It would be cool to see huge investments into battery storage. If we could create a battery that doesn’t just leak energy from storing, we could generate power in one location and ship it out where it’s needed. There could be remote energy production plants using geothermal or hydroelectric power that ship out these charged batteries to locations all over. It would let us better utilize resources instead of having to have cities anchored around these sources.
Or we could generate a ton of power all at once, store it and use it as needed rather having to have on demand energy production
Hell with better batteries even fossil fuels begin to be climate friendly since you could store the massive energy created and know you’re using close to 100% of it.
It would be cool to see huge investments into battery storage.
Globally humanity already invests over 10 Billion dollars per year in advancing battery technology.
If we could create a battery that doesn’t just leak energy from storing…
In order to build what you are talking about will almost certainly require real room temperature super conductors. We can get close, maybe, with the next generation of Aluminum-Air or Iron-Air batteries but this is big pimping. It’s incredibly complicated and difficult.
It’s like Fusion Power. We can see a future where we have it figured out and working but it’s still some years, if not decades, away.
We could just use energy to fill a big hole with water and put plastic wrap over top until we need to get the energy back then we pump it through a dam.
Power lines would still mean we need energy on demand though wouldn’t it. And if we can transport energy from an area like a huge solar array in the Sahara to Kazakhstan or China it would be better. I was just raising it as an off thought like maybe theres more ways to think about solving this problem than just building plants. What level of storage ability could we have that would let us build a large solar array in the Sahara to power Africa and Europe vs just building more plants. I think our end goal will be energy storage and like you brought up transport/transmission. I think that because I think we have energy production pretty well solved
Kind of an unconventional battery, but I’ve heard of solar and wind being used to pump water uphill into reservoirs and then released through a hydro plant when the sun/wind aren’t shining/blowing. I’d be curious to know the amount of production lost from storing it this way.
I heard the loss comes from evaporation. Another cool idea I heard was using a mining cart. So its not practical but I think the idea is cook because I’m pretty science illiterate but it got me thinking about what a battery actually is. So you drag a mine cart up a hill with energy produced using renewable energy and then let it go down the hill and collect the stored energy with its motion. Technically there isn’t anything like evaporation so you could store the mine cart up the hill with no energy loss.
Interesting. Didn’t consider the evaporation. I imagine friction could effect the minecarts, but no idea to what degree. Some loss is gonna happen so matter what. If I’m understanding correctly, even nuclear, built away from population centers, will lose some power due to transmission distances.
It would be cool to see huge investments into battery storage. If we could create a battery that doesn’t just leak energy from storing, we could generate power in one location and ship it out where it’s needed. There could be remote energy production plants using geothermal or hydroelectric power that ship out these charged batteries to locations all over. It would let us better utilize resources instead of having to have cities anchored around these sources.
Or we could generate a ton of power all at once, store it and use it as needed rather having to have on demand energy production
Hell with better batteries even fossil fuels begin to be climate friendly since you could store the massive energy created and know you’re using close to 100% of it.
Globally humanity already invests over 10 Billion dollars per year in advancing battery technology.
In order to build what you are talking about will almost certainly require real room temperature super conductors. We can get close, maybe, with the next generation of Aluminum-Air or Iron-Air batteries but this is big pimping. It’s incredibly complicated and difficult.
It’s like Fusion Power. We can see a future where we have it figured out and working but it’s still some years, if not decades, away.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:U.S.\_historical\_fusion\_budget\_vs.\_1976\_ERDA\_plan.png
We could just use energy to fill a big hole with water and put plastic wrap over top until we need to get the energy back then we pump it through a dam.
Then profit.
Problem solved
Moving batteries seems like a terribly inefficient way of replacing power lines.
Power lines would still mean we need energy on demand though wouldn’t it. And if we can transport energy from an area like a huge solar array in the Sahara to Kazakhstan or China it would be better. I was just raising it as an off thought like maybe theres more ways to think about solving this problem than just building plants. What level of storage ability could we have that would let us build a large solar array in the Sahara to power Africa and Europe vs just building more plants. I think our end goal will be energy storage and like you brought up transport/transmission. I think that because I think we have energy production pretty well solved
Kind of an unconventional battery, but I’ve heard of solar and wind being used to pump water uphill into reservoirs and then released through a hydro plant when the sun/wind aren’t shining/blowing. I’d be curious to know the amount of production lost from storing it this way.
I heard the loss comes from evaporation. Another cool idea I heard was using a mining cart. So its not practical but I think the idea is cook because I’m pretty science illiterate but it got me thinking about what a battery actually is. So you drag a mine cart up a hill with energy produced using renewable energy and then let it go down the hill and collect the stored energy with its motion. Technically there isn’t anything like evaporation so you could store the mine cart up the hill with no energy loss.
Interesting. Didn’t consider the evaporation. I imagine friction could effect the minecarts, but no idea to what degree. Some loss is gonna happen so matter what. If I’m understanding correctly, even nuclear, built away from population centers, will lose some power due to transmission distances.