by deesep on 8/1/22, 8:12 PM with 2 comments
by ncmncm on 8/2/22, 1:12 AM
There are good economies of scale in turbines: a big one costs a lot less than a bunch of small ones. Running it continuously, not stopping and starting every 10 seconds, should be better for efficiency, and makes rotational inertia work for, not against you.
It is quite surprising to me how so many energy projects admit simple, but likely substantial, improvements on casual inspection.
Another example is buoyancy energy storage (search term "BEST"), where they had a motor-generator screwed down to the sea floor, cranking a huge rack of floats down, and letting it rise to extract power.
It seemed obvious to me that electrical equipment on the sea floor will be super-expensive,where all they need there is a pulley, with the reel, winch, and motor-generator on shore.
Since a pulley is cheap, you can have a whole series of them, each with its own float running back to its own reel. A single winch / motor / generator may be switched between reels via simple clutches. Then your winch can be rated for a not-insane load of one float (say, 250 tons), but you can store as much energy as you have reels and floats for.
The float design is interesting. The BEST paper had air in floats being compressed as the float is cranked down, losing buoyancy as it goes. A hollow concrete sphere in a net bag (to distribute load) would maintain the same buoyancy all the way down.
But another alternative float is a sealed bag or can of lithium-saturated anhydrous ammonia, which has the lowest density of any known liquid, 480 kg/m^3. Kept below 70 meters, it does not need a pressure vessel to keep the ammonia liquified. A ten-meter (nominal) sphere of it pulls at 250 tons.
Sometimes I suspect that designs are too complicated in order to seem more patentable, thus more able to attract venture money, where a simple design might not. There are an astonishing variety of these things under construction in pilot projects, all fiendishly complicated for no apparent technically compelling reason.
by egberts1 on 8/2/22, 2:04 AM
Less red-tapes and bureaucracy too.
Meanwhile, nuclear energy has continue to hold the largest base electric output, bar none.