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Thread: Batteries — The Holy Grail Of Viable Energy Storage

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    Batteries — The Holy Grail Of Viable Energy Storage

    Useful article and overview of battery research efforts —

    http://www.engineering.com/Electroni...Batteries.aspx
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    Excellent

    Some of those I knew about---many were new to me.

    I will point out that many of those projects received Federal grants as seed money for their research. Something I support but you seem to rail against on a regular basis.
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

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    Wannabe is offline Nov 5, 1946 - Nov 19, 2018
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    It should not be the governments job to fund R&D. That is the job for Free Enterprise. If Free Enterprise will not do it then maybe it should not be done.

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    I found it peculiar that no mention of graphene reasearch was mentioned. From other sources, I think graphene has the highest promise in batteries for its storage density. From what I read, one of the chief problems with graphene batteries is that while their capacity to store a charge is unexcelled, that so far acts as a capacitor rather than a battery and thus discharges all at once. Such a battery, if one could be made, would have the benefit of being exceptionally light in weight. Another problem with graphene is producing the stuff in commercial quantities. Would be perfect for vehicles though.
    Last edited by wacojoe; 04-06-2016 at 12:50 PM.
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    Another Exciting Battery Innovation Announced

    Could this be "The One?"

    "The innovation is the use of the Nobel prize-winning plastic-that-acts-like-a-metal, haologenated polyacetylene...
    The battery, which is now patent-pending at the US and other patent offices, is expected to cost less than $100 per kWh (about one-fourth that of the best batteries today), to weigh less and therefore provide longer range to cars, to have a greater power density (power to weight ratio), have a faster charging time and much longer life. Another substantial positive is the material itself, made from common acetylene. There are no rare earths to mine and extract, no toxic residues. The halogen dopants are also common, cheap, and abundant..."

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/...omment-2186078
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    Here's another article on the persistent problem of build-up on the battery's electrode and a plausible solution —

    http://newatlas.com/lithium-oxygen-a...default-widget
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    “You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.” — Too fundamental to have an attribution


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    Below is another in the stream of prospective electricity storage devices. This one out of England uses polymers related to contact lenses to make capacitors with the potential to rapidly store energy "1,000 - 10,000" times as efficiently as current devices. If so, such capacity would far exceed energy density of even gasoline — the holy grail of energy storage. No word on how that energy could be cycled out of a capacitor in a trickle though.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...itter-business
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    Quote Originally Posted by wacojoe View Post
    No word on how that energy could be cycled out of a capacitor in a trickle though.
    My first thought would be many small capacitors which could sequentially charge a battery-like device on demand...Power could then trickle from the battery as needed to power other devices......Ben
    The future is forged on the anvil of history...The interpreter of history wields the hammer... - Unknown author...

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    Researchers at Harvard have announced what they term significant advances to "flow batteries," which would make them cheaper to construct and make them exceptionally long lasting. Flow batteries store their charge in large external tanks of liquid and are ideal for storing energy produced by windmills and solar for later use.

    https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea...-nlf020917.php
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    Here's another new battery teaser from the inventor of the lithium battery — a battery touted as having 3x the charge density of conventional batteries with other great features of lower cost and readily available materials and made from a glass-like composition. Incidentally, the fellow is 94 years old.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...enough-battery
    Last edited by wacojoe; 03-14-2017 at 04:27 PM.
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    I wonder if having 3X the charge density means it burns at 3X the temperature J/K !
    Possibly more notable to me is that this gentleman is still productive at 94! That gives me another goal

    Here is another device I read about recently in my rural electric cooperative magazine--which I find very interesting.

    I'm not sure I buy that one--it might work in a river but in a small stream I think it would spend most of its time bouncing off the bottom.

    However, I have a question---at one time there was a pretty popular concept of pumping water up into a reservoir when there was excess generation capacity and then reversing the pumps to turbines when power was needed by releasing the stored water.
    I have seen no discussion of such a scenario in conjunction with managing the the output of solar and wind generation. Has anyone seen such a discussion?
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

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    Yes, I have seen quite a bit about that method of storing energy. The last article I read was from someone in Australia who said he was going to do it on his outback farm. A similar concept is one of the larger towns in Oregon or Washington has put turbines in the pipes which channel water from the mountains down to the town, so even better, no pumping up.

    The pumped-storage concept is very efficient - somewhere in the 70-80% range, but obviously needs a lot of water, a reservoir and height, so not for everybody. Works best with an excess of solar/wind power, when not needed on the grid.

    Incidentally, below is a very interesting article I ran across attempting to quantify the EROI (energy return on investment) between various energy sources, while acknowledging the difficulty and variability in doing so —

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/...t-is-the-cost/
    Last edited by wacojoe; 03-14-2017 at 05:00 PM.
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    “You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.” — Too fundamental to have an attribution


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    They currently have submerged generators anchored in the Hudson River right off of Manhattan which run on the tidal currents.

    I'm thinking that the reservoir concept might be hampered by land availability and zoning issues, dams have gained a bad image.
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

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    The tidal generators always seemed an elegant method, and I have wondered why it never really made the grade. Let the moon work for us!
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    “You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.” — Too fundamental to have an attribution


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    I don't know why they have not had more play than they have. There are many places around the world with 40'+ tides, including the Bay of Fundy, Anchorage Alaska and Incheon Korea. That represents a tremendous amount of potential energy, 4x a day.
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

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