Battery Let MIT Solve The Energy Storage Issue

[MEXICOWANDERER]

I spent one cold winter in Cambridge fifty years ago. Besides immersing myself in electromagnetic studies I learned when the lads and professors challenge a stumbling block they consume it from the inside out.

This is the (sole) existing answer for mass scale energy storage until a functional hohlraum can support fusion emission without distortion or collapse.

For automotive use? Maybe but molten metals in a miniaturization format would be a further challenge. I can easily see the MIT product delivering to a small self contained grid

GO BEAVERS !!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImqmMOkANgg

[pnichols]

Well ... all over the world where there are canyons and when/where upper and lower reservoirs can be built into them - and when/where evaporation can be replenished in those reservoirs as needed ... has always seemed to me to be best for energy storage in that it duplicates Mother Nature's energy storage method. Pump those reservoirs full using renewable energy when it's available, and then drain them through turbines to generate electricity when renewable energy isn't available.

That approach for massive energy storage sure seems "simply the best way" to me - when things get desperate enough for mankind to become really serious about the need.

Of course transporting the resulting electricity all over the world to places where there aren't any canyons - preferrably without using wires - probaby still requires massive electromagnetic wave research.

[agesilaus]

As for the stored molten salt reservoir the efficiency would be low. Efficiency in a conventional steam plant and this molten salt plant are is governed by the temp difference between the high and low temps. In a conventional superheated steam plant the steam can be hotter than 1100 deg F and is cooled in the condenser to less than 100 deg F. That's about a 1000 deg F temp difference. This molten salt plant operates between 500 deg F and somewhere around 300 deg F. You cannot allow the salt to solidify because you couldn't pump it back out to the solar collectors. So a 200 deg F temp difference, on fifth what a conventional steam plant gets.

Where engineers worry about a couple of degrees of temp loss affecting plant efficiency 800 deg is just silly.

They are using a mix of Sodium and Potassium Nitrates apparently spiked with some Ca(NO3)2 to reduce the melting temp. Those nitrates are strong oxidizers (think gunpowder which is 75% nitrates) and the effect of 500 degree molten nitrate hitting a blob of spilled grease could be very exciting.

I suspect those hot salts would be corrosive and heck on the machinery lifespan too unless you construct the plant out of exotic and very expensive alloys like Carpenter 20 or Inconel.

Just because they built a prototype does not mean it is an economically feasible idea. They have built several prototype solar highway project, which is a completely stupid idea. And these prototypes do produce some tiny amount of power but are completely economically a failure. And that shows that these people who are religiously bonded to this renewable energy stupidity are absolutely immune to logic. The engineers who signed off on those projects should lose their licenses.

[pianotuna]

I still like the li that I found which can be recharged at -30 C and used from -50 to +60 C.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Beats having an interstate.

The real answer is fusion but that makes molten material seem like Play Doh

[agesilaus]

Here is the iron chemistry battery that I mentioned above. You can see that it is a pumped solution battery, liquid-liquid. And only suitable for large stationary applications. They only claim better longevity and recharge times.

You'd have to be crazy, IMO, to have a molten anything in your vehicle.

[Big_Katuna]

On a large scale, I like the molten salt solar array model. The solar array turns salt into lava which can stay molten for up to two weeks without sun. It heats coils to create steam which drives an off the shelf steam turbine.

The salt breaks down in X number of years and is used to make fertilizer.

There is a working prototype in NV.

Clicky link

[agesilaus]

There will never be a super-miracle battery. As you know batteries are governed by redox laws
, the Nernst Equation for one and there is a theoretic limit on battery performance. And that is around 2X what we have now IIRC. There are some papers on the web addressing this.

Secondly what MIT is doing is making lab demo devices. You know a couple of beakers with different solutions wired together. There is a huge gap between a benchtop demo and a production line and you probably know that better than I do.

And MIT and others, especially the Japanese schools, have been announcing wonder batteries for years now. We don't see any of them at the store when we go looking for some AA's. Why do they do this? Profs live by their research grants, wonder battery announcements equal research grant money. Period. Follow the money every time. I did see some new iron chemistry battery making it to the market. It is claimed to be an improvement over lithium but time will tell.