- cross-posted to:
- hackernews
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews
"This giant bubble on the island of Sardinia holds 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. But the gas wasn’t captured from factory emissions, nor was it pulled from the air. It came from a gas supplier… “The facility compresses and expands CO2 daily in its closed system, turning a turbine that generates 200 megawatt-hours of electricity, or 20 MW over 10 hours.”
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I imagine that the bubble portion is light weight enough, one could put it on the roof of a data center, apartment building, strip mall, etc. That appears to be the piece that takes up the most space.
Another thought. I wonder if the bubble portion could be oriented vertically, maybe inside a simple enclosure to protect it from wind.
I run a consulting practice around flexibility. Been around the energy space for 15 years. Boy if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “grid scale [x] will soon be everywhere”
It came from a gas supplier…
Where do you think supplier got it from?
Also: WHERE ARE THE ROUNDTRIP EFFICIENCY NUMBERS???
This CO2 is acting as a reusable fluid in a closed loop. The initial capture of the CO2 costs energy, but the battery keeps using the same CO2 over and over again. So the question of efficiency should be more about land usage and maintenance of the rest of the parts and the labor needed for each megawatt stored vs what other grid scale energy storage costs in materials and labor.
The rough reality is that batteries aren’t going to be up to the task of grid scale energy storage unless they have a couple huge breakthroughs. Something like this is a far less materially expensive way to store energy for later use.
Currently most grid scale energy storage is just pumping water up a hill and letting it back down through a generator. It is extremely limited in where it can be used and requires tremendous space to be effective.
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We had these things called Gasometers in the UK for a long time. They expanded with the amount of gas stored in them, and they kept the pressure of the local gas supply up. A local gas reservoir, or “gas battery” if you like.
These bubbles are basically the same idea but at higher pressure.
It’s still near atmospheric pressure. Liquid CO2 expanding is powering the gas turbines.
Ah the bubble is the expansion volume. Not the storage volume… got it. I had it backwards.
So yes, very similar then.
Sure wish they mentioned the effeciency.
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Sure wish they mentioned the effeciency.
Without it you should dismiss the whole article as worthless garbage
Could be very high, even the waste heat from the compression could be used to achieve more compression and turbines get to above 90%, that all depends on the scales they’re building this at. 70% overall doesn’t seem unrealistic as an educated guess.
On their website (energydome.com) they claim “75%+” round trip efficiency, so not a bad guess!
I was just about to bang out that they must lose a lot of heat from the compression. But apparently not! That’s amazing.
I’m struggling to think of systems that would significantly outperform “75%+”. Chilled superconducting coils? Those are expensive, and would fail rather catastrophically.
That’s a hell of a lot better than most other systems. If true, and if scalable, this is a huge innovation.
compressors, turbines (like steam turbines), piping, some of which heat-resistant (500C), container for liquid carbon dioxide, lots of plastic for the bubble, something for thermal storage, dry and clean carbon dioxide, these aren’t unusual or restricted resources, don’t depend on critical raw materials or anything like that
Compressed air without heat recovery is more like 30%, so this is huge
Carbon dioxide can be liquefied relatively easily which is what i guess makes this efficient
I wonder how resilient they are to big winds.
Also from the article:
If the worst happens and the dome is punctured, 2,000 tonnes of CO2 will enter the atmosphere. That’s equivalent to the emissions of about 15 round-trip flights between New York and London on a Boeing 777. “It’s negligible compared to the emissions of a coal plant,” Spadacini says. People will also need to stay back 70 meters or more until the air clears, he says.
160km/hr as per TFA.
Guilty, I only skimmed it. Thanks.
And if there is a known high wind coming, the plant can forcefully go through the compression cycle to remove the bubble.
That’s really not that big of a wind. One bad storm and we have it burst
Also, per the article, the danger zone in a burst is only claimed to be 70m until cleared and the CO2 release still pales in comparison to a regular coal plant - “equivalent to 15 round trips between New York and London on a Boeing 777”
The article also mentions that they can deflate it in around 10 hours
Wonder how small you can scale these and retain efficiency, at twice the footprint (but I’m guessing a lot more volume) of a lithium grid battery, will we see these replacing home batteries down the line?
They are talking hectares in this and it looks like the power density is below that of batteries, but its also cheaper per MWh.
