A coal power station without the coal! How 'WIN-WIN' solutions could save an industry.
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
- Coal fired power stations are being retired in record numbers all over the world as we move towards more sustainable energy. But the huge turbines in those facilities provide essential inertia to maintain grid frequency, so losing them is a problem. Wouldn't it be great if we could get rid of the coal and carbon dioxide emissions but keep everything else? Well, now we can...
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Love reuse of existing infrastructure! It helps so much in terms of budgets and planning!
and gives the power company a way out without have to deal with stranded assets or early asset retirement.
It could also he converted into geothermal system.
About time we had some "really" good news on the renewable/alternative energy front (and not just hopeful promises for many years ahead)
And building infrastructure always has a carbon cost so its great to recycle it.
@@j.f.fisher5318 Repurpose it. In waste management, recycling has a specific meaning: decomposition into materials, then manufacturing new stuff out of it.
Really good news for a change, i'm from Denmark, we don't use cooling towers, we use radiators and hot water to consumers, only in summer there's a little use for extra cooling, and we use the ocean for that.
I find it funny that green plants breathe Co2 and exhaust Oxygen. In the past Co2 levels were much higher and as a result oxygen levels were higher too. Both plants and animals were bigger think dinosaurs. How did fossil fuels get trapped in the ground in the first place? Wouldn’t it make sense to put it back into the atmosphere where it belongs in the first place.
@@1DVSB you're not pulling in all the variables. Many forests have been chopped down. CO2 is way up. Plants are actually getting choked out from too much CO2 and the ocean is turning acidic - bleaching the coral, dissolving crustacean shells - the Arctic and tundra are melting. Sea level is rising rapidly and is likely to go above 50 m. Much coastland and countries will go underwater. You're going to say "oops"? No, this cannot happen. Take preventative measures. Have a clue
Turning coal plants into high-efficiency thermal battery sites. That's rather genius, and I very much look forward to progress on this front!
Round trip efficiency is actually much lower than batteries. But solar price is dropping so rapidly that it doesn’t matter much. The low cost and reuse of existing infrastructure more than makes up for it.
Now all we need is a sustainable source of graphite. Luckily, we're already making graphite from woodwaste a process that actually sequesters more carbon than it emits at Stora Enso and CarbonScape. Maybe a topic for a future episode.
Finally a reasonable idea that actually makes sense.
An Additional benefit if you use this in place of a coal boiler is you no longer have to deal with the Ash and sludge that is left over when you burn coal. No more retainer pools of Coal sludge that can burst their banks and contaminate local ground water.
Pulverised Fly Ash replaced cement in building blocks to the tune of half the the CO2 produced by coal fired power stations, but that is an inconvenient fact.
@@robindumpleton3742 Fly ash is only part of the ash, and some getting used up in concrete does not mean there are no problematic storage sites.
@@robindumpleton3742given fly ash ponds have dangerous metals like lead, mercury, uranium, cadmium, etc I'd be seriously worried if that isn't filtered. Tailing ponds are a environmental disaster, and one tiny upside to them is not an exoneration of the practice. Coal is just dirty as hell, and should not be burned in this century.
@@robindumpleton3742 And what's left is edible if a little gritty
@@jrrarglblarg9241Essentially 100% of the fly ash produced in Australia is sold to make concrete. The early decommissioning of a coal fire power plant here has affected the supply of concrete. Supply chains matter dude.
this is exactly what Australia needs. awesome video, well done.
MGA Thermal in Australia has a brick for this purpose made of graphite containing aluminium lumps inside as a phase change material that melts absorbing more heat energy then the graphite alone. As the melted aluminium remains inside the brick it can be handled the same way as this video demonstrates.
One more advantage of this system is that where a generating complex has multiple generators, this can be installed incrementally, keeping one (or more) generator burning coal for the very occasional times when that part is needed.
Basic economics will ensure that the coal powered unit will not be run most the time, when cheap solar is going begging for use.
It’ll soon be an alternative for some gas fired stations?
Modularity, excellent point.
@@oliver90owner: At least for the simple-cycle ones, used chiefly for ramping up supply.
