generation of industrial heat.
The IEA also indicates that industrial heat makes up about one-fifth of global energy consumption and predicts that it could account for a quarter of global emissions by 2040, suggesting a growing trend.
The U.S. Department of Energy mentions that industrial heat accounts for about 9% of the entire U.S. emissions footprint.
While these figures highlight the significant contribution of industrial heat to global emissions, they vary and do not specifically confirm the claim that over 20% of global emissions come from industrial heat. The actual percentage depends on various factors, including the scope of the data (whether it includes all greenhouse gases or just CO2, for instance), the year of the data, and regional differences.
amazing idea and product, definitely will and needs to be done on a larger scale
I joined Incogni a couple of months ago and it really helped clean out my email of clutter. Thanks for suggesting them. My Amazon account got hacked and they started sending about 1000 emails to my account per day. That isn't an exaggerated.... I am down to about 100 now. Way better than it was before. Most of the emails I get now are overseas and they don't deal with those data brokers yet.
Thermal storage was introduced to Australia about 50 years ago. Then, it was called "Heatbank" and used cast iron as the storage material. Then used a small fan to distribute the heat.
We had that here in Germany too. It was called Wärmespeicher and it was pretty popular in the 70s and 80s. Don't know why they disappeared
In NZ many power companies offered "Nightstore" heaters which heated a mass (I thought it was ceramic but I might be wrong) during off peak and released it on command/timer. 1970s I think.
Thermal storage was introduced thousands of years ago all over the place.
The Open Hearth steel making process uses firebrick for energy storage, capturing the heat from gas escaping the furnace, then flowing air through that brick to preheat it.
@@peterkotara I've currently got one in my flat (apartment/condo) in the UK (Wales). They are a horrible means to heat your home if you aren't organised or happen to go away from home overnight. Modern ones probably have timers built in though.
I have been very interested in TES systems. I think these would also be great to capture and store heat from manufacturing processes. Once companies realize waste heat is a commodity to be used or sold you will see more buy in. Love your detailed but understandable explanations.
I think that will be a huge selling point for these. Just imagine an industrial plant capturing its heat in this and then converting it to electricity for its own needs and also putting it back into the grid while also having some solar panels and wind turbines to charge another one of these... This could potentially take care of 30%-50% of our electricity usage if done properly.
Underrated comment right here :)
There is also the issue of storing cold. There once was an industry based on cutting ice from frozen lakes. These blocks of ice were stored in sawdust and in the summer use to renew the ice in ice based refrigerators.
I agree. While heat pumps have proven efficiencies, I'd like to see a cost benefit analysis of bringing lumps/bateries of cold stuff to warm places (or places that need cooling in the summer), in order to fill their "heat pipes" with something that can alleviate the energy costs of those there, during warmer months.
That said, hot is easy and has limits placed only on containment ability. Cold stops at absolute zero and is, by orders of magnitude, less than hot.
in Helsinki, Finland there are several big underground tanks / pools to store cold water. That water is chilled passively with sea water during winter and heat pumps are used during summer. Hot side of those heat pumps is pushed to district heat piping, mostly used for hot water during summer but of course some locations need a bit heat also during summer.
And yes that cold is distributed around city as district cooling for cooling offices and homes. Storing the cold water also helps with midday sun as heat pumps only need to be powerful enough for 24h average, not for the highest peak cooling demand during afternoon.
Look up Ice storage air conditioning
Cold per se cannot be "stored", since it's not a quantified physical property. You can store cold matter.
I am a firm and long-time advocate of energy storage in heat And cold storage. I truly see great value in thermal management technologies, and implementing creative new innovations with the sterling engine as well.
13:06 For higher temperatures a steel manufacturer for example, might use a heat battery to recover heat from cooling finished materials and preheat raw materials. At lower temperatures, a different manufacturer could also incorporate heat pumps to improve waste heat recovery.
I like that idea also say if a sand unit was say 10000 units in volume at 1000f then could this be converted using Peltier to induction to heat up say 1 unit of steel
the efficiency ratio may not be that great but if we are talking about free sun and wind energy then its a total win...???
And reducing the total power, not just about replacing it.
