Energy Matters Global and Domestic

[myglaren]

Artificial Photosynthesis Device Becomes More Efficient With Each Use

Technologies that turn light and water into carbon-free hydrogen fuel could have unlimited potential, but they have not been developed properly yet. Now, scientists at the University of Michigan, with the help of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, have engineered a water-splitting device made with cheap and abundant materials that become more efficient with each use.

“We discovered an unusual property in the material that enables it to become more efficient and stable,” said Francesca Toma, a staff scientist in the Chemical Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and senior author of the new paper.

“Our discovery is a real game-changer. I’ve never seen such stability.”

Interesting Engineering

[mickthemaverick]

We are not on the Danish Texan scale but we are doing our best in Hertfordshire:

Own work - from the gateway along the site

Own work - from the gateway the panels

Own work - the overview with the MX3 for scale

[NewcastleFalcon]

Nice work Mick Photo number 3 is great

Regards Neil

[bobins]

Costing The Earth
Radio 4
"New Grid for the New Age"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vwsc

This week's Costing The Earth on Radio 4, Tom Heap covers the changes needed in the near future to cope with the UK moving over to a zero carbon electricity supply.

Quite a few aspects covered in brief - both good and less good.
A few points from various different bods interviewed:

The head of network for National Grid ESO reckons we'll have enough energy generated to avoid blackouts, but we'll need to modify how we use it. As he puts it: "Historically we've dispatched the generators to meet the demand, ....controlling your demand when the sun isn't shining.... will very much be a feature of a future network" i.e. demand led pricing via Smart Meters would be one aspect.
It is possible to decarbonise the grid without significant increase risk of blackouts and only minimal upward pressure on costs.
Energy storage systems will play a big role for when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow (as happened during parts of April).
The storage systems can be built (as the technology exists), but they're not being built quickly enough due to 'the market not signalling them'.
Within 10-15 years we'll need energy storage facilities of the week / month long capacity if we're going to fully decarbonise.
There was an excerpt from Tom's visit to Orkney a couple of years ago covering their use of 'surplus' electricity to generate Hydrogen to be stored and used as and when needed.
Hot water batteries were covered - which is a new one on me ! https://sunamp.com/
The first phase of decarbonising the electricity we use hasn't had much of an impact on 'us' (switching to generation using renewables and away from coal etc), but the next phase will - buying BEVs, heat pumps, improving the efficiency of our homes, but it needn't be too costly due to Smart electronics in the home running things cheaper.
There was an excerpt from a previous episode about a domestic experiment run in Cornwall concerning a local energy market where locals could generate, store and regulate their own energy usage.
The only realistic way we can fully decarbonise our electricity generation and usage is if everything becomes Smart....... including the public


It's an interesting listen, but as with all such investigations that involve predicting the future - it relies on the future doing what you expect it to

[bobins]

As if by magic - an article appears on the BBC website about the latest developments in fusion reactors. They must have been reading The FCF

I vividly remember discussing the fuel cell with my mate (the one with the heat pump) when we were about 13/14. No great progress since then.
And of course the Zeta project that seemed only a couple of years away.

I think your memory is awry on that, Steve. Successful and profitable energy from fusion has permanently been at least 25 years away, and will continue to do so

Mind-boggling magnets could unlock plentiful power
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56843149

"Later this year Dr Bob Mumgaard and his team at Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) will test a ground-breaking magnet that they say can make that leap forward.
Weighing 10 tonnes, the D-shaped magnet is big enough for a person to step through. Around 300km of a very special electromagnetic tape is wound into that D-shape.
The tape itself is a feat of engineering that has taken decades to develop. Thin layers of superconducting rare-earth barium copper oxide (ReBCO) are deposited on a metal tape. When cooled that bundle of tape can conduct electricity extremely efficiently, which is essential as 40,000 amps will pass through it, enough electricity to power a small town."

"When operating at full power, Dr Brittles likens the force generated by his magnets to double the pressure at the bottom of the deepest ocean trench.
When those magnets are ready, they will go into a spherical tokamak - an apple-shaped fusion reactor.
Research suggests such a design will generate more energy for each unit of power it uses, than the more commonly used doughnut-shaped tokamak - the design that CFS and others are using."

" "We think our technology will be deployable in a fusion pilot plant in the early 2030s," he says. "I think it will be a global race. There are interesting private ventures in the States. And we will be in a race with them."
The promise of a working fusion reactor has been around for decades (and always will be, so the old joke goes).
The biggest project is under way in southern France where a consortium of nations are building ITER, a giant reactor that has, so far, cost billions of pounds to build and is running years behind its original schedule."

[NewcastleFalcon]

Costing The Earth Radio 4
"New Grid for the New Age"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vwsc

Plenty to chew over there worth a listen. Possibly less shout at the radio than if Jeremy Vine was chairing the discussion

Considering getting a Smart meter installed on the basis of lower tariff access, but have to plough through the interface with our less than modern installation, DNO main fuse and meter tails upgrade required/ and the smart meter installers.

