Why we need new technology!

CALLD
CALLD Solar Expert Posts: 230 ✭✭
Batteries are rubbish! Even the best ones on the market. They hold very little energy for their size and weight when compared to gasoline and other chemical fuels. If you could match the energy contained in your batteries with that contained in the same weight of oil you could get rid of 99% of your battery bank!

Other types of energy storage, kinetic energy like pumped storage and flywheels are even worse. For me to store the 6 or 7kwh of energy my panels can produce on the best day of the year I would need to lift at least 300tons of water through 10meters of height, or speed up a 2 ton flywheel to tens of thousands of RPM!

Someone needs to come up with something better seriously! We are living in 2014. We have all this technology, Smartphones, 4G, supercomputers, Large Hadron collides and the list goes on. But when it comes to storing energy we have hardly moved on since the 19th century.

I'll admit I probably don't have the brains to do it or even help. I'm merely good enough for a rant about it.

But I'd love to hear about anything that looks promising, even if it's the hyped-up scams - I know the moderators will sniff them out pretty quickly but it would still be fun to see what people are claiming!

Comments

  • 2twisty
    2twisty Solar Expert Posts: 199 ✭✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!

    You could always get one of those bedini "free energy" things.

    :rolleyes:
  • CALLD
    CALLD Solar Expert Posts: 230 ✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    2twisty wrote: »
    You could always get one of those bedini "free energy" things.

    :rolleyes:

    Hahaha yes I loved that one! I slept in the dog box the night my wife came home from work all excited telling me she'd heard about some amazing magnetic energy generator that could solve all our problems. I promptly googled it and when I shot it down she was mad at me for being such a sceptic...

    Anyway, what can we do? I like to think there must be something out there we just aren't seeing. It takes a lot of energy to heat something up, much more still to get it to change phase for example. I like to imagine heating up some exotic material to ridiculously high temperatures in a heavily insulated tank, then having a highly efficient converter turning that stored heat directly into electricity in return. I know thermocouples aren't that good but still, it's a dream. For those who haven't heard about thermocouples before think of them as "solar panels that use heat instead of light". They are used in RTG's for long distance space probes to turn heat from a decaying radioactive material into usable electricity. They are very inefficient though achieving less than 10%. The problem is the flow of heat requires that the cold side must heat up too thus wasting the heat. In a hypothetical 100% efficient thermocouple all the heat would be turned into electricity meaning that the cold side would stay cold even without any cooling device attached, it would essentially replace the need to insulate the tank as the thermoelectric generator would do that job. But sadly the technology doesn't exist yet.

    And why is this such a crazy dream? Because a hypothetical thermoelectric device that operates at very high efficiency would also revolutionize the entire energy world making current thermal power plants, internal combustion engines and even PV obsolete...
  • mryimmers
    mryimmers Solar Expert Posts: 117 ✭✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    CALLD wrote: »
    Batteries are rubbish! Even the best ones on the market. They hold very little energy for their size and weight when compared to gasoline and other chemical fuels. If you could match the energy contained in your batteries with that contained in the same weight of oil you could get rid of 99% of your battery bank!

    Other types of energy storage, kinetic energy like pumped storage and flywheels are even worse. For me to store the 6 or 7kwh of energy my panels can produce on the best day of the year I would need to lift at least 300tons of water through 10meters of height, or speed up a 2 ton flywheel to tens of thousands of RPM!

    Someone needs to come up with something better seriously! We are living in 2014. We have all this technology, Smartphones, 4G, supercomputers, Large Hadron collides and the list goes on. But when it comes to storing energy we have hardly moved on since the 19th century.

    I'll admit I probably don't have the brains to do it or even help. I'm merely good enough for a rant about it.

    But I'd love to hear about anything that looks promising, even if it's the hyped-up scams - I know the moderators will sniff them out pretty quickly but it would still be fun to see what people are claiming!


    That's why the world is addicted to oil.
    510 watt pv, TS-MPPT 60, Exeltech XP1100, XP600 & XP250 @ 24V, 4x Trojan 105RE, Trimetric 2030, Yamaha EF2400i gen.
  • Photowhit
    Photowhit Solar Expert Posts: 6,002 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    mryimmers wrote: »
    That's why the world is addicted to oil.

    ...and even the most limited estimates I've seen say we've used 30% of the worlds oil reserves, most in the last 60years.

    We'll all get our 'flying cars' just when the oil runs out...

    Something to consider is that my mom's boy friend lived in a house with a dirt floor in the 30's, I can't recall if they got a floor or electric first. electric was mainly a few lights. If we were content with a few lights, solar would be pretty easy.
    Home system 4000 watt (Evergreen) array standing, with 2 Midnite Classic Lites,  Midnite E-panel, Magnum MS4024, Prosine 1800(now backup) and Exeltech 1100(former backup...lol), 660 ah 24v Forklift battery(now 10 years old). Off grid for 20 years (if I include 8 months on a bicycle).
    - Assorted other systems, pieces and to many panels in the closet to not do more projects.
  • CALLD
    CALLD Solar Expert Posts: 230 ✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    mryimmers wrote: »
    That's why the world is addicted to oil.

