No. of Recommendations: 3
Good information GoofyHoofy! There’re some touchstones I utilize when contemplating energy production, storage and usage. A partial set of those information areas are shown below together with links for folks who like technical stuff.
The Carnot Cycle:
The Carnot Cycle goes back 200 years and is useful for determining efficiency within energy systems utilizing heat to produce energy and is also useful for systems operating in reverse such as heat pumps and refrigeration systems. One of the short takes I remember from college is the greater the difference between the input temperature (the burning flame, the combustion event, and other thermal releases) and the final output (exhaust) temperature, the greater the Carnot Cycle efficiency. A mental example of a whole system where optimization of energy is sought is a co-generation site where the lowest output heat is utilized to warm greenhouses or is recovered by heat pumps to garner efficiencies in the high 90s percentiles. For my home, we utilize a dual fuel heating system comprised of heat pumps down to a 1 degree C outside temperature and then switching to natural gas combustion having an energy efficiency in the 95% range. This 95% efficiency is accomplished by a contraflow process whereby the exhaust gases are routed out through a heat exchanger that pre-heats the incoming combustion air. The colder the outside air, the greater the heat transfer and thus the higher the Carnot Cycle efficiency.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycleTypes of energy storage (found in Section 2 of the link below):
Energy storage technologies can be categorized based on the stored energy form (as shown in Fig. 10) to Ref. [9].
1.Electric energy storage systems EESS
2.Electrochemical energy storage systems ECESS
3.Mechanical energy storage systems MESS
4.Thermal energy storage systems TESS
5.Chemical energy storage systems CESS
I agree with Charlie Munger's comments from about ten years ago why he felt the world was headed into a good place because of technical developments in electrical generation. It appears there will be plenty of electricity generated predominantly by solar panels of in the years ahead. The big issues to solve are transporting the electricity (the grid having adequate capacity) and in having available stores of energy during low production periods (wintertime, cloudy days, and other periods of high demand, low energy production or both situations happening concurrently). Section 2 of the article link below delves into storage system choices. The one getting increasing attention is the use of ammonia as a physical storage product for a means of producing green hydrogen for combustion systems. Ammonia can be produced using electricity during peak energy output times and because it is a liquid at temperatures below 33 degrees C, can be a dense form of available energy for powering ships, large on-peak generators and possibly trains, trucks and agricultural tractors/harvesters.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/...Uwharrie
