Energy storage, cheap and low tech.

[Redneck in training]

Where are you going to install 50000 MW of stored power ? Who is paying ?

The plant I am currently working on is coal burning. I don't know what the original budget was but I am guessing it was way over a billion. After all the delays and cost overruns the current cost is about double and still rising. It has name capacity 582 MW so estimated cost per 1W of installed capacity will be about $4-5. When done it will require several hundred people keeping it in operation. It is clear that cost of electric power will go up and at the cost will be passed on the customers.

Edit: I just looked up the owner of the plant web site. The current cost of the plant is 6.5 billion. That is over $10/W of capacity.

 

[r porter]

ok- this is the largest i could find, still i am impressed

Plug-Out Island kit Prius 5kva 24/12-6hz psw: Home

 

[newbury]

Even a "water tower" sized installation could suffice for small scale energy storage. Water is mass,..... 1000kg per meter^3

And an advantage in "water rich" areas like Mississippi is that you can get an extra 40 inches or so times the size of your basin above the containment area. I've a hill near my Mississippi residence where I could build a half acre pond, collect water from about 25 acres of my own land (I own to the ridgelines and beyond) and get 100' of head for a small water turbine.

Grid electricity is still cheaper, we are on TVA Which includes pumped storage:

The pumped storage plant at Raccoon Mountain is a prime example of the recreation opportunities and minimal environmental impact of hydroelectric power. It produces 1,650 megawatts of power - See more at: TVA - Hydroelectric

I don't know if I'll ever own one, but did you know that a Prius or any other hybrid can be used as a standby generator for your house with a simple kit?

Prius has a 30kW generator.

The better ones start and stop the engine as needed to maintain the charge. Quiet too!

Don't you just HATE those pesky fly specks that are used for decimal places?

ok- this is the largest i could find, still i am impressed

Plug-Out Island kit Prius 5kva 24/12-6hz psw: Home

There was a very knowledgeable TBN member, Rob-D, who knew a lot about hydro and used it. Last on TBN about mid 2014. Miss him.

 

[dickfoster]

I know people who bought 60 000 dollars truck as daily driver to work. Show me a 60k daily driver making 300 a month. In fact it costs probably more than 500/month in fuel, insurance and financing cost. So we drive our used cars and have 36k PV system that saves us 277 USD/month in electric bill cost. It will take 16 years to break even if you want to know. It seems long time but after 16 years it will still produce energy while the truck owner will have pretty much worthless piece of junk he sank huge amount of money in for questionable "fun" to drive thing. How smart is that? Well , I should stop being sarcastic. We are guilty of such thing too. Our house way too big and has way too many bathrooms for two people, not speaking about my wife's closet. :banghead: Fortunately in our good old USA we can buy (smart or not smart) what we want but not necessarily what we need. I rest my case.

Remove all the subsidy BS then recompute using real math and real numbers.

 

[buickanddeere]

The plant I am currently working on is coal burning. I don't know what the original budget was but I am guessing it was way over a billion. After all the delays and cost overruns the current cost is about double and still rising. It has name capacity 582 MW so estimated cost per 1W of installed capacity will be about $4-5. When done it will require several hundred people keeping it in operation. It is clear that cost of electric power will go up and at the cost will be passed on the customers.

Edit: I just looked up the owner of the plant web site. The current cost of the plant is 6.5 billion. That is over $10/W of capacity.

In order to purchase green liberal urban votes . Our province shutdown 12 state of art thermal stations with the latest and best scrubbers , precipitators and burners . Only thing that went out the stack was water vapour , CO2 and nitrogen.
Replaced with $$$ wind, $$$ solar and $$$ backup natural gas turbines . All three of Which are also paid when they don't operate.
Then again the cost of green power and other government regulations have pushed large industry and jobs out of country into the 3rd world . Province used to hit 25-26,000MW peaks summer and winter . Will be hard pressed now to have 15-18,000MW days with a 20,000MW peak.