@@josdesouza Open cycle gas plants are not often in use in the UK. Combined cycle are sooo much more efficient as thermodynamics, of steam generation, doesn’t apply to all of it! Hopefully, next year the grid will be able/confident to run without any gas fired generation (at times when renewables are abundant). Currently gas generation is maintained at a little over 2GW for ‘black’ grid start-up, if necessary.
Coal plants don't do peaking. It takes hours, sometimes over a day, to get a coal plant up to temperature from zero. They have to run at all times, even at a loss sometimes, to function reliably
What I love about this is that we could have had this decades ago. None of the tech here is some advanced material science discovery, the delays on this has all been a way to push back on clean energy. Love it here!
Solar and wind energy cannot be used to refine materials for solar panels and rare earths. Which means all western production will go to china and the west will use chineese solar panels to power western turism industry which will be the only remaining industry without enough power.
not really
"decades ago" we didn't have the renewal capacity we have today. you would need to use coal to power it!
I always love your videos, one of the best channels on CZcams!
Truly is... 💪😎
Truly is 💪😎
Truly is 💪 😎
I like simplicity of the system, it feels very engineer driven solution and I like it. Also getting into India is definitely right approach there. Will follow with interest.
Here in Nottingham we are about to decommission the largest coal fired plant in Europe - Ratcliffe on Soar. They are saying it will be the site of a fusion plant at some point (maybe 40 years from now...that's always been how far into the future fusion is since I were a lad). While we're waiting for usable fusion maybe they could deploy this system to make use of all the wind energy the UK is going to be generating.
I expect fusion power to be 40 years in the future ad-infinitum.
@@gsmollin2 Me too mate. Thorium seems to be the best option for future nuclear.
Dave, In the last few days Deutsche Welle News Ukraine covered a story on the strategic move to solar+ batteries in Ukraine with a goal of making an "unbreakable power grid" through decentralised generation. National and local governments are incentivising solar uptake for critical infrastructure like hospitals but also highrise apartment buildings to communities to individual homes. Also over 300 grid scale solar farms are being built. Solar+battery build out is happening at pace!
Alfonso Garcia Mora, Vice President at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on speaking about the Ukraine Recovery says recovery can't wait until the war stops. At a conference in Berlin IFC are coordinating private capital for resilience, reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine. Alfonso emphasises distributed renewable energy is a huge part of this.
I've been saying we need that for farmers for years. A few years ago some flooding destroyed a lot of power lines and ten of thousands of animals all along the river had to be killed. A lot of damage could have been prevented if every farm was able to make its own power. Not to mention the cost of diesel, and the fact that if a road gets taken out, eventually the diesel would run out too.
Someone said something - it doesn’t change anything... Words are cheap
Nice to see something rated as being NEW and INNOVATIVE likely to be so but still requiring huge electrical input from those notoriously unreliable and expensive to produce 'renewables' which have a relatively short useful life and, as yet, have no mass method of reclamation/recycling .
So, a world filling up with old/damaged EV's, solar panels and wind turbines puts a sour note on this innovation.
At least Nitrogen is being used as an anti oxidant, plenty of that around and recyclable?
I thought you were going to talk about the company working on drilling deep geothermal wells near coal plants, using an extremely high power (100kW to 1MW) microwave drill. But this thermal storage idea makes a lot of sense too.
came with the same thought in my head! :)
This could make a lot of people very happy.
Thank you for giving us hope.
What's wild is that graphite is the primary ingredient in coal, so this still basically is a coal plant.
Like oil. Really useful stuff. We just want to burn it a whole lot less.
Graphite and Coal are both mostly Carbon, but the structure is very different. This is basic chemistry stuff so you just need to Google it.
@@salibaba or actually use it for plastics we will still need for some critical tools and applications.
Came here to say this. Wouldn't it be awesome if they could just use coal as the heat store?! That would be one of those Sci-Fi moments where people from the future see us burning coal and get really really confused...
"But why wouldn't they simply use it to store energy?"
"These early 21st century people were primitive, remember?"
"Yes but I thought they had some level of civilisation.."
@@salibaba we actually dont burn most of the oil, its used in tons of applications where batteries still cant compete, hydroelectricity is most popular around the world
Wow, really cool technology. We’re working on thermal energy networks at my company. Hope this thing gets to market at a nice price and quickly.
You obviously meant hot technology. If it was cool, there would be no steam ;P
Really good news, Dave! Many thanks.
