Talk-Polywell.org

Energy storage to balance the solar power/wind power equation?

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-rele ... rowth.html

Not a bad video on their website (less than 4 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOWjwwK ... =Hydrostor
https://www.hydrostor.ca/

Would be nice to know what the round trip efficiency is for this.

Seems to me the idea of storing energy from solar assumes commercial fusion is fiction, otherwise why not produce when the power is needed instead of doubling up on solar for daytime energy production plus storage?

Lot of people still believe that fusion is "forever 30 years away". I have even heard "50 years"... sigh...
I am all for energy storage systems. Many fusion concepts, even can benefit greatly from improvement in capacitor technology (Z- Pinches most certainly and even Helion to a lesser extent). Also, it is nice to be able to quickly smooth out grid fluctuations. So they not a bad thing to have. I just get a little skeptical when I do not see any round trip efficiency numbers and this design in particular looks like it could have some issues in that department.

I worked in the power industry for 30 years and generation dispatch from fossil or nuclear units have no need for battery storage. Solar and wind needs it because fools are trying to use them to provide grid power at a high a percentage of total generation. Solar and wind are completely unreliable. As a comparison, when a fossil unit goes down for unscheduled maintenance the power demand charge is brutal, but for solar and wind, fundamentally they are unreliable. When politics overrules reality, which is where we are, the customer pays a heavy price. I won't pretend like the greenies that solar and wind are real alternatives, and that is where expensive battery storage comes in, to try to make solar and wind less of a problem (I say less because no battery can store the needed power for 2 weeks of down time).

Tesla is going to make a killing on batteries for power management because of the uneconomic application of unreliable generation.

And Fusion is able to be reliably dispatched and will be reliable 24/7/365. No batteries needed to manage power. Fusion is the perfect replacement for fossil power plants. It is up to the fusion guys to get utilities, regulators, and institutional investors on board. I think that is happening.

And even if there is no fusion yet for 50 years standard thermal fission will provide ample power for the time being.

GE BWRX-300 is projected to cost 2,35 miljon dollars per MW installed when in serialized production. If that is realized it will always be cheaper to just build more power production than various storage solutions.

Pumped hydropower is traditionally considered the cheapest available solution. But even that is wildly unattractive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSgd-QhLHRI

I agree about BWR-300, though availability of Uranium may become a bottleneck at some point. The Chinese seem to be looking into Thorium and fast reactors already.
Pumped hydro needs certain geological and geographical conditions which makes it hard to find locations for.

I saw a recent article on a hypothetic closed fuel cycle for light water reactors. If I remember it right an advanced scheme built upon a breeding ladder från U238 to 240 to 241 with subsequent fuel processing.

It could theoretically deliver a breeding ratio better than unity. Which should relieve any uranium supply issues for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately I couldn't find with a quick googling. Author was that israeli guy who has been working on thorium fuels.

However, I feel slightly aloof towards genIV fission. Development times and costs are in the same range as the novel fusion schemes being discussed here.

But realistically, they may all fail.

I wouldn't worry about a backup solution such as for example professor Wallenius little 55 MW lead cooled nuclear battery with nitride fuel. From every practical point of view, sustainability, resource footprint and so forth every bit as good as any fusion plant. A soothing thought.

The main drawback is really public perception.

Hydrostor claims efficiency of >=60%

also for your consideration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBF5EnK ... WINDEnergy

now they claim >%80 efficiency

Stefank wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 17, 2022 1:00 am

also for your consideration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBF5EnK ... WINDEnergy

now they claim >%80 efficiency

The capacity doesn't seem to rival Hydrostor's though.

yes the capacity scaling is limited by the tanks
also what PSI can be obtained through pumping into a sealed tank, this setup would seem to be limited in energy density

but an interesting workaround of the long-standing isothermal problem in gaseous compression through gradual bulk compression

80% efficiency they say...

I google 10-15 % for compressors. 100 kW electric power gives 10-15 kW compressed air power. Add the inefficiencies in converting it back to electricity. Not to say that the electricity comes from hugely wasteful wind and solar to begin with.

Renewables should be considered complementary energy sources useful mainly where there is plenty of hydropower to balance them.

Otherwise, just add one more BWRX-300. The more BWRX-300 you buy, the cheaper they will be. In case all ongoing fast track fusion projects fail and we, for the time being, are forced to rely on what we have.

yes 80% seems pretty astonishing number

can't wait for the next-gen fission/fusion fleet build out, can't be soon enough..

this group has impressive scaling strategy
https://thorconpower.com/

Fallback options in case of total fusion failure is really a subject for a different thread.

Sometime around new years eve 2031...