Just pump hot air from the equator into the homes closer to the polar regions, and pump cold air back as free air conditioning in the patched climates
@@billsemenoff duh right?
@@Rig0r_M0rtis we already know Elon musk like digging tunnels, we just aim him at this project, I'm sure he'll get the government funding for it and even solve a few technical wrinkles. Polar-equator HVAC tunnels for all!
This is yet another solution to use to store energy. I am all for it. The thing is there should not just be one solution to cover all possible use cases. A lot of options leaves room for the best fit for the situation. I like having a large toolbox full of tools, not just one tool that kind of works for all possible situations.
Given the commonly held thought that most of LI-Ion batteries are going to go towards EVs, people are going to have to start giving serious thought to other forms of energy storage for microgrids. Thermal storage is interesting and would be a good pairing with a flow battery for a microgrid on a manufacturing campus.
Vehicle-to-grid and older Li-ion batteries with reduced capacity allows lithium-based batteries to support microgrids. Although agreed, more technologies = more better.
Lithium based batteries have decades of life in them, but after the first 15-20% degradation they're considered "spent" in vehicles. These "spent" batteries can still function for another 10-20 years in grid storage! It takes 5-10 years before enough second hand vehicle batteries enter the market since EV's only have been seriously popular for a years or two, but after that i would be surprised if batteries are specifically manufactured for grid use. There will probably be more second hand batteries than we can put in the grid. I guess most of them will just be recycled.
All of this is assuming governments all around the globe actually enforce the requirement to reuse or recycle used lithium batteries.
I dont get it. A EV battery is enought to supply a home in electricity for 3 days. Why would we need any other storage?
@@pierregravel-primeau702 Some quick thoughts:
1. Not everyone will have parking for their EV outside their home/can leave it always plugged in.
2. Not everyone will want to allow V2G.
3. What if everyone is stuck in traffic at the same time and few EVs are plugged in?
4. What is the maximum discharge rate?
@@pierregravel-primeau702 One main issue is the supply of Lithium. We are already seeing huge spikes in the price of Lithium and we have barely begun the EV conversion. So we need to move away from Lithium for places where the weight of the battery is not relevant. There are several areas like the ones above and other battery formulations that are a better solution than Lithium for fixed implementations. They don't work well for cars and laptops as they weigh considerably more than a Lithium battery.
In the mid-1980’s New York Electric and Gas (NYSEG) gave away brick heat storage units to private customers. Their incentive was to help even out the electric production by having the heat storage powered at night during off-peek electric consumption. Our electric bills dropped dramatically by shifting our heating costs to nighttime electric. The unit was clean, quiet, and efficient. I’d like to see them produce a brick hot water tank. 😊
This is the heating system I have had for 30 years. It does get pretty cold here and you know our heating season is from October to April
The biggest issue with thermal storage is typically the same with gravity storage, the volume of materials you need to store an appreciable amount of heat is usually ridiculous and impossible to do at any scale.
Not the same at all. The amount of heat that can be put into a single atom it much more than its weight.
@@sephreed1938
Yeah, theoretically you could pump so much heat into a rock that it vaporizes if you wanted to, though it wouldn't be very useful in that state XD
A drop of a kilometer roughly translates to a temperature change of 10C. So unless the drop is really big, or the heat is slightly warm, thermal does way better.
It’s almost like any one single storage method will never be sufficient for our uses and that we need multiple.
For home use, yes. For industrial use, not really.
If you build a thermal battery 3m tall under a typical industrial building of 200*150m, you got an 80.000kWh thermal storage under your feet. Make it parking lot-sized an you get several MWh. The point is that the thermal storage material is cheap or might even be free as garbage material from the construction site.
Being able to reclaim heat from factory processes and reuse it will be a very important thing in the future.
We get too hung up on the various forms energy takes. Energy storage is energy storage. Whatever we can do for an appealing mix of cost and efficiency is where it's at!
Agreed! When the alternative is loosing energy for lack of storage capacity, then 20% is much better than complete loss.
@@Grandpa82547 Exactly!
