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If Li-ion can be put in cars, armor-plated and cooled, for $100/KWh, I don't get why anyone thinks that something with lower power/energy density requirements (like the EOS zinc battery) can't support an adequately buffered grid at a substantially lower cost. IMHO, Duke building a 20 GWh storage facility with some renewable offtake agreements is a far more effective use of their massive endowment and engineering prowess.
Purdue and Duke Energy to explore potential for SMR nuclear power source for campus
Purdue University and Duke Energy plan to explore the feasibility of using advanced nuclear energy to meet the campus community’s long-term energy needs. With interest rising worldwide in new technologies that are reliable and carbon-free, Purdue and Duke Energy intend to study power produced th...
This may trickle down to the average John Doe in terms of "light-weighting [and] innovative chassis structures". The traditional mass-market companies are all pushing to market on their existing chassis (the E-Hummer for crying out loud!) but at some point the economics of a lighter car will be overwhelming.
DEUS electric hypercar concept made debut at New York show; Williams Advanced Engineering & Italdesign
The DEUS Vayanne production-oriented electric hypercar concept made its world debut last week at the New York International Auto Show. DEUS Automobiles was established in Vienna, Austria, in 2020. Vayanne is the result of the three-way collaboration between DEUS Automobiles, Italdesign, an...
So does it exceed "neat o-ring swelling" in a good way or a bad way?
New lignin-based jet fuel blend component opens way for 100% drop-in SAF
Researchers from the University of Dayton, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Natural Resources Canada have generated a lignin-based jet fuel (LJF) blend component composed of mostly C6–C18 mono-, di-, and tri-cycloalkanes. The product could complement five existing sustainable avi...
There's a lot of press and hype around nuclear these days, but all this is vaporware. The molten salt reactors are plausible but there is no vast body of long term data about the materials of the containment vessels. The competing tech is coming up with a decent grid scale battery to buffer ridiculously cheap renewables and make them dispatchable. I'd say the latter is by far the lighter technical lift. Relatively complex Li-ion is headed under$100/KWh since sufficient demand appeared. Zinc batteries should beat that handily.
Samsung Heavy and Seaborg to develop floating nuclear power plant combined with hydrogen and ammonia plants
Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) and Seaborg signed a partnership agreement to develop floating nuclear power plants based on Seaborg’s inherently safe Compact Molten Salt Reactor (CMSR). The floating nuclear power plant comes as a turn-key product, ready to be moored at an industrial harbor. ...
Ramping up sustainable jet fuel seems to be the lighter technical lift than cryo-tanks and altered jet engines. That can get you to carbon neutral. NOX abatement can also be enhanced since you have more control of the feedstocks than you do with petroleum refining. I would guess jet manufacturers and their customers would far prefer the former than the latter. Capital is cowardly and 'drop-in replacement' is a comforting phrase.
Airbus and CFM collaborating on hydrogen combustion demonstration program
Airbus has signed a partnership agreement with CFM International, a 50/50 joint company between GE and Safran Aircraft Engines, to collaborate on a hydrogen demonstration program that will take flight around the middle of this decade. The program’s objective is to ground- and flight-test a di...
I imagine the panels are heavier but if the mean time between failure is high enough, this is flirting with viability for some PV farms.
New NREL-led consortium seeks to lower heliostat cost 50% and jump-start manufacturing in US
The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), joined by partners at Sandia National Laboratories and the Australian Solar Thermal Research Institute, launched the Heliostat Consortium (HelioCon), an international effort to drive down the cost of heliostats. ...
Engineer-Poet, I think we are talking about different things here.
Can I presume from your "I TOLD YOU SO" line that you felt the that the NEM agreements would come to tears since the economics were bound to go sideways at some point? I certainly concur. I also see these NEM programs (essentially an offtake guarantee) as a small example of the greatest challenge to a renewable-friendly grid being the current structure of local operators and their place as issuers of (really really close to) safe assets. I can't see it happening without the Fed buying all the existing bonds and even then , I don't see the local operators going away without a fight. The only certainty is that everyone will accuse everyone else of being a Socialist.