 

[dickfoster]

The power grid had stability issues from day one. That is why we have street lights whose original purpose was to provide night load for the generators. So any energy storage can be used to even out generation/demand discrepancies. In fact if electric cars become ubiquitous they could serve such purpose while plugged in.
There were dreamers 100 years ago saying that one day we will have electric power more or less to every object in the USA. They were told it can't be done. But we have electric power more or less to every object in the USA. We also have several hundred million cars in operation. And those have to be replaced just about every 16 years. So if that can be done somebody will make energy storage on such scale. The technologies exist. It is just matter of cost.
I am currently working on a power station under construction. It is about 18 month late, not even close to be finished and about 100% over budget. It is clear to me that after it is all done the owner of the plant will ask for rate increase. Couple more of those and wind, PV or what ever new will show up will be cheaper than power from coal or gas.
In fact the utility that supply power to the grid my house is connected to (The utility is hostile to residential solar) just signed a contract to build 200 MW PV generation plant in phase one and wants to build two more of similar size sometime later.

As a natural born redneck, if you keep talking all this looney left alternate energy stuff I'm going to demote you all the way back to kindergarten. LOL

If you want to read about something that has real promise start checking into this Thorium Energy Alliance Portal
then wonder why we aren't doing it. It's worth noting that we've already built successful reactors and we have abundant supplies of thorium so the only thing left to do is a little engineering but no real physics. It could at least get us to day when fusion powers the grid. The only significant things standing in the way are the fossil fuel economy and politics. In other words the powers that are. Remember you could easily convert existing fossil fueled plants to use a thorium reactor as the heat source, all the turbines and the rest of it remain unchanged. It also scales easily. For a county that put men on the moon in less than 10 years, this would be a cakewalk and a slam dunk.

 

[orezok]

Don't you just HATE those pesky fly specks that are used for decimal places?

I'm sorry, my 30kW quote was from an earlier version of the Prius. Here's the latest version.

 

[buickanddeere]

As a natural born redneck, if you keep talking all this looney left alternate energy stuff I'm going to demote you all the way back to kindergarten. LOL

If you want to read about something that has real promise start checking into this Thorium Energy Alliance Portal
then wonder why we aren't doing it. It's worth noting that we've already built successful reactors and we have abundant supplies of thorium so the only thing left to do is a little engineering but no real physics. It could at least get us to day when fusion powers the grid. The only significant things standing in the way are the fossil fuel economy and politics. In other words the powers that are. Remember you could easily convert existing fossil fueled plants to use a thorium reactor as the heat source, all the turbines and the rest of it remain unchanged. It also scales easily. For a county that put men on the moon in less than 10 years, this would be a cakewalk and a slam dunk.

Dreams, imagination and lofty goals are all fine. Problems is that sometimes the laws of physics and cost get in the way of a perfect world.
I agree that thorium reactors are the answer for baseload and some load following.
Thermal steam turbines are designed for higher temperatures than nuclear and superheated dry steam supplied to the high pressure turbine. There is extensive re-heating prior to the low pressure turbines .
Nuclear steam from the boilers is lower temperature and "wet" into the high pressure turbine. The low pressure turbines are supplied with somewhat "dry" re-heated steam . The heat sourced from condensate slung from the high pressure turbine and some primary steam from the boilers.
Nuclear steam turbines tend to be larger in diameter and 1800rpm. Thermal turbines tend to be smaller in diameter and 3600rpm.

 

[MossRoad]

I'm sorry, my 30kW quote was from an earlier version of the Prius. Here's the latest version.

Please post a link to these kits you're mentioning. As other's have mentioned, the largest we can find is 5kw.

 

[KennyG]

Interesting discussion. I don't think I'm going to jump into it, but when discussing this, keep in mind that kW or mW (kilowatts/megawatts) is a measure of power and to compare energy you need to talk about kW-hrs or mW-hrs. If you find something that says 1000 mW of storage, that doesn't mean anything. If it's really 1000 mW-hrs, that means it can provide 100 mW for 10 hours. Articles promoting storage ideas like to give the impression it can back up a plant of a certain capacity when it's really only a fraction of that for an extended period of time.