Change of supplier in prospect too....Octopus/OVO are of the contenders being EV savvy with tariffs, but most suppliers will have similar tariffs maybe even our current lot Scottish Power which we have been loyally with for decades, may have one of their own.

Of course nothing is coordinated or standardised. Change your supplier and you need to get their version of a smart meter, all makes work for the working person to do.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Costing The Earth Radio 4 "New Grid for the New Age"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vwsc

Just finished having a listen to the full programme. No hint of a shout at the content from me, I thought is covered a lot of ground, very well. Jonathon Porterfield featured on the Sunamp section is well-known in EV Circles, and has featured quite a few times on the EV threads. His main business is Eco Cars https://www.eco-cars.net/aboutecocars.php.

The Grid moves from switching on and off generation, to more storage, and smartly managing demand. The efficiency saving from that move alone could be quite significant. It relies on smart meters and resistance may be futile in the end to their universality in domestic installations. The proliferation of energy suppliers each with their "own" smart meters may be a slightly bonkers free-for-all at the moment, and I have no idea of whether some kind of minimum standardisation is required to ensure the UK Smart grid as it develops can actually "talk" to and across the the proliferation of suppliers, or the V2G smart home charging points for Electric Cars.

Regards Neil

[bobins]

I think it'll be worth pulling up a comfy chair and opening a bag of popcorn to watch how 'they'll' manage the grid scale energy storage of the capacities mentioned. There's already pressure on the battery manufacturers to keep up with supply just to satisfy the current BEVs and battery storage facilities. If energy storage facilities need to be ramped up within the the next 10-15 years then how much of that will be battery supplied and how many other technologies will need to be rapidly deployed at scale ?
Interesting times

[Hell Razor5543]

I have a couple of points/suggestions.

With reference to the battery storage situation, I recall seeing a BBC article where 'old' batteries from BEVs were thoroughly tested, matched together, and then used in power walls. This worked because storage walls are trickle charged, so the BEV batteries (that were no longer suitable for BEV use) were well up to the task of power walls. That way it would lighten the load on the manufacturers.

I have been thinking about BEV HGVs. I think the best way for these to work is for a major company to get involved, leasing and swapping over battery packs. There is virtually no way to charge a large enough battery system for HGVs (not if you want a decent range and load capacity) within a workable period of time (relevant to the haulage companies). However, if battery packs could be standardised (not unlike the AA, AAA, C and D batteries) and made easy to swap out, then a lorry could pull into the 'battery service' station, their depleted battery would be dropped out, a fresh one would be bolted back in, the lorry would head out and the battery pack would be put on a charge (which would NOT be a 'blast it in' charge, to preserve the life of the battery pack). The battery packs are going to be heavy (easily a couple of tons), and the chargers are going to need to handle hundreds of watts, but if it was done properly it could work (I understand there will be other things to take into account, but it is possible).

[Hell Razor5543]

Well, it looks like there may have been a breakthrough in battery technology, if this is anything to go by;

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/ho ... d=msedgntp

[NewcastleFalcon]

I have a couple of points/suggestions.

Some of your thinking is getting copied

I have shoved up a couple of posts which may be of interest here James

Electric Vehicle Batteries-Recycling

Public and Commercial Transport-HGV Battery Swaps alive and kicking in Australia

REgards Neil

[myglaren]

Gas banned after 2025.

Sort of


Climate change: Ban all gas boilers from 2025 to reach net-zero.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Gas banned after 2025.

Sort of


Climate change: Ban all gas boilers from 2025 to reach net-zero.

Sounds like a good Jeremy Vine show right now....Gas Boilers and Shellfish. I'll see what the general public are saying.
The "Shellfish" guest was very good, pleasant, informative...Tom Howard a Shellfish producer from Mersea Island Essex. Not the usual whinge fest wish him every success, passionate and positive. Let's see what the Gas Boilers piece is like...

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Wind generators don't have to look like this

Wind generators don't have to look like this, or be as big as this, have as many moving parts as this, or require regular ongoing maintenance like this, or require as much space as this, or be as "noisy" as this, or be a possible danger to wild
life like this,

Excellent video here of new developments, and on domestic scale wind generators without the traditional windmills, that can produce more energy than solar panels. Many interesting innovations in development.



Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

I like to keep in touch with "whats going on" and occasionally for academic interest try to fathom the rising phenomenon of cryptocurrencies and their "blockchain" tech with little success. Every so often it crops up in relation to the news I'm interested in, and with TESLA and Elon Musk it appears quite often.

Blockchain could well become a disruptive change to all sorts of markets, and in a video I recently watched up pops blockchain in connection with energy trading.

This article purports to "explain" but I'm still some way off "getting it". I think I need a few animations on a 2 minute video rather than ploughing through a lot of words.
The words
Blockchain for electricity and gas: decentralized energy trading
The moving pictures
A little animation from Bosch


Regards Neil