A couple of years ago everyone waa teyi g to develope the perfect battery for all situations. Now they are developing batteries for a more narrow use. This change of attitude has allowed a huge leap forward
This process could be made even simpler by using lenses to focus sunlight on the rock directly and increase insulation for heat loss.The more insulation the more efficient the heat battery.
I run a gasifier that runs on wood pellets and is installed in a metal box full of sand which is then insulated with 4 inches of foam.I gatther the syngas to run a generator and run a gas kitchen stove and the heat lost is gathered in the sand mass and is used to heat my home. When availible I use gras clipins and leaves that have been pelletized to run in the gasifier. The pellet machine is run by the generator.
In the 70s, as a kid, we would put bricks on our wood burner and at night would put at the end of our beds to keep us warm. It worked perfectly during cold winter nights..
In Renew's Sustainable House Day many years ago, a house in Adelaide had a room full of rocks surrounded by thick insulation. In winter they were heated by a simple solar air heater in daytime and released heat into the (well insulated and well designed) house at night.
In summer they slowed down the temperature rise.
They didn't eliminate powered heating and cooling entirely but reduced the need for it.
What kind of insulating material was it
Sounds interesting. Maybe buy a rock feature to put into a room
@@furythree Expanded polystyrene all around as I remember. There would have been sufficient strength to support the fairly large mass of rock. It was around 2.5 x 2.5 x 4 m to have sufficient thermal mass. Adelaide winters are cool but sunny so you can store a bit of heat in daytime
As a new electrician I worked a lot in Jerusalem's Old City in Israel. The Jewish Quarter, destroyed by the Arabs when they conquered it in 1948, was rebuilt after Israel liberated it in 1967. All the apartments there were equipt with at least one electrically heated "rock box". Each apartment had two electricity meters, one regular meter for most of the electrical lighting and power needs, and one meter which only supplied electricity in the wee hours of the morning when demand was low. Prices were commensurately low. Rock Box heater fans would be turned on when it was cold, and insulation kept the heat in the rocks when the fan was off.
Hi, storing heat using renewables is a great idea. I'm really warming to the idea !
You funny
Thermal storage as a dump load for times of overproduction makes a lot of sense. Instead of curtailment that energy from solar or wind could be captured and used for low temperature heating needs like residential but we need a smart enough grid to offer that energy cheap to the end users at those times.
Wish there was a method for storing large amounts of heat for six months or more. Imagine how good all that blistering summer heat would feel in the dead of winter.
We used to keep ice from melting for enough time to then refrigerate stuff with it, so maybe what you're saying really is possible
(my only guess is that it would have to be enormous to keep houses warm at winter)
My house has a massive crushed glass and concrete insulated foundation that exchanges heat with the house via forced air.
Works really well to reduce heating and cooling costs when combined with solar and heat pump.
Food processing uses a lot of steam and heat, might be a real game changer there for either of the major 2 you mentioned. The Rondo system patent is one heck of a read... they've done the math and physics, it's a really well detailed set of information
If sooo many spareparts didn't eat criminal junk food no need...
You want fries with that ? maybe not... are french fries that are air fried junk food btw ?
@@bartytaylor2106 you know if you buy a package of frozen vegetables, that in their processing prior to freezing, they were blanched - eg dipped briefly in nearly boiling water, then dried and frozen ? It takes a lot of heat to maintain those volumes of water. There are many food processing steps that need heat, and they don't create junk food necessarily.
@@lylestavast7652 lubberly to hear from U what mammels eat frozen gweenz ....😱
@@bartytaylor2106 are you a chimpanzee? Because i can't understand a word of what you are saying, and i'm trying
I'm a Canadian, so the concept of cheaper and more ecological/efficient heating is always a bonus here. Especially as my brother lives somewhere that the most common sources of heat are wood and propane, followed by electrical.
Next video. How a human body can be the future of Battery.
😂
…And after that how blinker fluid is used as the next best electrolyte
We have a lot of methane
If they study NQO1, quinones, and mitochondrial dynamics, you'd be surprised the type of advanced bio mimetic battery we could build.
They covered that in The Second Renaissance episode.
Dear Matt Ferrel, on presentation you showed some advantages of Brick and Rock Battery System.
