Positive Climate News

h/t mousebumples

Hot Rocks Store Energy

Sandia engineers convert excess renewable electricity into heat that gets stored in piles of gravel

Nathan Schroeder, a mechanical engineer at Sandia National Labs, arranges landscaping gravel in a thermal energy storage unit. Sandia is working with CSolPower on optimizing a low-cost solution for storing intermittent renewable energy. (Image: Craig Fritz, Sandia National Laboratories)

Storing energy is one of the key challenges for implementing sustainable but intermittent electricity sources like solar and wind. Engineers at Sandia National Laboratories are collaborating with New Mexico-based CSolPower LLC to develop a very affordable method of accomplishing that storage.

Thermal energy is very energy-dense — you can basically use any material that could withstand high temperatures to store heat and then deliver it when you need it. “Say you have a PV or a wind farm and you’re overproducing in the middle of the day. You can take that excess electricity and heat up air using a big resistive heater,” said Sandia engineer Luke McLaughlin. You can then use a blower to push the heated air through a bed of gravel, which is quite porous. That transfers the heat from the air to the rocks. You then close some valves, and the system goes into “hold” mode for hours, days, or weeks, until it needs to be released by reversing the flow. “The rocks have so much surface area, you’re blowing through what is basically a big sponge — it’s a lot of area for the heat transfer,” said Nathan Schroeder, a mechanical engineer at Sandia.

When the heat energy is ready to be used, it is transferred back to the air. The heated air can either be dispatched directly to a process or it can be used to create steam to drive a turbine like you would in a traditional power cycle.  Read the rest here

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Two videos that talk about similar technology:

Oct 22, 2023

Rondo Energy just secured $60 million of funding from some of the world’s shrewdest investors. So, can they now achieve their goal of a 90GWh per annum production facility for their simple heat battery technology, reducing global industrial CO2 emissions by 12 MILLION tonnes per year? Time will tell!

 

Jan 25, 2023

How A Brick & Rock Battery Is Changing Energy Storage – Explained. The first 100 people to use code UNDECIDED at the link below will get 20% off of Incogni: https://incogni.com/undecided. Grid-scale lithium ion batteries are our current go-to chemical energy storage solution, but they present their own challenges in safety, sustainability, cost, and longevity. However, the competition is … heating up. New forms of thermal energy storage systems built using abundant, cheap materials are on the rise. One company is aiming to sidestep the complications that come with chemical batteries…with a brick battery. And another company’s weapon of choice is a crushed volcanic rock battery. Talk about going back to basics to store massive amounts of energy. But is simple really best?

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Once again the liberals are attacking your freedoms by suggesting it might be better to have healthier indoor air by using better technology.  Cheesy fun with a great message:

May 22, 2024

Faster, cleaner, safer, more precise, and more energy efficient, the induction stove is the stove of the future. And the future is now! ⚡️ Join us for Extraordinary Electrics as we put this top-of-the-line tech to the test and show you how induction cooking can make your life better. Did you know? Upgrading to energy-efficient electric appliances like an induction stove not only fights climate change — it also lowers your energy bills, improves air quality, and makes your home comfier. Win-win-win-win. Get started: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/newsl…

That’s enough for this holiday weekend. In other news, I have some kindness/good news items tucked away for next week. I think we need the reset.

This is a doom and gloom free zone

A couple of success stories.

Herd of 170 bison could help store CO2 equivalent of 43,000 cars, researchers say

Free-roaming animals reintroduced in Romania’s Țarcu mountains are stimulating plant growth and securing carbon stored in the soil while grazing

A herd of 170 bison reintroduced to Romania’s Țarcu mountains could help store CO₂ emissions equivalent to removing 43,000 US cars from the road for a year, research has found, demonstrating how the animals can help mitigate some effects of the climate crisis.

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The European bison herd grazing in an area of nearly 50 sq km of grasslands within the wider Țarcu mountains was found to potentially capture an additional 54,000 tonnes of carbon a year. That is nearly 9.8 times more carbon than without the bison – although the report authors noted the 9.8 figure could be up to 55% higher or lower, so making the median estimate uncertain. This corresponds to the yearly CO₂ released by a median of 43,000 average US petrol cars, or 84,000 using the higher figure, or a median of 123,000 average European cars, due to their higher energy efficiency, the researchers said.

Mar 12, 2024

Permaculture Instructor Andrew Millison travels to the village of Laporiyah in Rajasthan India to see the 45 year water harvesting and community development project spearheaded by waterman Laxman Singh. We spent 2 days touring the village with Laxman and his team, including well known academic Vishnu Sharma. Vishnu has specialized in the revitalization of Rajasthan during his long career and we were very lucky to have him as Laxman’s interpreter. This village has experienced such an incredible transformation due to the work of the villagers, it is hard to express in one video. For my regular viewers, you will see that this is flat terrain, with very different strategies than the regularly visited hilly locations. Enjoy!

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Here are the last two Carbon Cowboy videos:

May 14, 2020 • CLARKESVILLE

Murray Provine lived the traveling executive lifestyle until prostate cancer was diagnosed. With a focus on his personal health, he changed his 110 acre horse farm to Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) cattle grazing – with the tutelage of Allen Williams. 3 years into the change, Murray and his land are in much better health. Filmed in Clarkesville, Georgia

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May 14, 2020 ALBERTA

A research team led by ecologist Steve Apfelbaum explores 4 regenerative grazing ranches in Alberta, Canada. The ranchers were some of the very first to adopt organic farming and AMP grazing in Canada – making their ranches profitable, and a haven for wildlife. Filmed in Alberta, Canada

At their Youtube page, Roots So Deep there are many, many more videos talking with farmers, showcasing their research, and community town halls where they spread the good news and answer folks’ questions.

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That’s enough for today. I’m off to continue rewilding my yard (hey it’s year THREE of killing my grass – you can see the latest photos here and read an update). I’ll continue with rewilding in the next post – still want to get to what’s going on in the arctic tundra.

Doomerism is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.
It is how authoritarians win. Let’s try to fight the doom.

Michael Mann and Timothy D Snyder

This is a doom and gloom free zone