World's first 'sand battery' can store heat at 500C for months at a time.

False. Maximum power transfer occurs when the load impedance matches the source impedance. That means at best you are at 50% efficiency.

 

totally disagree with you, but why argue? Your false argument just argues in favor of what I am trying to argue.

If it's a very short distance there is no loss. (If the heat battery is right next to the solar panels)

If load impedance does not match the source, and assuming there is no transmission loss, then no energy is lost. (true for DC. AC is a little more complicated but still theoretically true)

 

it's temporary, but your right, the back end has to change too, not just what's under the hood. but there has to be early adopters.... the first gas powered cars were not prefect either as the infrastructure was not there.... and remember the 'lead' in the gas

 

Solar power is a great way to power these heat batteries, if the sun's energy is directly absorbed as heat.
If on the other hand you plan to convert the sun's energy into electricity, then convert that electricity into heat, then think you will be able to harness that heat to turn back into electric power, the whole thing is not such a good idea.

 

I think one of the more interesting aspects of the Noor complex is that it includes 3 different designs.

Noor 1 is a trough mirror design with molten salt used to add 3 hours of operation.
Noor 2 is a trough mirror design with molten salt used to add 7 hours of operation.
Noor 3 is a tower collector system with moving mirrors. It extends hours of operation by 7.
Noor 4 is photovoltaic.

The sites using mirrors require a combined 3 million cubic meters of water a year for cooling and washing mirrors - high pressure water plus scrubbing with brushes.

None of them store electric power.

It might be interesting to compare the construction costs, production, etc. of each of these designs.

China also has sites that are photovoltaic and sites that are mirror/boiler. I don't know what their conclusion has been concerning future investment. That would be interesting, as they are ahead of the rest of the world in clean energy design (as measured by patents).

 

Yes, the "Noor complex" includes a "heat battery" built in to the design.

The molten salt can be stored in a tank.

 

I loved your post, but have to disagree with the coal comment.

Coal use is shrinking as a component of the US energy strategy. Today, coal is 22% and shrinking. Natural gas is 38% and growing.

Renewables (including hydro) is 21% and growing - in fact, growing faster than the total growth in US energy use. Nuclear is 19%, static for a long time.

Natural gas is a cheaper AND cleaner way of producing electricity than is coal.

Natural gas is also cleaner than cracking oil to make gasoline and diesel and then burning that in the nation's transportation system, where technology for cleaning tailpipe emissions is seriously limited by size and cost.

2/3 of our oil use goes to transportation. We could make a HUGE dent in our oil consumption, which would be a positive outcome in terms of air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, national security and public health, which is not only expensive for individuals and government entities, but surely should be considered a moral responsibility.

 

That's good, BUT at the Noor site it doesn't store power or heat even just to the next day.

Some other use of the molten salt idea might be proposed, but remember that it is storing heat, and one must assume the Noor plant is using that heat efficiently.

 

Nuclear is just too expensive and too slow to build.
We have just had planning approved for a third reactor at nearby Sizewell. It took about 10 years to get past the planners and that's where there are 2 already running. No one wants one in their backyard and they cost £23 billion to build.
We could run out of easily available uranium in 70 years at current usage anyway.
At best nuclear is a stopgap while renewables catch up with demand but really it's a dead end with a small risk of a nasty accident as a bonus.

 

Wow - that's a wake up call for me.

 

£23 billion is a lot of Noors.
You could build 60 Noors quicker for the same money.

 

There are passive solar house design principles that include mass on the interior behind windows facing the sun.

https://sustainability.williams.edu/green-building-basics/passive-solar-design/

I'd bet ancient peoples had this figured out, though probably not with the glass. ME architecture has long known how heat works.


There are lots of things we could do to create less need for energy. We just haven't had to care. One of the selling points for the (failed) WPPSS nuclear project was that we wouldn't have to worry about buying insulation anymore!! Today, insulation is the cheapest form of energy.

 

Well, there is always plutonium. Won't run out of that. They don't like giving that to the Third World though because it's a lot easier to concentrate to make weapons.

 

To be fair, one nuclear plant produces 20 times more energy than a Noor.

At the Noor plant electric power costs 0.28 per kWh, whereas nuclear power usually costs about 0.30

But remember, the cost at the Noor plant is lower because they are in a desert with clear skies.

 

It's a lot more expensive here. It's £87 a mWh which if I've got my decimal point in the right place is 87p per kWh, about a dollar.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/new-nuclear-power-in-uk-would-be-the-worlds-most-costly-says-report/

 

They're probably exaggerating to try to make their point, and everything is more expensive in some countries.

Also remembered that mWh is 1000 times more than a kWh.

 

8.7p then?
I guess that's more like it.
We pay about 35-40p a kWh at the meter since the price hike.
New build gas is 6p a kWh according to the link.

 

Yes, nuclear is the highest cost electricity. I don't know of a reason for that to change.

I hear that coal plants have to pencil out in 20 years to be attractive as an investment.

I don't know what the financial situation is for nuclear plants. This can have a bearing on what the plant has to charge. Nuclear plants are said to last 60 years, so if they have to pencil out in 20 years, that might complicate the financial analysis - requiring front loading of the payout and maybe not representing the total lifetime benefit of the plant???

Wind and solar are getting cheaper, as they are relatively new technology and are getting the benefit of manufacturing experience and science investment.

Interestingly, there are 15 new nuclear plants being built in China for a planned total of 14 gigawatts. The Diablo Canyon nuclear plant produces a little over 2 gigawatts, so these plants in China might be small. Are small nuclear plants a financial advantage??

 

Won’t run out of uranium anytime soon - all we have to do is re-open Mary Kathleen


drain it first of course

But Thorium looks a better option anyway

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

 

We'll never run out of uranium. there's an estimated 4.5 billion tons of in the sea.
Extracting it at 3 parts per billion is too expensive with current technology though.
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...eas are estimated to,than mining it from rock.
Thorium seems like one of those things they've been talking about for decades.

 

True. Oceans have 180 billion tons of lithium that would be great for batteries. And, that is WAY more concentrated than thorium.

We just don't have a way to extract that, either.

(I wonder what's going to happen when humans figure out how to change the chemistry of our oceans.)

 

Every solution brings its own problems.
You can understand why people would rather just ignore it.

 

Ultimately we are going to need some kind of global power grid to get solar power across time zones to where it's needed.
The sun is shining on the planet 24hrs a day.
Global is a taboo word with a lot of people these days though.

 

I'm not sure why every building being built doesn't include solar.

Today in the USA there are companies that will put solar on your home for FREE if they can share in the cost savings on electricity.