Please share some technical informations of this type of TES i.e.:
What is the selfdischarging time of thermal energy storage system?
What is energy efficiency storage calculated from electricity to electricity?
What is a volumetric capacity of energy storage system when the required temperature at the outlet of gas is at least 500 deg of C?
Regards.
Antoni
It's so simple yet effective.
Omg such a simple and elegant solution. I've been thinking of getting a lithium based battery for my house to trade the peaks and save money, but really this is what I need instead!
I bricked my battery suddenly got a new meaning...
Seeing how we get twice the energy from the sun as thermal versus photons, it only makes sense to store it that way. Especially if we can stop with the expensive photovoltaics and just do solar heaters.
Did you ever look at vacuum insulation panels? Something I’d look into for heat storage
Great idea! I just discovered them a couple of weeks ago, read a paper on their properties and testing (took place in Alaska) and I love them! Unfortunately, the pricing for those panels differ so much I can't really figure out how much does that cost.
They are hard to make, and crazy expensive to buy, though low temp versions would perhaps be more DIYable. I do want to experiment with that at some point.
I love the idea of storing thermal energy with so many applications, and district heating seems like a fantastic way to increase efficiency! I hope the technology is ready to pick up the pace soon and that it benefits everyone we share this world with.
I truly want to thank you for all your hard work and dedication to inform us about new technologies. I guess I am the first one to comment today. lol
Storing any type of energy potential cheaply and cleanly is smart. Economies of scale matter.
Very good video. I love all of the technological advances we are seeing for making this a more sustainble wold. It's good to see how many different countries are working on resolving the problem of reliance on fossil fuels. And your videos contribute to opening our eyes, educating us, and giving us hope for a better future.
1500C air would still be useful for steelmaking or other higher temp apps. You'd preheat the charge to 1500C then finish it off with much less gas or electricity.
Would love to see you cover Thermo-electric energy storage and conversion in one of your videos Matt. Malta is a spinoff from Google's project X division and is currently deploying the tech in the industry
Round trip efficiency is definitely not something to brag about, but with Renewables getting dirt cheap through economies of scale and newer tech (perovskites, high power offshore wind etc), the extremely low input cost of electricity more than makes up for the lower round trip efficiencies of Thermo-electric energy storage and conversion
CO2 is good for the health of the world. More Good clean CO2 is exactly what our world needs.
My question is how big do these things have to be? Imagine having solar panels in the winter that heats these bricks, then at night heats your house. Each house having their own set of bricks. It would be a cool option for a cabin.
The problem is winter sun doesn't have enough energy even if you covered your house in solar panels, even a heat pump with a COP of 3 probably wouldn't be able to get enough energy. You need large scale renewables as the energy source because the amount of energy required to heat a house in winter is closer to 80kWh per day than 8kWh. Also what these heat batteries don't promote is that if they are heated up using spare electricity it is only 100% efficient whereas a heat pump is more like 300%. For your scenario using a heat pump to raise a two cubic metre insulated box of water up to 55°C for extracting heat passively until it's down to 20°C would provide about 80kWh of heat energy for closer to 25kWh of mains electricity. The other alternative are solar collectors to directly warm the water using the winter sun, that could be even cheaper to run as at it's most basic all you need is a black box to absorb solar radiation.
@@augur1975 anyway solar is very inneficient and very polluant. But nuclear energy need a way to store excess energy. The most obvious choice is to buy energy when it's at it's cheapest (during daytime) to gather excess from nuclear and to use it for your house during night. So the question remain, how much energy can these bricks hold?
Random loosely related fact is that recently Roman concrete recipe and method was recently rediscovered. It reduces the amount of material needed compared to modern concrete.
Hi Matt
Nice, new video. As always when I see energy storage revolving around heat energy, a big flag goes up for me. IF the energy (from solar, wind, etc.) is ultimately going to be "degraded" from electricity to heat as the useful commodity, all well and good. BUT if that electricity was wanted later, one has killed off ~ 66% in the transition - this because 33 % is what one gets back as generation electricity starting from heat. Very important that the public understand this, I feel, as I am constantly talking to lay groups that are mislead by the nature of heat storage as a method: it it not generically valid.