So I stand by my assertion that in the grand scheme of the national green grid of tomorrow, the Solar Rollout 1.0 effectively did no more than lease roof space
I also can't agree that batteries will be too expensive to perform adequate buffering for the grid though they may be so today. It's like Amory Lovins said back when "Fuel cells are expensive because they're all hand-made by PhDs". If Li-ion, with its heat management and density requirements can drop under $100/KWh at the pack level, I can't imagine zinc or flow batteries shouldn't beat that handily.
CPUC proposes revising Net Energy Metering rules to push customers to install storage with rooftop solar
For more than 20 years, California has aggressively supported the rooftop solar market through its Net Energy Metering (NEM) program in Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE), and San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) territories. NEM allows customers who ge...
IMHO, the whole policy of ownership was a political stunt founded more in Libertarian derp than any kind of sound engineering or economics. What's really happening is that the utility is using someones roof to put up PV. If they just said this up front and paid rent, this debate would be moot. Instead, they created this Kabuki theater around a private chunk of infrastructure and hilarity ensures.
One can make the case for outlying areas, but the demographic trend is to urbs and burbs. Utilities have to build for the worst, meaning they need to be able to back up all the "private" capacity. Also, given the option, most people would rather not own extra hardware. In many urban areas, it's thoroughly impractical. The consumer view of "electricity comes from the wall" is a preferred and workable illusion.
A grid built on intermittent renewables is bound to have a large amount of storage to act as buffers. All the economies of scale (e.g. redundance, maintenance, upgrades)
argue for the utilities to worry about banking and dispatching excess.
CPUC proposes revising Net Energy Metering rules to push customers to install storage with rooftop solar
For more than 20 years, California has aggressively supported the rooftop solar market through its Net Energy Metering (NEM) program in Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE), and San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) territories. NEM allows customers who ge...
Certainly sounds like Quantumscape is not living up to the hype.
Volkswagen Group and 24M Technologies to partner on next-gen EV battery manufacturing; investment and subsidiary
Volkswagen Group and 24M Technologies have entered into a strategic partnership to manufacture next-generation lithium-ion EV batteries using the 24M SemiSolid platform. The goal is to industrialize the 24M technology, a semi-solid process that is an improvement over the dry coating process (ea...
I'm stuck on the "80% of 45%" number. Is that all-in cost to deliver a m^3 to the buyer? Bloom's genius is having discovered how to use rust instead of platinum with the aid of good thermal management. I can see how they could use a CS plant that's already built to their advantage, but as renewables are so dirt cheap these days, it seems that soon the cost of extra electricity will be less than building a relatively complex CS plant.
Heliogen and Bloom Energy demonstrate production of low-cost green hydrogen; concentrated solar and high-temp electrolysis
Heliogen and Bloom Energy have successfully demonstrated the production of green hydrogen by integrating the companies’ technologies: Heliogen’s concentrated solar energy system and the Bloom Electrolyzer. Heliogen’s AI-enabled concentrated solar energy system is designed to create carbon-fre...
Any word on the battery size and composition? Commuter planes are expected to get back in the air as quickly as possible.
Wright Electric to develop electric 100-passenger aircraft for one-hour regional flights
Wright Electric, Inc. (earlier post) is adding a new member to its planned family of zero-emissions aircraft for the commercial market—the Wright Spirit will incorporate Wright’s megawatt-class electric propulsion system and serve the 100-passenger market for one-hour flights. The Wright Sp...
I don't get it. Solar panels and wind turbines are not impervious surfaces, and you don't put them in major cities. As a New Mexico resident, let me say that we can easily accommodate the 50K sq km to generate 1TW on land fit to grow only the scrubbiest of scrub and vinegaroons.