I home long term battery makes a lot of sense, I have thought for a while something that goes from water and the air into methane or even liquid fuel would be highly beneficial as it could run from a generators through the winter and act for long term storage without requiring a turbine.
The tanks might go underground mitigating (perhaps) the pressure explosion risk as opposed to lithium fire risk, but the honking great tent is an issue. Should have a longer life than Li Ion and be repairable vs somewhat recyclable. At scaled production it could certainly be cheaper, but some of the newer immobile battery chemistries might beat it. Synthesized fuel also makes a lot of sense. We shall see. What certainly makes sense is microgrids and power self-sufficiency.
more greenwashing from the fossil fuels industry
Thats not what this is regardless of what you’d personally like it to be. You’re showing clearly that you’re poorly educated on electricity generation.
As per Energy Dome:
But the gas wasn’t captured from factory emissions, nor was it pulled from the air. It came from a gas supplier, and it lives permanently inside the dome’s system to serve an eco-friendly purpose
these people are straight-up lying, how can CO2 be “eco-friendly” when all its industrial extraction processes involve fossil fuels as a source? notice how they didn’t mention who their gas supplier is? that’s because it would out them and their lies.
it’s impossible to buy gas turbines without ultimately funding the fossil fuel giants. also let’s not ignore the environmental catastrophe that would happen if these were deployed en masse and a corruption scandal like the Beirut port explosion happened.
it’s also not lost on me that this technology is being deployed in poor, economically exploited areas like Sardinia and Xinjiang. there’s a reason why they’re not building bubbles in the middle of Rome or Beijing, because the people would revolt at this eyesore of a ticking time bomb. nobody would give a fuck if thousands of Uyhurs died in a mass asphyxiation event because people are already ignoring the genocide they’re going through.
it’s concerning whenever Google gets excited about a new energy solution because we all know how they treat the environment around their data centers. if deployed, they’d use the hot breath bubbles to excuse their seemingly infinite energy consumption increase in order to keep the AI bubble from popping. this is carbon credits all over again, they’ll use the CO2 to deploy more methane gas turbines because these would “cancel them out”.
edit: removed inaccurate claim about Energy Dome in Xinjiang, added context
You understand this isnt about a new way to generate electricity right? This is about a new way to store it. The generation side of these is tiny and it’s a closed loop system. The CO2 is in a CLOSED LOOP system meaning its not going to be leaching into the atmosphere. The issue with many renewables is they can’t operate well in swings. Thats why electricity price is constantly fluctuating, because the demand is. So a sustainable way to store renewable generated energy will be able to accommodate those swings in demand in a way plain solar panels/wind/hydro alone can’t. The CO2 is likely harvested directly from the atmosphere. Once the battery has X amount of CO2 it no longer needs more because again, its a closed loop. Clearly you have issues politically with the company, that can’t be helped. But you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Edit- the CO2 COULD be harvested from the atmosphere using DAC. The currently used CO2 is coming from an unnamed company with no clearly stated source. Industrial CO2 mostly comes from the creation of hydrogen and ammonia, both chemicals we NEED to survive. The excess very pure CO2 from this process is the majority of what is considered globally as “industrial CO2”. So, a waste product is being used that would otherwise be released to the atmosphere, used in industry or stored.
The CO2 is likely harvested directly from the atmosphere.
What makes you think that? I just did a little googling and didn’t find a source that commercial co2 comes from the air. The best case scenario I found was it being a byproduct of other processes. Although I’m doing this on my phone so maybe I missed something.
A process called DAC (Direct Air Capture) is currently used on medium scale to do this. Other instances in which they obtain CO2 is by capturing byproduct of industrial processes (the biggest and most pure being from hydrogen/ammonia production) or power plants. Again though, and I dont think this is sinking in, it is a closed loop system. So, once enough CO2 is captured, thats all that battery will ever need. Its not using new fuel to create more co2 it’s taking a specific amount from currently available, filling the battery ONCE then process over.
The CO2 is in a CLOSED LOOP system meaning its not going to be leaching into the atmosphere.
yeah, sure thing buddy. the CO2 will be in a closed loop until it won’t. just like Fukushima and Chernobyl were supposed to be closed loop systems, until they weren’t. disasters happen, no matter how much the techbro mindset insists that they’re impossible.