Might be worth a good disclaimer about this very issue before jumping into the meat and bones of the discussion, say at t=4:40.
with best regards, Domenico.
Indeed, heat storage is really only good if you only need heat as the output product. Converting to electricity from heat is horribly inefficient, but these companies are not suggesting this at all.
So what? That would still mean in the end you would get a decent amount out of it which is better than literally letting it go to the wind. The issues here is catching some of the otherwise wasted energy of renewables in environmentally friendly way and you cant get more environmentally friendly than brick and rock.
@@outlander234 The "so what" is that renewables already require vast amounts of land and infrastructure to maintain. They have been promised to tax and rate payers (often along with land expropriation measures) as adequate means of replacing current sources of electricity, - the thermodynamicaly highest grade of energy mankind has. To waft away 66% of that yield immediately as heat from the start now means you have to consume 3x the amount of whatever primary source you have -whether coal or wind - to compensate. You have now lost a lot of the ability to even justify any carbon footprint for EVs, etc., in cases where the current could have fed a grid. This is ethically in-excusable engineering practice in power-hungry times, and any government agency that doesn't think that through deserves to lose the next election. If you want to melt steel or run high temperature chemical processes, burn a primary heat source like gas in the first place - oh wait, some people thought a crumbly old Russian regime could help us with that....
I agree and disagree. I think that this idea is clearly reasonable if A) our energy source is heat or B) our end goal is to heat something. Company is directing for option B. I would love to see this idea in option A also.
You argue against MrFatuchi that the investments in renewables are partially wasted. My counter argument is that badly timed energy production from renewables will most likely boost the business of various energy storage systems. So the storage efficiencies are expected to improve (although there will be always quite some loss). Still, the proportion that saves factory from burning gas or goal could benefit the company and the environment.
Personally I am wondering why the excess wind energy is not stored near its production? How about flywheel or compressed air etc. without the transfer to electricity in between? I am not an engineer or physicist, so somebody smarter than me could explain the reasons....
@@anomymouse5043 Hello and thank you for this reasoned (and civil!) response. It is uncommon to see folks not coming back on me about these things all emotional...
I think we actually agree overall. In my urgency to provide a very terse response I skipped over the important nuances you mention. Any chemical engineering, metal processing or similar concerns using large amounts of thermal energy exactly for the necessity or at least high "thermodynamic value" of a high temperature of some contact medium value will ALSO almost invariably find methods of using (often the same stream) for lower temperature needs around the plant. Such hot water, air, etc., may simply wind up just preheating stock flows or even merely heating the plant spaces. The loss constituted by simply "blowing away" , say, 250C hot air would be considered unconscionable and any engineer not finding SOME use for that might soon be looking for other work. Heat exchangers are the important and pervasive details of plant design.
As for your final query, it sounds a bit odd, although I might be misinterpreting - please correct me. Wind energy IS primarily first converted to current by "dynamo", and with that immediate battery storage does turn out to be best at this point in time (often >93% eff.)
Very good, this means renewable energy is getting closer to the production chain of everything we use day to day.
This has come up as a key argument against renewables, that they can't be used to make things, unlike fossil fuels. It's nice to see this quite effectively opposed with these heat storage and distribution systems.
Really cool video. Personally i see advancements in geopolymers as a more sustainable route in concrete than the brick storage method but i still like and see the potential application of storing heat energy this way. Definatley a great alternative to oil furnaces and other fossil fuels. I will say that in many cases with a wood stove that really depends on the situation. So for normal amerocan suburban and urban lifestyle, yeah burning wood is probably not going to be sustainable. But for people who live out with plenty of wilderness, you can avtually harvest quite a bit of wood from dead or dead standing trees and fallen branches. You dont need to log at all if you have (i believe) it was around 5 acrea of forests area to harvest from per household. Is this methid going to heat everyones homes? No but when blanket statements are made like "burning wood is unsustainable" thats not really the whole truth. Nor is the opposite.
Our City (Sheffield, UK) has a 'district heating' system, it's not as big as it used to, but all the council (government) buildings in the city are heated by a central system from the furnace that burns household waste etc atm, it also generates electricity... There was talk about expanding it again, but i'm not sure what ever happened to that..
