Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

This sounds interesting, promising.

New Material Made From Wood Is Biodegradable Super Insulation

The researchers call the result “nanowood” and say it costs less and has insulating qualities that are superior to most of the fiberglass and styrofoam insulation materials commonly used in building construction today. It is also stronger than any other insulation products and will not irritate the lungs of installers the way that fiberglass insulation does.

Stronger, better insulator, less costly, and biodegradable. That’s an impressive list of advantages. Nanowood could be the breakthrough that permits an important reduction in the carbon footprint of homes and buildings.

NigeWick

zeupater wrote: »

The key to the issue is storage, most likely large scale pumped hydro,

What about https://www.gravitricity.com/ this type of system could be located almost anywhere.

And of course locally, there's always batteries. I get my Powerwall 2 next month.

Martyn1981

More RE storage news.

Pilot project for flywheel storage underway in Hawaii

A pilot project for kinetic energy storage has begun operations on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The project features flywheel energy storage technology, provided by California’s Amber Kinetics – the first time the company’s flywheels have been commercially deployed in the United States.

The 8 kW/32 kilowatt-hour flywheel was installed by American Electric, at Hawaiian Electric’s Campbell Industrial Park generating station on Oahu. The project aims to test the technology, and to collect data on its suitability for future utility-owned storage projects in Hawaii, as well to allow Amber Kinetics to further its technology offering.

zeupater

NigeWick wrote: »

What about https://www.gravitricity.com/ this type of system could be located almost anywhere.

And of course locally, there's always batteries. I get my Powerwall 2 next month.

Hi

I kind of like the idea, however there's not much energy benefit - there was a mention of it recently where I ran the calculations to check the benefits ...

They're likely not looking to generate 20MW for long then! ... for each 1 metre the 2000tonnes is raised the energy storage through gravitational potential is little more than 5kWh, so say it's raised 300m (~1000') the potential is around 1.5MWh, therefore describing a facility which could deliver 20MW for little more than 4 minutes ((1.5/20)*60)) ...

... so okay for providing short-term support to the grid for a few minutes, but not much more. The problem with their model is that the comparisons reflect current costs, and as we are aware, battery costs are predicted to fall rapidly over the coming period ....

A considerable benefit though is the potential lifespan of such systems, once they're built there's remarkably little to go wrong, however they simply don't have the potential energy capacity due to the weight involved ... for example, a pumped hydro dam scheme on a similar scale to the current Elan valley complex would hold 100million tonnes, that's 25GWh at a 100m difference between high & low levels ... if you could find sites suitable for an equivalent 300m hi/lo head system that's 75GWh which could be well matched to excess overnight wind generation, intertidal reserves for barrage systems etc .... the decision simply comes down to political will & relative cost - one scheme or likely somewhere between 50k & 100k gravity shafts ...

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

I think I've mentioned this Xcel scheme before, but now we have info on bids, and the total amount of storage is more than a Gigawatt (more than the US installed in all of 2017).

Tesla Bidding On Xcel Energy Battery Storage Plan

I thought this bit was interesting, though I don't know how many hours of storage the bids include, but suspect it somewhere between 4 and 10.

But the truly remarkable thing about the Xcel program is that adding battery storage increases the cost per kilowatt/hour of the electricity by less than a penny. For wind plus battery storage, bids went up from 1.81 cents per kWh to 2.1 cents per kWh. Solar plus storage went from 2.95 cents per kWh to 3.6 cents per kWh. With costs that low, the question is, why wouldn!!!8217;t you add battery storage to any future project?

michaels

Martyn1981 wrote: »

This sounds interesting, promising.

New Material Made From Wood Is Biodegradable Super Insulation

Of course biodegradable also means it can rot when it is still supposed to be providing insulation...

Martyn1981

GE launch a 1.2MW/4MWh 'building block' battery.

GE Aims Coal-Killing Energy Storage Solution At Willing Customers (#CleanTechnica Interview)

lstar337

michaels wrote: »

Of course biodegradable also means it can rot when it is still supposed to be providing insulation...

That's what I thought. :think::think:

Martyn1981

What wonderfully windy winter weather.

UK Wind Farms Provide 44% Of Electricity Demand

The wind was blowing strong across the UK on Saturday as the country’s wind turbines generated a new record of 14.3 gigawatts by the end of the day, and accounting for as much as 44.5% of total electricity demand during the mid- to late-afternoon.

Looks like Andrew will have to update his wind dial yet again.

Live generation data from the Great Britain electricity grid

ASavvyBuyer

More news from the the Offshore Wind Industry:

UK Offshore Wind Industry Reveals Ambitious 2030 Vision
The industry’s vision for 2030 includes:

• £48 billion investment in UK infrastructure
• A five-fold increase in export value, to £2.6 billion a year
• 27,000 skilled jobs across the UK (up from 11,000 today) mainly in coastal areas
• £2.4 billion a year reduction in total electricity system costs, reducing costs to consumers

With this deal the industry aims to generate one third of the UK’s electricity from offshore wind by 2030. This scaled up ambition, coupled with the Government’s Clean Growth Strategy, means the industry will more than double its capacity from 13GW deployed or contracted today, to 30GW by 2030.