Another possible solution. Always nice to be kept informed.
Can't wait for follow up in 12-18 months!
This is incredible news! Hope this technology gets a huge adoption rate!
Finally, something actually resembling clean coal!
And maybe clean gas in the future?🙂
Snarky :)
czcams.com/video/wV7UE1DZEJU/video.htmlsi=YhhS4TM_FBwvFEp1 this is my idea on the same subject. Cannot believe one of my main inspirations posted a video on the same subject today also 😮
But wait:
Nice to see something rated as being NEW and INNOVATIVE likely to be so but still requiring huge electrical input from those notoriously unreliable and expensive to produce 'renewables' which have a relatively short useful life and, as yet, have no mass method of reclamation/recycling .
So, a world filling up with old/damaged EV's, solar panels and wind turbines puts a sour note on this innovation.
At least Nitrogen is being used as an anti oxidant, plenty of that around and recyclable?
Delighted to see such a long list of patreons at the end. The channel definitely deserves it for your hard work, well researched and presented videos. Thank you to them, from me - no adverts! What a blessed relief on CZcams! Google really is going overboard with forcing people to include them!
And finally, the topic of the video: this looks extraordinarily positive for the future! Surely it will become a major source of future power
Great news for this technology, there's an old coal fired power station near me, I'd like to see converted. I will be pushing for this. Thanks, Dave, another great video!
There are soon to be no operating coal plants- but soon there will be some gas fired plants that could also be used/converted.
Since the plant is existing, permits might not be required.
Think outside this box:
Nice to see something rated as being NEW and INNOVATIVE likely to be so but still requiring huge electrical input from those notoriously unreliable and expensive to produce 'renewables' which have a relatively short useful life and, as yet, have no mass method of reclamation/recycling .
So, a world filling up with old/damaged EV's, solar panels and wind turbines puts a sour note on this innovation.
At least Nitrogen is being used as an anti oxidant, plenty of that around and recyclable?
It takes one month to convert a coal-fired power station into a functioning TWEST storage plant, and it's dirt cheap (natural graphite and some induction heaters, a bit of circulation pipe) and scalable?
What are we waiting for?
My guess is that "dirt cheap" "green" electricity won't be so dirt cheap once there is a use for it. If you flatten the duck curve by increasing usage in the middle of the day, you also decrease the discount on that energy at that time. But absent more definite presentation of the value proposition, this is just all speculation, both on whether this makes sense or not.
@@richdobbs6595 PV and wind, enhanced geothermal and all scales of hydro, are far cheaper than any form of fossil, kept off the market by non-market forces. Those non-market excuses are done now. With at least three ultra-low-cost medium-term storage options -- TWEST, compressed gas, pumped hydro -- plus short term grid scale battery, economies of scale will just favor renewables even more. Increase usage by a factor of ten during the day, and PV will eat it up at pennies on the dollar. Electricity will be so cheap EVs will recharge for free in exchange to listening to sponsor's messages while you charge, or the promise of V2G during periods of high demand.
You can find the value proposition at Rethink X or Project Drawdown Roadmap, or the latest IEA report on the coming oil glut. Anyone not jumping off the oil tanker will go down with the ship.
There are still a lot of logistics which may not make as much sense as this video implies. Certainly there are situations where this is a no-brainer and it would be madness not to do this. But the proximity between the renewable generation and the plant's location may not always be ideal.
If there is a lot of ideal geography for solar and wind generation near the plant or between the plant and where demand is, that's great. It would be great to see a study about how much opportunity really exists. The benefit of batteries is you can put them where they make the most sense in the grid you are creating. You wouldn't ever locate batteries where the fossil fuel plant is and then work everything else to suit that location. So the plant's location can often be a limitation.
@@ronvandereerden4714 I'm inclined to disagree. Converting a power station into an energy storage facility is 100% feasible, because it already has a very solid connection to the grid. As an energy storage facility, not only can it put out its rated power, but, it can also take in that much power, then, pay it back out after the sun sets, or the wind calms down. it is 100% bi-directional.
Being tested in India I assume the energy used to charge the system wasn't exactly green 🤔
MGA Thermal in Australia has a brick for this purpose made of graphite containing aluminium lumps inside as a phase change material that melts absorbing more heat energy then the graphite alone. As the melted aluminium remains inside the brick it can be handled the same way as this video demonstrates.