Thermal storage looks like a great idea. But I wonder, if ~20% efficiency from solar batteries is not worse, than using vacuum thermal collectors (that can heat up to crazy temperatures too) and then pipe that heat to thermal storage.
EXACTLY!!! As thermal storage is becoming a big thing, why not get 100% of energy from sun instead of just 20%. It makes no sense! I'm sure people will eventually see the light ;)
I am planing on using solar toughs to heat water and then store that heat in a tank of candle wax.
@@LaserFur That sounds exciting! There's lots of research out there on improvements using nano particles and other things. Good luck!
What is the efficiency of a thermal collector? Answer 20%.
I think costs of piping that heat outweigh the benefits. I am no expert but just thinking how great those pipes have to be insulation wise to not get radiation of that heat that goes nowhere... You might end up with same percentages. I think the mirrors and molten salts he mentioned at the end is better solution.
LOL I was typing up a comment about to ask if you had coordinated with city beautiful when you got to the point where you mentioned it yourself. Good stuff, I subscribed
CO2 is not a pollutant nor a thermostat, it is simply plant food and the plants want as much as they can get.
brilliant!
in the energy storage business, there are many options. You could raise a VERY heavy weight up in the air with a pulley system, then lower it to turn a crank, storing mechanical energy. You could spin a heavy wheel (flywheel), then later use it's fast spin to release mechanical energy.
You could charge a plate up to a high voltage, storing eclectic charge. You could use chemicals in a battery that react with one another, releasing electric charge (most batteries today)...
But this is so simple. Slowly raising heat into an isolated system, to later released as heat, no converting to electricity or mechanical energy...
and if you need mechanical energy, just use the heat to boil water and turn a turbine!
simple yet practical. Im just wondering the energy density of the battery and how much energy you could get out of them?
and 1500C is not bad for now. hopefully they could get more!
Someone should design a small one of these that can be attached to a computer. A lot of people run a gaming pc and just open the window to get rid of the heat because it heats up their room too much.
Being able to put that energy in a brick battery during the day and release it into the whole house heating when it's needed would be great for reducing heat waste.
Or even more efftive in server farms that also pretty much just push the heat out of the building to cool the computers.
Building houses to move heat through solar panels is an effective plan.
Funny enough, this kind of heat storage would actually work really well in places you wouldn't think need or want it, namely desert and high plains. They still get cold enough to need heat, but lack of infrastructure around heating means they over-pay for it to great detriment. Down-side is that it's only effective in high density use areas like cites and industrial parks
Aren't all batteries technically made with rocks?
Well, when you put it that way ... yes, they kind of are.
Jesus Christ Marie! They're minerals!
@@ge2719 "Ores are concentrations of minerals in rock" -geology website that I can't link
Ya if you think we're all amoebas and blacks
It’s interesting that companies are looking into storing energy in the form of heat. This idea has been around for many years in the form of night storage heaters. I can remember 50 years ago we were installing night storage central heating in big warm air unit that were sourced I believe from Canada. They worked in a similar way to your American gas furnaces. A company in the U.K. Aga. Made a cooker that used bricks inside a cast iron range cooker to store energy to cook with during the day. The disadvantage was if the elements inside the bricks failed, it was a mammoth task to dismantle and rebuild the range cooker.
I've been looking forward for this for over a decade, ever since I read a 2010 article in The Guardian about a gravel battery project at Cambridge
Lower temp thermal storage is perfectly useful for steel production as a preheater for another energy source that is only needed for the last few hundred degrees.
We have been using TES at a home based level successfully for 3.5 years so far. Basically, we send excess generation from our solar panels directly to the hot water cylinder, and once it's at temperature it's thermostat opens and further excess generation is exported to the grid. Our hot water cylinder has been :off grid" continuously for 3.5 years so far, and we have yet to suffer a cold shower. With this we have bypassed the need for dedicated "expensive" batteries but of course depend on the grid for night time power. With 16 panels and a 6kw inverter we have zero power bills averaged out over the year.
There are no silver bullets that will solve all clean energy needs, so I am encouraged to see clean (or cleaner) alternatives.