    So True!

    I suppose we humans put ourselves under far too much pressure to be as efficient as possible. Nature doesn't really bother that much. Photosynthesis is content with 3-6% vs PV's 10-20% (>40% in Lab). Metabolism isn't much more impressive either converting most of the food's energy into waste heat when exercising muscles. The sun itself is a pretty sluggish nuclear reactor focusing on longevity rather than furious speed, it's core producing energy at a rate more comparable to rotting vegetation than a nuclear bomb. The sun's brilliance is due to it's size rather than power density. Thus we were endowed with a massive star producing almost infinitely more energy than we as humans could ever need rather than a small, compact and powerful source we need to use as efficiently as possible for fear of it running out. If nature and indeed the universe was that concerned with energy efficiency there wouldn't be such a vast amount of out there simply racing around for the fun of it!

    Problem is here on earth there is a species who consider their intelligence a miracle and in their infinite wisdom concluded that the best thing to do is withdraw their energy from a finite bank account, then "cross that bridge when we get there" regarding the day it runs out...
  • KenZ71
    KenZ71 Solar Expert Posts: 58 ✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!

    I've found the mythical free energy, just have not figured out the implementation.

    What is it you ask? Convince the neighbors they need security lighting that spills over onto my solar panels. Have not had the chance to float the idea.


    Yes, I am kidding!

    Although if I hook up one of these in front of the TV and tell my kids no dinner until they produce some power I might find some "productive use" for their endless energy.
    http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://inhfblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/img_0496.jpg&imgrefurl=http://inhfblog.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/meet-the-bike-generator/&h=1936&w=2592&tbnid=iugvVwaDDYuvtM:&zoom=1&docid=sOQeCEvlLibKLM&ei=IzkHVLmRK9WqggT6s4HwDw&tbm=isch&client=ms-android-sprint-us
  • CALLD
    CALLD Solar Expert Posts: 230 ✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    KenZ71 wrote: »
    What is it you ask? Convince the neighbors they need security lighting that spills over onto my solar panels.

    Brilliant - I've pitched this idea to my local district council regarding the street lighting, but when I said nothing less than 100,000 lux on my roof would suffice they have me a very disapproving look...
  • PNjunction
    PNjunction Solar Expert Posts: 762 ✭✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    CALLD wrote: »
    Someone needs to come up with something better seriously!

    Have you read these:
    http://forum.solar-electric.com/forumdisplay.php?16-Solar-Energy-News-RSS-Feed

    Unfortunately, good ideas and actually bringing them to market are another issue. Some are locked up in labs solely for patent-troll issues / "NPE's non-producing-entities, investor bait, proprietary single-vendor lock-in, walled gardens, "green" feel-good sales demographics and the like.

    Others take the bull by the horns, and actually produce things and let the market decide.

    It is all very reminescent to me of the early software industry of vaporware or "any day now". Our forefathers a century ago would also have no problem recognizing the good and snake oil of today's environment. Talk is cheap.
  • AuricTech
    AuricTech Solar Expert Posts: 140 ✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    CALLD wrote: »
    And why is this such a crazy dream? Because a hypothetical thermoelectric device that operates at very high efficiency would also revolutionize the entire energy world making current thermal power plants, internal combustion engines and even PV obsolete...

    Of course, the breakthroughs that would allow high-efficiency thermoelectric devices would likely be matched by similar breakthroughs in PV panels.

    That would be a race I love to see.... :cool:
  • nsaspook
    nsaspook Solar Expert Posts: 396 ✭✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    CALLD wrote: »

    Someone needs to come up with something better seriously! We are living in 2014. We have all this technology, Smartphones, 4G, supercomputers, Large Hadron collides and the list goes on. But when it comes to storing energy we have hardly moved on since the 19th century.

    We have something better, it's called fission. With the energy density of nuclear reactors the absolute efficiency of storage becomes secondary to efficient distribution to meet the energy needs when RE sources fall short of demand. IMO the most we can see is just a incremental increase in storage technologies and generation efficiency at reasonable cost. There's just this ugly thing called thermodynamics that limits the efficiency of what's possible and no amount of handwaving or wishing is going to change that.
  • inetdog
    inetdog Solar Expert Posts: 3,123 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    nsaspook wrote: »
    We have something better, it's called fission. With the energy density of nuclear reactors the absolute efficiency of storage becomes secondary to efficient distribution to meet the energy needs when RE sources fall short of demand. IMO the most we can see is just a incremental increase in storage technologies and generation efficiency at reasonable cost. There's just this ugly thing called thermodynamics that limits the efficiency of what's possible and no amount of handwaving or wishing is going to change that.
    But, given the slow reaction time of nuclear to changes in loads, storage is still critical. And wasting half of the generated energy in a storage mechanism still doubles the generation (but not distribution) cost of that energy.
    SMA SB 3000, old BP panels.
  • nsaspook
    nsaspook Solar Expert Posts: 396 ✭✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    inetdog wrote: »
    But, given the slow reaction time of nuclear to changes in loads, storage is still critical. And wasting half of the generated energy in a storage mechanism still doubles the generation (but not distribution) cost of that energy.