1. The heat retained depends on the external surface area, so I'm not sure if modular units are the way to build a scalable system. Bigger cubes offer smaller external areas. Nitrogen supply could also be centralised.
2. The possibility of using a solar heat collector instead of wind or solar panels was another important aspect that could have been examined, given India's plentiful sunshine.
3. The pilot project being in India, where skilled engineers work for a pittance, it was actually a great opportunity to examine the possibility of on site construction rather than modular units.
Mr Adani the Indian billionaire and coal baron is the biggest obstacle to this tech. He’ll likely have a word with Mr Modi and tell him to keep burning his coal.
Another part of the puzzle
A gamechanger! Not only for power production but for the hundreds of industries burning fossil fuels to produce the steam required for their production processes.
Thanks Dave! Hope the garden is looking lovely over there as well. 🌸Thanks for all you do ❤
This is fantastic. From here in Australia, we're always told we need to sell coal to countries like India to bring them out of poverty. My reply has always been (a) many of the rural poor in India don't have grid connections. And (b) why not sell or gift them green technology, that way they can skip fossil fuel powered step in their industrialisation? This clearly addresses point b.
Here in Australia donations matter. So do sinecures for life after polyticks.
Very promising! Hope it works as expected!
Brilliant!!! JustHaveAThink!
You guys represent the finest info that CZcams offers in educational info❤
Again thank you for all that you do.
Thanx for highlighting this tech. I missed it previously but definitely on my radar now. Would be ideal for the aging South African coal fleet as well.
Really great news so hope some of our politicians are looking and listening
I can see why this would be a good kind of system to install pretty much everywhere, but especially so on sunny islands far from the mainlands. Hawai'i, the Canaries, etc.
Dave, thank you for the wonderful news. Sheila Mink in New Mexico
Thanks
Your hard work gives us hope. Thank you
Amazing news!
Great video. Thanks for putting this together and sharing.
Re-converting thermal plants into storage is such a logical step that I don't know what we are waiting for. I imagine it is a matter of cost, planning and coordination of all relevant actors. The energy market is a really complex one.
Always interesting and informative. Thanks Dave
Brilliant Dave, thank you very much for continuing to show us this stuff !!!!
Fantastic news. Big breakthru on storage.
The obvious problem of this seems to be the efficiency. You said it's still using a turbine like a coal power plant, which had efficiency of 45%. So the overall efficiency will be less than 40%, which is not great for a short term energy storage, since batteries have 90% efficiency and pumped hydro has 80%. So it's only really useful when you have a huge surplus of cheep electricity.
Which you may have in a lot of areas with cheap solar or hydro
And a lot of local graphite mines? See ibm.gov.in/writereaddata/files/01312023164915Graphite_2021.pdf
Certainly true, though one has to wonder on the actual economic costs overall. For instance if maintenance isn't to much you've basically just avoided massive capital costs in setting it all up. Something that might well offset the efficiency differences for how ever long the current equipment will still last.
Yeah,
But here capital cost is negligible, because you are not constructing new storage site.
You are just retrofitting old coal power plant.
Obviously, if you have to build new storage site, you will not chose this.
A simple-cycle gas turbine, employed to ramp up supply quickly, also has an overall efficiency ranging from 35-40%.
Very good tech. Graphite has also the advantage of not melting at 700 C and doesn't expand and contract as much as for example steel with temperature change. Less chance of explosion or permanent damage form overheating there.
I only worry about that N2 - it needs air tide container. In this case the container has to also stay tide in high temp and pressure changes (N2 does change it's volume-pressure with temperature change). If it gets unsealed, it probably will lead to a fire in the plant. Seals cost to maintain. See our now existing infrastructure and it's maintains, and you can see, why I'm a little worried.
As long as the pressure of the nitrogen inside the containers is higher than the outside air pressure no oxygen can leak in. Only a few psi higher pressure would be enough. They'd have to add more nitrogen as some leak out, but nitrogen isn't that expensive. Of course it should be as air tight as possible, but it doesn't have to 100%. They also should use relief valves if the pressure gets too high.
@@phizcnot even a few psi! Millibars would be sufficient.