Out of the box, it is said nuclear plants have to use water to produce steam when exposed to the rods, what if in relation to the size of the volcanic rock battery you say you want to produce x amount of heat you calculate the size of the rod in relation to the desired output. Thus producing heat until the rod cools down.
I love how gradually the big inovations in battery technology have become more down to earth. Batteries started as state of the art mysterious chemichal devices, and most of the ones we use for smaller batteries still use the same principle, but the biggest inovations for larger batteries were like, "pump water uphill" and now just "heat a big brick"
Yeah - and we were doing all of this simple stuff for millenia before the fossil fuel industry got us hooked on "throw-away" energy sources.
I’m a huge carbon-consumer .. .. and by god I luv it.. it’s awesome .. shanks man
Best channel on UA-cam.
At the beginning of this video it is stated: "Wind and solar are intermittent, so we need to have cheap, reliable energy storage...." Tens of thousands of people will hear this and think 'ok, this is what I will vote for' assuming that we can simply do this. But what people don't realize is 1) it's not clear we can have cheap energy storage and 2) it's not clear that we can get there quickly. So the politicians who are trying to regulate and legislate fossil fuels away are truly setting us all up for real hardship. I'm all for a clean, net zero future, but it's going to take longer than a millenial's attention span. Right now the USA is trying to take it's most abundant and relatively clean fuel off the table- natural gas- without having the storage question answered. Big mistake!
I know that it’s Rondo, not “Brawndo”, but every time you say it all I hear is, “Brawndo has what plants crave!”
i think the more types of storage system the better, we should be tapping into everything. of course i think these systems would be better used in colder climates.
Great as long as all the details are considered and complications avoided. Being simple can remain a complicated problem if thermal or contamination issues are missed.
Good video as always Matt!
Interesting and fun you use an aerial shot of Blast Furnaces 6 & 7 at Tata Steel in IJmuiden where I work.
There are actually "Windverhitters" or Hot Blast Stoves that are first heated by process gasses and some natural gas, and then cooled by air which feeds the Blast Furnaces.
And coke is used to reduce the iron ore, and in the process of making coke from coal, gas is produced that, with other proces gasses, is used to make electricity and steam, to power the site.
We do recuperate a lot of energy, mostly to heat our buildings and water, central town heating was considered, but sadly never rolled out...
Now we are transitioning to Hydrogen, and have a brand new 380KV station almost on site to bring in power from new offshore wind farms, we will be connected directly to that.
The six 120m axis height wind turbines in the back came on grid in 2022, but are not ours.
Also some byproducts are used as building materials, especially the sharp sand that forms when quenching slag from the Blast Furnaces, goes directly to the neighbor cement factory. That factory doesn't produce their own cinder though.
I believe how more simple the technoligy, the less things can be broken. So keep it simple as possible.
People have been doing this in houses. You make your couch out of cob, and run the heat from the wood stove through it.
Good show.
Similar technology has been used in the glass industry for a long time, we call them checker packs, the structure they are in are called regenerators, the exhaust of the furnace goes through them, heats up then we switch directions and the intake combustion air comes through the checker packs to get preheated. Saves absolutely tons of gas
High efficiency in storing and converting the most primal form of energy. It is so simplistic that it is amazing It wasn't thought until now. I would really lile to work on this field
i can agree these systems work, I have had a system similar to this running at my house here in alaska for 7 years, my temps are running closer to 180f we have almost 24hour daylight and no heat load in the summer so I am storing the energy in a rock battery. this caries my heat loads for months into the winter and preheats my domestic hot water year round. it has offset my gas bill by around 50%
This Technology is absolutely amazing. It has the capability of change the future of so many different industries. I look forward to being able to continue to work with companies like this. Being an electrician by trade and to be involved in change the future is absolutely awesome. We will be able to tell our grandchildren that we worked on these first units as they continue to change the future.
Sun doesnt always shine, wind doesnt always blow... but people do. How can we harness that?