The CO2 is likely harvested directly from the atmosphere
LMAO, the audacity of telling me I don’t know how electricity generation works when you don’t even know how to read. they’re using industrial CO2 derived from fossil fuels
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So you’re against nuclear power too? If that’s the case I’ll double down on my previous statements. Being anti nuclear is simply being dumb. Tell me about how CO2 is sourced and explain how you’re saying its being sourced by burning fossil fuels. What other industries use CO2 as part of process? Have you looked into CO2, how its captured, used and its necessity at all? Again, this is something I can tell you have a very surface understanding of with no problem being vocally ignorant.
What’s your plan that doesn’t utilize the existing fossil fuel industry at all to go cold turkey on oil and full throttle on renewable?
Nuclear, in the 1970s. We should have had molten salt reactors worldwide by the 1990s, but the US just sat on the tech, because of permit issues. If I could, I would take all the research that was done on MSRs by the end of the 1970s to then Captain Rickover in 1950.
subsidize energy storage solutions that aren’t as economically profitable as fossil fuels. like thermal batteries, pumped hydro, etc.
most people don’t need that much energy during the night, so that is a red herring from the energy companies. the reason why we need this much storage in the first place is because of the infinite growth mindset instead of making industrialists pay for their own shit when they’re consuming energy in a race to the bottom. if we banned all the slop products from being made, energy demand would go down exponentially.
in a worst case scenario, we could 100% only rely on renewables and deal with the fact that we’ll have power outages during sleeping hours. that pill would be much easier to swallow if everyone is sharing the same burden, like during the lockdowns. and for the disabled people that need electricity to stay alive, give them refurbished EV batteries for free, there’s already more of them on the market than we could use in a lifetime. same thing for hospitals and essential institutions
Oh, I understand now, you live in a pretend world of idealistic ignorance. Thats not now ebs and flows of energy demand work. You shouldn’t participate in a conversation if you 1. Don’t understand realisticly how the subject works 2. Are so biased against the reality of the situation you make completely insane attempts to justify your ideas.
OK, so you don’t have fossil-fuel-free solutions, either, and you don’t have a reasonable plan to handle night time energy needs. You specifically said that utilizing fossil fuels at all was an issue, including for production of renewable, with the claim about not being able to source a turbine without fossil fuel use. It sounds like you don’t understand that “night” happens during normal human waking hours, that there are actual activities and demand for energy specifically at night, and that there is no direct path to a fossil-fuel-free energy solution. I have no idea how subsidizing alternates erases fossil fuels for your idea.
Its the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and I have 8.5 hours of daylight today. That’s about 4 hours of decent solar production without clouds, since the sun is so low. I guess I’ll just try sleeping, without electric heat (since CNG is a fossil and solar is dormant), for 14 hours tonight from dusk to dawn (5pm-7am). Wait, solar panels are still using fossil fuels for production, so those are out. Is a wood stove OK? It’s renewable, but it’s a major CO2 burden, much worse than CNG. Can’t mine lithium or nuclear material with the existing industry, all runs on petroleum. I’m not sure if life is worth living, as every waking hour has been spent at work, using the small time frame to try to support myself financially.
This also means no activity can occur at night. No manufacturing? Triple the facility sizes to allow the “night time” morning shift and the “night time” late night shift to operate with the daytime shift. Can’t go anywhere, can’t entertain myself, can’t eat, can’t enjoy anything other than lying in the dark, waiting for the sun to come back. That’s weird, putting all the overnight demand in the daytime is causing brownouts because we couldn’t triple our energy production. But hey, the burden is being shared and we’re all miserable for 5 straight months. But the summer will be rad with only demanding 8 hours of dormancy.
Look at the project. It’s not a continuous production of CO2. It says this one contains 2,000 tonnes of CO2 and produces 200MWh/day. A CNG power plant is somewhere in the range of 0.5kg CO2/kWh. That’s 10,000kg CO2 from CNG for 20MWh, or 10 tonnes. In just 200 days, a CNG plant of the same capacity will produce as much CO2 as this entire facility contains.
Bashing innovative projects like this for being anything less than a time machine to go pure nuclear actively hurts progress. Is that your goal? To maintain the status quo?
deal with the fact that we’ll have power outages during sleeping hours.
let me guess, you live somewhere winter doesn’t exist.
Sounds pretty good