@@oliver90owner I guess so, but you’d want a bit of leeway and the additional headroom also serves as reserves so that as it slowly leaks out, the pressure is still higher than atmospheric.
@@oliver90owner true. I went for the smallest 'Murican unit I knew of so they wouldn't feel left out of the conversation 😋.
A few hectopascals would be be sufficient too 😊.
@@rainbowevil Noo! It would be controlled at that sufficiently low over-pressure such that N2 would always leak out from any leaks. Any leaks could be found and rectified or simply monitored, if the cost of N2 was more cost-effective.
incredible progress!
That's the way! Instead of just replacing their dirty facilities, just take them over and take their place :)
Love it when you have some good news. Thanks!
Interesting , Thank You . I hope it works and is RELIABLE , LONG Lasting, and AFFORDABLE
Thank you for the commentary.
Definately a useful idea to repurpose existing infrastructure.
Brilliant.
I really like seeing “Real World” projects. I hope you will keep us informed with updates in the next months and years. Thank you!
This is great!
I've seen similar suggestions for wind and solar. Site them near old coal/natural gas generators. Eliminates need to pay to connect to grid. Reduces up front overhead.
Brilliant!
Quality educational videos come from this channel. 🏆
Thanks for all your videos. I really like this idea. Hope we see more of it.
Bravo👏👏👏
ThanK God they have an actual power station with the new tachnology up and running for proof of concept.
Very good 👍
Brilliant! Cheers! That,Was. Awesome.
Another great video Dave 👍👍
Brilliant
Great news Dave. You've put a spring in my step on this antipodean Monday morning
very encouraging
That's awesome!
Very interesting presentation
Australia's opposition leader is pushing to build nuke power stations beside existing coal-fired stations. Will mention this to my local federal member and see if it goes anywhere. Spent 11 years with Siemens as a designer on 2 power-stations along with other projects. Was an amazing job with a great boss.
Love your work Dave
Brilliant 😎👍
Wellvthat encouraging!
Very interesting, Thanks
Fantastic !
sounds really promising, love the idea!
Great video as usual, this is a very interesting tech and I hope it rolls on everywhere
Great video thanks😀
Sounds like great technology, good review
Keep it up!❤
awesome!
This is great news for a lot of stuff - thanks!
Great idea !
Clever idea. I like it.
Brilliant 👏
Always good to see these laboratory experiments make it into real world applications. That means the industry can see it working and see the benefits. Great work as ever Dave.
Excellent news!
I think this is very good news for a fast change of energy system mainly in China and India. My solution for the climate crisis is something that I call Solar Power Water Management (SPWM). It is based on pump water with solar power up to high altitudes (100-5000 meter) and then use water power stations that bring the water down to the level where food production is possible. Water is spread over a large area. When there is enough rain is the pipe that pump up the water used in revers for power production. Solar power is of cause used direct daytime.
Awesome
Great video Dave, this sounds like it might be the solution that has been missing so far.
"It really likes to oxidize with air at high temperature."
Most of us call that "catching on fire".
Amazing video. Very much practical solution to utilize the duck curve with minimal impact to current grid or infrastructure. This could be one of the missing pieces of the solution. Great video mate. Shall push it in my network for better reach.
thx
I Hope this works out, sounds great.
Cooling towers still require water, which is in short suppply in many places. Other than that seems like a good idea.
Yes, but existing power plants will already be using that amount of water for cooling. Yes in some places you're right that this solution won't help, but it's aimed specifically at places that already have an adequate water supply that's already in use.
Where water is really scarce, there are air cooled heat exchangers that can be used instead of cooling towers. For instance, if you build an oil refinery in a desert, you probably won't rely on cooling towers. OTOH, water is not really scarce for power cooling purposes. Places that have such issue are usually short for use water for use in agriculture.
How about using the waist heat from the turbines to heat up the graphite again?
@@buckboard43 The waste heat is by definition at a lower temperature, which means you need to use a heat exchanger to raise the steam temperature to higher than the graphite in order to transfer it to the graphite for storage. The energy you use to run the heat exchanger may be less than that transferred, but the balance does need to be verified.
This would be useful in many plants, even gas turbine plants that have heat recovery systems (as they have steam turbines running off the exhaust heat from the gas turbines).
Gives real hope for the future
8:00 never heard of it thanks 🎉😊