I love the simplicity of the traditional heating element, but there may be even more efficiency to be tapped by using heat pumps. This would also increase the complexity and maintenance, but depending on the scale it should work.
i anticipate the problem with storing high enough temps to melt steel is simply a materials science issue, cause with that much energy, exotic materials will be required to keep everything safe and functional.
this thing will be great.. we can integrate the battery with newly built home, just place it at basement or under the basement.. looking forward for this tech in the future..
In 1976 I was working with a company that was building solar furnaces to heat homes. I was designing and building the electronic controls for the furnace. A blower ran air over the solar collector and then over the stones which were used for storage. The stones were simple cobble, available from most gravel and sand suppliers. The project was not a success, frankly, I believe because it was simply ahead of its time.
It sounds very worthwhile.
Thanks Matt, Just went and bought BNRG stock. its a great investment for sure.
Also things like Rocket MASS heaters for your home where you burn wood or pellets in the heater, these style of heaters are VERY efficient, there is only a small amount of fine ash left after the burn. The outlet from the fire box goes through a Mass of rock, gravel bricks etc, which warms up via latent heat, and that mass stays warm for 30 to 40 hours after the fire has gone out, It is a great Idea but a lot of people don't know about them. Too many people today only want heaters that plug into a wall outlet, or are built-in reverse cycle air conditioners.
Thanks for another great video! I love Thermal Energy Storage systems. It's always better when you have the laws of physics on your side - and it's far more efficient to make and store heat in a central location, then move it to where it's needed, than continually burning fuel every time you want heat.
Fun fact, I learned recently that we already have these things in many old homes here in Germany (Nachtspeicherheizung, night storage heating), some single room units working with bricks and going up to 650°C.
Used before the 70s at night to level out demand. Fell out of favour hard (through I see them a lot in real estate ads for cheaper houses). It would be easy to repurpose these for the times that the grid is at negative energy prices due to wind. Through legal and slow companies are in the way.
A very fun video to watch,....tHanks to the whole crew which put it together!
Storing heat like this could have so many small-mid scale uses. Imagine an airport being able to cheaply heat their runways and taxiways so ice/snow aren't issues anymore?
I love watching videos of technology that will never make it out of the prototype stage
There are some obvious flaws in these systems.
First, the electricity must be converted to heat the massive stone\brick storage.
It would take less energy to convert the electricity into heat direct used by the receiver.
Second, heat retention in the medium is not permanent and energy is lost by the process of thermal transfer.
Third, it will take more energy to transfer the heat from the medium than it would to convert the original electricity to a direct heating source.
Lastly, the space needed to provide enough medium to retain enough heat is extremely large.
You could sink waste heat from _anything_ into warming scrap steel being fed into recycling furnances.
Thanks for this, never heard of/ thought about thermal batteries. Very cool!
A good measurement of our civilization is by how hot and how cold we can keep something and for how long. If we can master plasma and get fusion power going would be pretty huge.
Most of Steel's CO2 emissions come from production of virgin steel, from both mining and the actual process of manufacturing steel, by pushing oxygen into the iron, and emitting co2.
Production of virgin steel is unnecessary if you just need STEEL, but virgin steel is required for the most part to mix with recycled steel to get highly precise alloy mixes. It is very difficult to get certain elements out of an alloy with steel, so recycled steel is usually mixed with virgin steel to balance out the proportions of contaminants from the recycled steel.
What's needed here, definitely is MASS carbon capture, as virgin steel making largely HAS to produce co2 with the current processes. But the bonus of steel is that it is done in an enclosed facility, unlike concrete (though the production of clinker can also be carbon captured, but most poured concrete emits co2 too).
There are interesting alternatives though, as steel can apparently be made with hydrogen without co2 production. Swedish company Hybrit created green steel this way. If hydrogen becomes much cheaper, then this form of virgin steel production might take over completely. We can only hope.
But the use of heat batteries could definitely help metalmaking as an industry be more efficient in its energy use, even if entirely run on electricity.
A brick battery is just another name for a storage heater. They have been in use for a century or more.
My grandmother used to put a brick in the oven, during the day, and then remove it, wrap it in a piece of blanket, and pop it into the bed to warm the bed up.
My neighbour has one in her lounge. It's just a stack of bricks in a sheet metal box, with electric elements passed through it.
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