If these systems have enough thermal mass then maybe you could even power them with solar or daily offset cheaper power in another storage mechanism.
Between this and the newer co2 reduction technologies in kilns we might be close to finding ways to build combined steel and cement factories that have massively reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
If you want to do that you'd be better off using parabolic mirrors to heat regular fire bricks directly.
These are unique it seems because they're durable electric heating elements that can hit industrial process temperatures and might be cheaper then alternatives?
Wondering why archive.is is ok to replicate articles beyond paywalls while chatGPT got sued for a few unintentional regurgitations. Should there be a "protect it or lose it" rule for copyright as in trademarks?
How does this fit into the wider picture of steelmaking with electric arc furnaces? Those have been around for a good long while; what can this do that an electric arc furnace can't?
Pretty much nothing, at least for steel. You still need the carbon to incorporate into the alloy so like arc furnaces, they can only be used with mostly scrap material. That’s why steel makers still use coal. They need the coke.
Electrified Thermal Solutions is an electricity to heat solution. It combines the heating element, storage, and exchanger into a single brick (up to 1800°C).
antora also is a promising thermal pv company - heat up some carbon blocks resistively when clean power supply exceeds demand, then convert back to elec during peak demand or outages via pv panels operating on IR. Hopping container form factor. interesting partnerships w NREL and other gov partners.
I can't say I've ever really thought about using electricity to generate high heats because it's often way less efficient (convert x -> electricity -> heat, vs just chemical(combustion) -> heat) But sure, if you had "free" electricity (wind/solar) that is less of an issue.
I'm wondering if anyone has done the math for a cement plant in the southwest surrounded by PV solar.
This is incredibly wasteful and will end up being a net-negative for greenhouse gas emissions by crowding out other, more efficient uses of that electricity besides heating things up. One of the first things they teach you in engineering thermodynamics is that electricity is very high quality energy compared to process heat, and that you can do a lot more useful things with electricity such as powering motors or electronics. Electricity generation typically results in lots of waste heat, which you would be far better off recycling into process heat through cogeneration instead of what this article is doing, which is throwing away process heat to convert electricity into even more process heat.
> Electricity generation typically results in lots of waste heat
Typically, but may no longer be true with renewables. I don't think any of solar pv, wind, and hydro generates significant heat in the process of their power generation.
Yeah, this is why I’m not too worried about the energy storage side of going 100% renewable energy in a scenario where we also decarbonise completely.
Storing energy as heat is dead simple, cheap, can let you store huge amounts of energy, and you can store for fairly long timespans.
It doesn’t matter that you can’t feed power back to the grid (well, maybe you can.. you can convert the light given off the heated block with photovoltaics.. but that won’t be a huge factor). If we decarbonise industrial heat it will create enough demand for renewables that the minimum output of renewables (over a larger area, I think it’s fair to assume some grid improvements over the next years) will be more than enough to cover base load needs. We will probably have quite a lot of batteries for frequency regulation and smoothing out the duck curve. Some of that will also help with dunkelflaute. But mainly there will just be so much renewables that the output never goes below what is needed on a given day.
There’s so many aspects of decarbonisation that makes balancing the grid easier. Electric cars is another example, where a lot of people will have flexibility of delaying or being proactive with charging based on electricity price forecasts. I expect most rental car companies will provide some grid balancing services, and in the near future you’ll have to pay extra to check out a car with 100% SoC.
> It doesn’t matter that you can’t feed power back to the grid (well, maybe you can.. you can convert the light given off the heated block with photovoltaics.. but that won’t be a huge factor).
FWIW there are a few other comments in this page discussing TPV (albeit briefly) and there are at least a few companies seriously pursuing it with federal support. It is a pretty interesting alternative to other forms ESS, particularly for long duration (ie more relevant for critical resiliency applications than supply/demand arbitrage). Like you said probably will not end up super relevant in the grand scheme of the grid’s total ESS capacity, but it will most likely have a niche I think.
> I expect most rental car companies will provide some grid balancing services, and in the near future you’ll have to pay extra to check out a car with 100% SoC.
Rental car companies are an interesting example I hadn’t thought of before - thanks for highlighting that. Another more common challenge/opportunitu will be campuses - eg universities, large corporations, etc which have their own microgrid (often a CHP/district system in the northeast at least) - which may have a large number of commuters arriving in the morning and potentially wanting to charge their EVs all day. In 15 years, this might represent a pretty significant increase in demand, and represents giving a pretty substantial amount of free electricity to commuters (if things stayed as they are today). At the same time, charging up all of those vehicles during midday and then sending them home to immediately discharge when they plug in at 5-7pm could substantially abate the duck curve, and being an even larger further savings for the commuter. Seems obvious that some sort of new agreements/contracts etc will come in to play for these sorts of campuses.
I wonder how useful this would be in space. Say, some sort of smelter or furnace on the moon. Fossil fuels are hard to come by there, whereas you could probably set up a fairly large solar farm relatively cheaply.
Well it is just a brick that can acts as a heating element. In terms of converting electricity to heat it is almost 100% efficient like every other electric heating element.