Study suggests widespread use of EVs may negatively impact land use
In an open-access study published in the journal Sustainable Cities and Society, Francesco Orsi, of the Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning Group, Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands, suggests that widespread adoption of electric vehicles may have a negative impact on land ...
Rather than bewail the terror of woke-ism, I'll go back to a paleo-con talking point: This is a wrong-headed demand side approach rather than a clearly superior supply side approach. To start I will assert that grid-storage is a far lighter technical lift than (e.g.) SMRs. An HVDC scaffold buffered with a ample storage, fueled by very cheap solar from the Southwest deserts and the Texas-to-North Dakota wind corridor (less appealingly known as "Tornado Alley"), and buried along the sides of the Interstates is IMHO the more obvious choice.
DOE seeking public input regarding “energysheds”
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a request for information (RFI) (DE-FOA-0002548) regarding the concept of an “energyshed” and energyshed management systems. Given that the term “energyshed” is relatively new, DOE is seeking feedback on its concept and definition, as well as its appl...
I see several articles but none mention power output. Has anyone seen anything?
Aquarius Engines unveils free-piston linear engine operating on 100% hydrogen
Israel-based Aquarius Engines unveiled a hydrogen-fueled version of its free-piston linear engine new hydrogen engine. The 10kg machine, based on the same technology as the original patented single-piston linear engine, operates exclusively on hydrogen. The new Aquarius Hydrogen Engine’s light...
If Moselle's projected cost that beats the incumbent "evaporation of Chilean lakes", this would bust open the geothermal/wastewater lithium resource. Of course, as a New Mexico resident, I would be remiss not to mention that this idea was stolen from Wile Coyote's attempt to bind steel pellets with a roadrunner and extract it using an Acme magnet.
PNNL, Moselle to advance using magnetic nanoparticles to capture lithium, cesium from brines
by Mike Millikin The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and its licensee Moselle Technologies, have won two Cooperative Research and Development Awards (CRADA) and a 2021 DOE Advanced Manufacturing Office award to advance the process of using magnetic nanoparticles for capturing...
This development looks to me like Musk playing Gates' game at Microsoft: "omnipresent, good enough, and cheaper for a reasonable time into the future": with the aqueous electrolyte 18650 cells upon which he has bet so heavily. It looks like the other auto-makers are looking at 2025 for solid-state batteries but if Tesla is in the market with something nearly as good but much cheaper, he can squeeze them out.
XING Mobility partners with Castrol to deliver advanced, immersion-cooled battery systems for EVs
XING Mobility and Castrol, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BP p.l.c., are partnering to develop XING Mobility’s immersion cooling battery technology further, utilizing Castrol’s advanced thermal management fluid to deliver power and safety to the EV market. Immersion cooling in EVs is considered...
And here is the buried lede "hydrogen engines also have the potential to relay the fun of driving, including through sounds and vibrations, Toyota says." This is why electric motorcycle engines will never make it into Harleys. For certain classes of vehicle, NVH is a feature, not a bug.
Toyota developing hydrogen combustion engine technologies through motorsports
Toyota Motor Corporation is developing a hydrogen combustion engine in an effort to move toward a carbon-neutral mobility society. It has installed the engine—a 1.6L in-line three-cylinder turbo with intercooler—on a racing vehicle based on Toyota’s Corolla Hatchback, which it will enter in comp...
I've been reading about the Prieto battery on this site for over a decade. It's great to see that they came through the 'entrepreneurial valley of death' and are on the verge of going commercial. The website doesn't give a Wh/kg energy density but says that the copper foam is 98% air and has an energy density of 650 Wh/l, so at 9kg/L, I guess a 65 kWh battery needs around 18 kg of copper.
Hercules EV opens $20M Series A round; targeting electric pickup in late 2022; Prieto solid-state batteries
Hercules Electric Vehicles—a Detroit-based startup—is opening a $20-million Series A investment round managed by CMD Global Partners, a boutique investment bank. Hercules is developing an all-electric sport pickup truck, the Hercules Alpha, which will be available in late 2022. Hercules expects ...
