Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Approval for a very big flow battery in Switzerland. It's only a 2hr* battery which seems strange, but horses for courses I suppose. And the more types of storage that can be rolled out, the less cost pressure on them all, and their associated materials/components.

*The beauty/role of flow batts was/is expected to be in longer duration roles, where the cheap storage part can be expanded, such as chemical storage tanks, without any need to increase the expensive power side. So they were expected to be economically viable in the medium to long duration roles, so 4-10hrs+.

Construction approval for 1.6GWh flow battery in Switzerland: ‘about time we brought this scale to Europe’

FlexBase Group will start construction on a data centre plus 800MW/1,600MWh flow battery in Switzerland imminently, the firm claimed, explaining to Energy-Storage.news how and why.

The private equity-backed company has received local construction approval for the Laufenburg
Technology Center (TZL), which will house a data centre plus a redox flow battery system, which would most likely be the largest of its kind in the world.

Reducing the capex of flow battery technology by scaling it will be crucial given the past few years has seen consistent and substantial cost reductions for lithium-ion technology, to the extent that its proponents are now claiming it is cost-effective for 8-10 hour durations, and in the future even more.

QrizB

Big balls, anyone?

https://www.zmescience.com/future/sinking-giant-concrete-orbs-to-the-bottom-of-the-ocean-could-store-massive-amounts-of-renewable-energy/

The concept is disarmingly simple. Picture a hollow concrete sphere on the seafloor. When excess power is available — say, from a nearby offshore wind farm — it’s used to pump seawater out of the sphere, creating a vacuum-like condition inside. Then, when energy is needed, a valve opens. Seawater rushes back in, driven by the crushing pressure of the ocean. As it re-enters, it spins a turbine, which generates electricity. The process is reversible and can be repeated hundreds of times per year.

Or for those of a certain vintage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WwJ6OVSwkM

thevilla

I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of the situation at all but there's a headline on the BBC, "Global oil prices soar after Israel attacks Iran".

What it doesn't add is "wind and sunshine prices remain stable".

QrizB

I hope no-one is surprised to learn that growing crops to make biofuels is worse for the environment overall than just burning oil in the first place.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/06/biofuels-policy-has-been-a-failure-for-the-climate-new-report-claims

As we've discussed on this forum previously, a hectare of solar PV will produce more energy, both gross and net, than a hectare of crops will.

Edit: here's a link to some previous discussion:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79006594/#Comment_79006594

Martyn1981

QrizB, a fun stat that I've seen in several reports and articles on US corn ethanol production - is that for half of that land, which currently produces less than 10% of road fuel, PV panels would produce the equivalent of the whole US's electricity demand. And that's not today's leccy demand, but a future all electric energy demand, including an all electric transport fleet.

ed110220

QrizB said:

I hope no-one is surprised to learn that growing crops to make biofuels is worse for the environment overall than just burning oil in the first place.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/06/biofuels-policy-has-been-a-failure-for-the-climate-new-report-claims

As we've discussed on this forum previously, a hectare of solar PV will produce more energy, both gross and net, than a hectare of crops will.

Edit: here's a link to some previous discussion:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79006594/#Comment_79006594

Unfortunately some people don't think further than crops=good, PV=bad [insert "industrialising the countryside" or some other cliche] when in reality they're just different ways of capturing energy from the sun, one much more efficiently than the other.