I didn't spot any mention of voltage requirements for that so maybe it requires so high voltage that cause it to be a bit harder to actually use.
Every material is a conductor in a high enough potential! And if you pass enough current through copper, it can get to the same temperature, provided you're careful enough to maintain contact after it melts.
The distinguishing feature to call these "conductive" is that you could make a kiln of these bricks and ordinary bricks, and the current should preferentially pass through the conductive ones. Some of the current will leak through every other available path, including the air, but that's true of every circuit in existence. Vacuum isn't supposed to conduct, but vacuum tubes pass current through it, don't they?
There is a difference between thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity of a material. They have low electric conductivity, so when you try to pass a current through them, they get hot. They are thermally conductive, so the heat spreads around the brick quickly.
thinkingkong|1 year ago
Between this and the newer co2 reduction technologies in kilns we might be close to finding ways to build combined steel and cement factories that have massively reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
XorNot|1 year ago
If you want to do that you'd be better off using parabolic mirrors to heat regular fire bricks directly.
These are unique it seems because they're durable electric heating elements that can hit industrial process temperatures and might be cheaper then alternatives?
passwordoops|1 year ago
Very clever!
tentacleuno|1 year ago
visarga|1 year ago
mauvehaus|1 year ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace
throwup238|1 year ago
specialist|1 year ago
It's fun to compare and contrast strategies, as startups explore and define the problem space.
For example:
Fourth Power is a heat to electricity solution. It uses graphite bricks (up to 2400°C), liquid metal for plumbing, and thermophotovoltaic cells.
https://gofourth.com/our-technology/
Electrified Thermal Solutions is an electricity to heat solution. It combines the heating element, storage, and exchanger into a single brick (up to 1800°C).
https://electrifiedthermal.com/
s1artibartfast|1 year ago
szvsw|1 year ago
https://antoraenergy.com/
ChuckMcM|1 year ago
I'm wondering if anyone has done the math for a cement plant in the southwest surrounded by PV solar.
peepeepoopoo73|1 year ago
upsuper|1 year ago
Typically, but may no longer be true with renewables. I don't think any of solar pv, wind, and hydro generates significant heat in the process of their power generation.
abdullahkhalids|1 year ago
[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US20220132633A1/en
audunw|1 year ago
Storing energy as heat is dead simple, cheap, can let you store huge amounts of energy, and you can store for fairly long timespans.
It doesn’t matter that you can’t feed power back to the grid (well, maybe you can.. you can convert the light given off the heated block with photovoltaics.. but that won’t be a huge factor). If we decarbonise industrial heat it will create enough demand for renewables that the minimum output of renewables (over a larger area, I think it’s fair to assume some grid improvements over the next years) will be more than enough to cover base load needs. We will probably have quite a lot of batteries for frequency regulation and smoothing out the duck curve. Some of that will also help with dunkelflaute. But mainly there will just be so much renewables that the output never goes below what is needed on a given day.
There’s so many aspects of decarbonisation that makes balancing the grid easier. Electric cars is another example, where a lot of people will have flexibility of delaying or being proactive with charging based on electricity price forecasts. I expect most rental car companies will provide some grid balancing services, and in the near future you’ll have to pay extra to check out a car with 100% SoC.
szvsw|1 year ago
FWIW there are a few other comments in this page discussing TPV (albeit briefly) and there are at least a few companies seriously pursuing it with federal support. It is a pretty interesting alternative to other forms ESS, particularly for long duration (ie more relevant for critical resiliency applications than supply/demand arbitrage). Like you said probably will not end up super relevant in the grand scheme of the grid’s total ESS capacity, but it will most likely have a niche I think.
> I expect most rental car companies will provide some grid balancing services, and in the near future you’ll have to pay extra to check out a car with 100% SoC.
Rental car companies are an interesting example I hadn’t thought of before - thanks for highlighting that. Another more common challenge/opportunitu will be campuses - eg universities, large corporations, etc which have their own microgrid (often a CHP/district system in the northeast at least) - which may have a large number of commuters arriving in the morning and potentially wanting to charge their EVs all day. In 15 years, this might represent a pretty significant increase in demand, and represents giving a pretty substantial amount of free electricity to commuters (if things stayed as they are today). At the same time, charging up all of those vehicles during midday and then sending them home to immediately discharge when they plug in at 5-7pm could substantially abate the duck curve, and being an even larger further savings for the commuter. Seems obvious that some sort of new agreements/contracts etc will come in to play for these sorts of campuses.
genocidicbunny|1 year ago
quaintdev|1 year ago
kukkamario|1 year ago
I didn't spot any mention of voltage requirements for that so maybe it requires so high voltage that cause it to be a bit harder to actually use.
tofof|1 year ago
klyrs|1 year ago
The distinguishing feature to call these "conductive" is that you could make a kiln of these bricks and ordinary bricks, and the current should preferentially pass through the conductive ones. Some of the current will leak through every other available path, including the air, but that's true of every circuit in existence. Vacuum isn't supposed to conduct, but vacuum tubes pass current through it, don't they?
abdullahkhalids|1 year ago
kazinator|1 year ago