Strontium!
j/k
Posted on 11/03/2015 7:30:53 PM PST by sparklite2
The system hinges on the reversible decomposition of strontium carbonate into strontium oxide and carbon dioxide, which consumes thermal energy. During discharge, the recombination of strontium oxide and carbon dioxide releases the stored heat. These materials are nonflammable, readily available and environmentally safe.
In comparison to existing approaches, the new system could also allow a 10-fold increase in energy density -- it's physically much smaller and would be cheaper to build.
The proposed system would work at such high temperatures that it could first be used to directly heat air which would drive a turbine to produce electricity, and then residual heat could be used to make steam to drive yet another turbine.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Note it only worked for 45 charge cycles at full cap.
Its a neat idea though It would be nice if they can get it to work better in future.
A tech that I would like to see a break trhough in is thermovoltaic.. right now Lead telluride is about as good as it gets and its not all that good...
I’m a long time solar skeptic, but I like this...
(Gasp!) CARBON DIOXIDE!! EEEK! POLLUTANT! /s/
You know, if solar power could be made efficient but the panels themselves weren’t environmentally friendly, it would still probably be worth it since panels would be used over a number of years. But people still can’t see the forest for the trees.
j/k
Oh! I can see both...
The plain honest pragmatic truth of the matter is that hydrocarbons are still plentiful, cheaper, and have a higher storage of energy than any of these so called substitutes.
But the that's the forest....In the trees you do have uses for these other energy storage and production options, but these various uses can justify paying the much higher cost.
As a common citizen user of energy just like most of the rest of the global population, we can't afford to be trendy.
Cold Heat - Well said. Solar and wind energy has never prevented a gas, coal or nuclear power plant from being built or forced one to shutter its doors. The American energy consumer will not tolerate solar and wind energy intermittent availability. But the American energy consumer will be forced to higher prices to allow solar and wind energy into the mix.
Not to throw cold water on the idea, which has probably funded hundreds or thousands of well meaning environmental engineers, some of whom might even know something about thermodynamics, but the maximum theoretical energy flux density, meaning no water vapor, no clouds, is about 1 kilowatt per meter squared, and this at perihelion - with the Sun as nearly overhead as possible. At the earth’s surface this flux density rarely exceeds 800 watts/square meter. Divide this by four because the earth rotates. Understand that as the earth rotates the radiation increases and decreases as a Gaussian function.
Throughout the U.S. the sun seldom reaches true perihelion (perpendicular to a plane tangent to the earth’s surface). Realistically calculating and measuring the conversion efficiencies of the methods used to turn broad spectrum solar energy into something useable yields, in spite of the claims of the enormously subsidized (think Solyndra) solar swindles being promoted by remarkably talented progressive promoters like Tesla-PayPal-Solar City’s Elon Musk, is around 10 watts/square-meter, averaged over 24 hours.
The chemical engineering of this interesting project may be competent but the economics can only make sense if dictators manage to make the cost of techniques for harnessing energy developed over hundreds of years explode and heavily subsidize the utopian ideals being marketed to the naïve.
The Chinese are not so naïve and are developing their nuclear and coal technologies, while doing their best to gain a foothold in the Middle East to insure a continued supply of oil. We spend research money on a utopian dream based upon an implicit assumption that we can convert more energy to replace the evil hydrocarbon and nuclear sources than is delivered to the earth by the Sun. The U.S. is bidding to build nuclear power plants, with loans guaranteed by our government, to Iran. Solar flux will not change for a few million years, at least.
There is interest in the chemical engineering being explored, but the goal justifying its NFS or other tax funding is to help justify crippling the efficiency of U.S. and European societies; to weaken them for their replacement by totalitarian Marxist regimes, controlled by some cabal of Islam with Communism. Guess who will eventually prevail?
According to the British Geological Survey, China was the top producer of strontium in 2007, with over two-thirds world share, followed by Spain, Mexico, Turkey, Argentina, and Iran.[34][35] wikipedia
Think I'll pass.
Very good post, but I think you might have meant zenith rather than perihelion.
Yeah..........what you said......lol
Very good post, but I think you might have meant zenith rather than perihelion.
You caught me being lazy HartleyMBaldwin. But by accident, since I didn’t review the definition when I first wrote, I was probably correct. I wrote based upon a project I did in grad school, one which cured my naïve assumptions about using my limited abilities to help perfect “clean” solar electric power. I learned that solar energy is too diffuse, is anything but clean because collecting it requires massive physical structures, and anything but safe, already having caused orders of magnitude more injuries and deaths than nuclear, and not as safe as hydrocarbon or hydro generation. (How many injuries and deaths occur each year from falls from roofs? Think of the falls from thousands of solar collector farms, each at least 10,000 meters (about six miles) on a side with hundreds of thousands of tracking collectors-heliostats needing servicing at night and 2 to 6 meters in the air.
Perihelion is when an object, in this case a solar collector, is closest to the Sun. The Zenith is when the Sun is directly overhead. I was attempting to take into account the axial tilt of the Earth of about 22 degrees. At the latidude of Austin Texas the Sun, at Summer equinox, misses the zenith by about 8 degrees. Even Miami is around latitude 26 degrees. The estimate I made for insolation was very generous. Every location on earth above Miami in the Northern hemisphere and below 22 degrees in the Southern hemisphere never sees a zenith, and even those in the band encompassed by the earth’s wobble see it briefly, twice a year.
Like anyone with pretentions or experience in science, I appreciate your scrutiny. If I’m still mistaken, I would appreciate a correction. I was being lazy, but when you encouraged me to look at the definition, I think I happened to remember having to check this definition three decades back. Thanks. You represent what is valuable about a Free Republic, informed readers and freedom of expression which I wish were more evident in political discussions. As I’ve now seen good lawyers doing, and engineers should always do, testing devices and proofs is important. So the Obots skillfully misdirecting political arguments comes with the territory, but hopefully, stimulates readers to check original sources for themselves.
First, I’d like to thank you for your polite reply. Too many people take any correction as a personal attack.
Now then, into nerd mode (rubs hands together). Perihelion is the point closest to the sun in the orbit of an object around the sun. Aphelion is the farthest point from the sun in such an orbit. In the case of the Earth, perihelion occurs about January 3rd each year, and aphelion about July 4th, and the difference in distance from the sun is about 5 million km.
A solar collector on the Earth’s surface will be as close to the sun as possible when the sun is at zenith on any given day, true, but that will be as close to the sun as it can ever get only when the Earth itself is at perihelion. (I am using the secondary meaning of zenith here, that of “as close to directly overhead as it gets”. Noon, in other words.) If the Earth is at aphelion, the collector will be thousands of miles farther from the sun, even at high noon.
Thus I stand by my assertion that “zenith” would be a better word than “perihelion” in your post. (And I won’t take you to task over referring to the summer equinox in your reply, either. Ain’t no such thing.)
I do certainly agree that solar energy, while it may be just the thing for special situations, cannot be a serious large-scale source of energy compared to nuclear, fossil fuels, or hydroelectricity.
Thanks for your time.
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