I'm dubious about the commercial prospects. I suspect that a healthy chunk of NVH is considered a crucial feature, not a bug, to most motorcycle enthusiasts.
Project Triumph TE-1 electric powertrain, battery and styling sketches revealed with conclusion of Phase 2
With the conclusion of Phase 2 of the project, the Triumph TE-1 partners—Triumph Motorcycles, Williams Advanced Engineering, Integral Powertrain Ltd, and WMG at the University of Warwic—have revealed the battery, powertrain, and design sketches for the electric motorcycle concept. The project is...
Cuberg 's website says their liquid electrolyte is "non-flammable", so that seems the be the buried lede. Usually liquid electrolytes the imply limits on fast-charging and the need for strong temperature control and fire-proofing,
Northvolt acquires US Li-metal battery company Cuberg; next-gen battery cells for electromobility
European battery-maker Northvolt has acquired Cuberg, a US-based battery technology company delivering high-performance lithium-metal cells produced on existing lithium-ion manufacturing lines for electromobility solutions. Cuberg spun out of Stanford University in 2015 with the goal of comme...
A lightweight genset good enough for a pure electric-drive hybrid was a Holy Grail back in the day. Jaguar built a supercar using a pair of 35kW Bladon jets for the purpose, and I was fond of the MSU Wave Disc concept - https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2009/10/wave-disc-engines.html . Since the engines only had to charge the battery ergo could spin at a single optimized speed, turbines suggested themselves. These days, this would seem like a 'plan B' bet against fast charging solid-state batteries. Without range anxiety, what's the market for a range extender? TBT, I'm a happy owner of a Honda Clarity PHEV.
Nissan reaches 50% thermal efficiency with next-generation e-POWER system; STARC
Nissan announced a breakthrough in engine efficiency, reaching 50% thermal efficiency with its in-development, next-generation e-POWER system. Nissan’s e-POWER system utilizes an on-board gasoline engine to provide electrical energy to the e-powertrain battery pack. Nissan’s latest approach t...
They should market it in the US as the E(h?)-car.
Canadian company AK Motor International introduces new EV brand: Maple Majestic
Canada-based AK Motor International Corporation, an automotive intellectual property management company, is launching a new electric vehicle brand: Maple Majestic. Arising from AK Motor’s project CANU (Canadian Automotive New Utilities), Maple Majestic is intended to excel in difficult environme...
I don't get the sudden deluge of hydrogen news is. It's very hard to conceive that cryogenic hydrogen is being considered for any kind of broad storage deployment. F'rinstance the relative benefit of cryogenic hydrogen vs metal hydrides was pretty well demonstrated between Ivy Mike and Castle Bravo in the early 50's.
McDermott awarded liquid hydrogen storage study
McDermott International’s CB&I Storage Solutions business has been awarded a study by a leading natural gas producer to research opportunities to expand current liquid hydrogen storage capacity limits. CB&I Storage Solutions specializes in field-erected spherical cryogenic hydrogen storage an...
Did anything become of the burnt chicken feathers? https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/display.highlight/abstract/9002/report/F
Westport Fuel Systems & Scania partner on direct-injected hydrogen engine research project
Westport Fuel Systems will begin a research project with Scania to apply an HPDI 2.0 fuel system with hydrogen to the latest Scania commercial vehicle engine. Preliminary test results are expected in the second half of 2021. Our specialty is working with gaseous fuels. Hydrogen use in an intern...
When did liquefying and storing hydrogen become cheap and lightweight?
Airbus exploring hydrogen fuel cell propellor “pods” for aircraft propulsion
Airbus is conducting studies to determine how scalable a hydrogen fuel cell “pod” configuration, among others, could be to large commercial aircraft. The aviation industry has developed numerous configurations—twinjet, s-duct, winglets, contra-rotating propellers—over the last five decades that...
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