energy storage

Energy storage, emissions hotspots, waste-to-fuel, and feed-in tariffs again

• I wish I was as funny as The Editors.

• Interesting: AEP, one of the most coal-heavy and change-resistant utilities on the planet, is experimenting with backyard energy storage systems.

• A good piece from the Center for Progressive Reform examines the risk of "hotspots" in a carbon cap-and-trade program. Of course there's no such thing as a carbon hotspot, but facilities that create carbon also tend to create co-pollutants, so it's a legitimate fear. Author Shana Jones has some ideas for how cap-and-trade could be crafted to avoid this danger.

• Ontario recently instituted a feed-in tariff program. What happened?

So many local wind and solar developers -- as well as homeowners looking to install photovoltaic panels -- applied for Ontario’s standard offer that the government’s 10-year target cap of 1,000 megawatts was exceeded within a year.

Said one energy analyst, "The lesson is that renewable energy technology was a lot more market-ready than the energy planners thought it was." Golly, I wonder if that's true in the U.S. too?

• Biofuels Digest has an interesting report on the promise of "waste-to-fuel" companies, which take municipal solid waste -- i.e., garbage -- and make biofuel out of it:

New all-liquid battery holds promise of easy scalability and high current capacity

For the tech nerds out there, check out this intriguing article in the new Technology Review.

It's about a new kind of battery in which all the active materials are liquid (molten metals and molten salt) rather than solids. This gives it several advantages over the whole range of solid-state batteries now available. It's cheap and easily scaleable, and most importantly, it can handle very high currents. It looks like an incredibly promising solution for utility-scale storage of intermittent resources like sun and wind.

You can hear this all explained by MIT's Donald Sandoway in the nerdtastic video at the link.

As always, it's all about cost-effective scale. No sense celebrating yet. But every scrap of hopeful news on energy storage is worth sharing.

Super-battery idea wins X Prize competition for next green invention

From the people that brought you private space travel comes another ambitious techno challenge — a hyper-green battery that can store electrical energy in vast quantities, with super-quick recharging abilities and without environmentally harmful components. Today the X PRIZE Foundation announced the winner of its $25,000 YouTube contest to come up with the next “Crazy […]

Energy density is not an immutable requirement

This article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists makes an important point: no energy storage mechanism is ever likely to approach the energy density of hydrocarbons like oil and coal, certainly not at scale.

Part of the reason coal and oil are enemies of the human race is precisely that they are so seductive -- they really are fantastically designed energy carriers, with high energy density in easily portable packages. It will take incredible collective self-discipline to keep from using them up (and reaping the long-term consequences).

The conclusion, however, bugs the snot out of me:

Battery makers come begging to Congress

American lithium-ion battery makers, including giants like 3M, are banding together to try to extract a few billion dollars from Congress so they can build a shiny battery manufacturing plant that, for whatever reason, they aren't willing to spend their own money on. This latest handout request is a fairly dubious idea that is nevertheless likely to appeal to a lot of people on grounds of both economic nationalism and a vague aura of environmental goodness.

Whatever you think of the request, though, let's at least all agree not to put up with this:

"We don't want to go from being dependent on Middle East oil to Asian batteries."

- Jeff Depew, chief executive of Imara, a start-up that makes lithium-ion batteries

Oil is a viscous substance, finite in quantity, concentrated in hard-to-reach pockets in certain corners of the globe. These properties allow a relatively small handful of countries to exert some imperfect control over its supply. Batteries differ from oil in just about every important way.*

Depew has an obvious interest in promoting American battery manufacturers. But surely savvy outsiders understand that a competitive, low-cost industry, whether centered in Asia or anywhere else, is good for everyone who needs batteries?

Recently, Andrew Grove, former chairman of Intel Corp., began urging the chip maker to explore whether it could play a role in battery manufacturing. Mr. Grove and others say U.S. companies must step up efforts to produce advanced batteries for the country's car industry or America will end up trading its dependence on foreign petroleum for dependence on foreign-made batteries.

Oh, well. The industry consortium is organized by Jim Greenberger, a lawyer specializing in clean tech. In case you're not scared enough yet of the Asian battery menace, Greenberger spells it out:

Solar baseload outshines ‘clean coal’ — and it always will

Concentrated solar thermal power — aka solar baseload — remains hot. The Daily Climate has a nice update: All told some 60 plants are either under construction or under contract worldwide — with most in either Spain or the United States — for a total capacity just north of 5,700 megawatts. Here is the world […]

Lockheed Martin signs exclusive contract with Eestor for energy storage units

Oh! I forgot to pass on some interesting news that came my way recently. Defense mega-contractor Lockheed Martin has signed a contract with mysterious ultracapacitor company Eestor to use its energy storage devices in "military and homeland security applications." This seem huge. The buzz around Eestor — more here — has been intense, and the […]

CPR for the electric car

Project Better Place has a new take on jumpstarting the electrification of transportation: they've raised $200 million (about enough to buy, what, three fuel cell vehicles?) to start building infrastructure for charging and battery exchange stations.

That's just a down payment. If you play Internet Nancy Drew for a sec you will quickly find out that Israel Corp, a major investor, also has a stake in oil refineries, and 45 percent of Chery, the Chinese car company that keeps threatening to build electric cars. These guys are invested in the full value chain, and dollars to donuts they're leveraging much more value from partner companies than the measly $200 million. We are talking about a $6-10 trillion industry, after all, which tends to focus the mind and get people working together.

Do yourself a favor and check out the video. The vision is a transportation system powered by wind and sun. And a software exec (CEO and founder Shai Aggassi comes from SAP) is exactly the right person for the job.

We don't have an energy problem, we have an energy storage problem. When I listen to Agassi talk about developing software to manage the charging strategies of EV's flexible and mobile loads in a way that enhances integration of intermittent resources like solar and wind into the grid, I get a little weak in the knees.

Combine that with REC's announcement that it was building a 1.5 GW fully integrated solar manufacturing plant in Singapore, and the future seems much brighter indeed. Note that 1.5 GW was about the size of the entire world market in 2006.

The combination of cheap solar and millions of big batteries on the grid can mean only good things.

Some good news for wind and solar

For those who have long been frustrated with the pace of progress in energy storage for electricity, we are happy to finally report a bit of good news.

Two weeks ago, Jason moderated a panel at "Investing in Energy Storage Technologies," a conference in New York City sponsored by Financial Research Associates, LLC. Unlike most industry conferences on storage (meetings where we all sit around preaching to the already converted), bona-fide, real-life energy tech investors attended this one. Plus -- and here's where it gets exciting -- there were actually two presentations that together could very well signal the increase in interest and investment needed to commercialize energy storage technologies for our electricity grid.