    Sure storage systems are needed but having the ability to route baseload power to real-time demands at low cost reduces the storage efficiency requirements to something we could build on a large scale at reasonable cost. The storage of electicity requires the conversion of EM energy to some other form of KE or PE (gravity, chemical, rotational, ...) so that process will always be lossy/costly on a practical scale. For off-grid systems efficent storage is critical but like you say at the base-load utility level it's used as a load buffer to generation so storage size/availabity is more important than top efficiency.

    Time to fly.
  • westbranch
    westbranch Solar Expert Posts: 5,183 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    PNjunction wrote: »
    Have you read these:

    Unfortunately, good ideas and actually bringing them to market are another issue. Some are locked up in labs solely for patent-troll issues / "NPE's non-producing-entities, investor bait, proprietary single-vendor lock-in, walled gardens, "green" feel-good sales demographics and the like.

    and don't forget our 'industry' and its issues of 'cement feet' against solar... it happens when you have an old mature industry and it doesn't want to change....
     
    KID #51B  4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
    CL#29032 FW 2126/ 2073/ 2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3 x 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM 
    Cotek ST1500W 24V Inverter,OmniCharge 3024,
    2 x Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr & Bridge,
    Eu3/2/1000i Gens, 1680W & E-Panel/WBjr to come, CL #647 asleep
    West Chilcotin, BC, Canada
  • nsaspook
    nsaspook Solar Expert Posts: 396 ✭✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    westbranch wrote: »
    and don't forget our 'industry' and its issues of 'cement feet' against solar... it happens when you have an old mature industry and it doesn't want to change....

    Sure they don't want to change because it would decentralize power generation and they would lose control of the 'gold mine' but there are practical considerations. Our current grid is just not designed for decentralized power generation, we call it a grid but it's more of a tree grove with footpaths between groves in most areas. There is efficient energy distribution between main trunks and little capability to handle large power inputs in the branches. When they can make money in decentralized power it will happen quickly but most people today are making the IMO wise choice to wait a bit until the technology matures.

    Your best bang for buck is conservation and energy efficiency no matter what technology is used for generation.
  • westbranch
    westbranch Solar Expert Posts: 5,183 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!

    I agree heartily with the "when they can make money" part...

    a local example: we have thousands of acres of dead pine trees , from an infestation of Mountain Pine Beetles over the last 20 years or so. One of the considerations in a heavy fire year like this one. So one of the local Indian bands proposed a co generation plant to utilize the fiber before it fall over and rots.

    Issue: the 3 phase power line could not handle the minimum proposed power production needed to pay for the plant and BC Hydro is unwilling to pay to beef up the line. In one way I hope the proposed Copper/gold mine , currently rejected by the natives, will eventually get the green light and this power project can proceed.

    In my view this could be a win-win project...
     
    KID #51B  4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
    CL#29032 FW 2126/ 2073/ 2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3 x 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM 
    Cotek ST1500W 24V Inverter,OmniCharge 3024,
    2 x Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr & Bridge,
    Eu3/2/1000i Gens, 1680W & E-Panel/WBjr to come, CL #647 asleep
    West Chilcotin, BC, Canada
  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    westbranch wrote: »
    I agree heartily with the "when they can make money" part...

    a local example: we have thousands of acres of dead pine trees , from an infestation of Mountain Pine Beetles over the last 20 years or so. One of the considerations in a heavy fire year like this one. So one of the local Indian bands proposed a co generation plant to utilize the fiber before it fall over and rots.

    Issue: the 3 phase power line could not handle the minimum proposed power production needed to pay for the plant and BC Hydro is unwilling to pay to beef up the line. In one way I hope the proposed Copper/gold mine , currently rejected by the natives, will eventually get the green light and this power project can proceed.

    In my view this could be a win-win project...

    Nah, nuclear is much better 'cause you get all that radioactive waste you have to do something with.

    Uh, wait a minute ...

    This of us who live with BC Hydro are constantly amazed at their ability to switch between "good idea" and "bad idea" depending on which way the political wind blows.
  • nsaspook
    nsaspook Solar Expert Posts: 396 ✭✭✭
    Re: Why we need new technology!
    Nah, nuclear is much better 'cause you get all that radioactive waste you have to do something with.

    The problem with waste is not technical it's democratic (not the political party). People don't want it near them for good reason and remote sites are stopped because some people don't want it anywhere. In France they just dropped some cash to silence locals and mainly ignore the no-nuke resistance but even they are running into the 'we need more tests' delays for their deep repository.

    It would be nice to have a RE based energy supply but if we want to reduce fossil fuels usage during the 30 years until that might be possible fission is the best bridge technology to that point because I think that nuclear power helps the 'solar/wind' industry in the long run by allowing us time to build a robust RE infrastructure while at the same time supporting present needs.

    http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/France/