#hydrogen battery storage

[jcmarchi]

Breaking Through With a Better Battery for Storing Renewable Energy - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/breaking-through-with-a-better-battery-for-storing-renewable-energy-technology-org/

Breaking Through With a Better Battery for Storing Renewable Energy - Technology Org

Renewable power sources like wind and solar need large-scale battery arrays to store the generated energy and supply the electric grid when there is no sun or wind. Researchers at Oregon State University have developed a solution for a better battery—one that’s efficient, safe, sustainable, and economical for both utilities and consumers.

Image credit: Oregon State University

Production of today’s most widely used battery technology — using lithium-ion as the critical metal component — relies on shrinking supplies of two other metals, cobalt and nickel, without which the batteries would not function. Those rare metals, however, are toxic and can contaminate ecosystems and water sources if they leach out of landfills.

Zinc metal batteries are an energy-dense alternative to lithium-ion, made from a safe and abundant metal. Previously, these batteries have been limited, because of their poor recharging efficiency and a chemical reaction producing unwanted hydrogen, which greatly reduced their cycle life. But scientists led by Oregon State researcher Xiulei “David” Ji have resolved those limitations with one big breakthrough.

Ji and collaborators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Penn State University and the University of California, Riverside have developed a new electrolyte for zinc batteries that raises their charging efficiency to 99.95%, competitive or even better than lithium-ion.

The new hybrid electrolyte uses water and a dissolved mixture of inexpensive chloride salts, eliminating the undesirable hydrogen reaction and extending the battery’s cycle life. Ji says the cost of electricity delivered by a storage facility using zinc batteries needs to support thousands of charge and discharge cycles to compete with fossil fuel electricity. Rigorous testing indicates these batteries will.

“Zinc metal batteries are one of the leading candidate technologies for large-scale energy storage,” Ji says. “Our new hybrid electrolyte is nonflammable, cost effective and has a very low environmental impact.”

In addition to utility-scale solar and wind farm installations, zinc batteries offer a secure and efficient way for homeowners to store electricity generated by rooftop solar panels. They can also serve as energy storage modules for communities that are vulnerable to natural disasters.

It’s a powerful solution toward a clean energy future.

Source: Oregon State University

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[solarparts]

Join SOLARPARTS at the 2023 SNEC As many customers know whether new or old that SOLARPARTS has been deeply involved in solar energy for decades, our products cover many types of solar panels and solar systems. At the same time, we also provide OEM and ODM services to fully meet customers' individual needs. Switching to solar makes your life greener. SOLARPARTS is waiting for your coming! SNEC PV POWER EXPO - SNEC2023 Solarparts Booth No. : W1-902

[reasonsforhope]

"India’s announcement that it aims to reach net zero emissions by 2070 and to meet fifty percent of its electricity requirements from renewable energy sources by 2030 is a hugely significant moment for the global fight against climate change. India is pioneering a new model of economic development that could avoid the carbon-intensive approaches that many countries have pursued in the past – and provide a blueprint for other developing economies.

The scale of transformation in India is stunning. Its economic growth has been among the highest in the world over the past two decades, lifting of millions of people out of poverty. Every year, India adds a city the size of London to its urban population, involving vast construction of new buildings, factories and transportation networks. Coal and oil have so far served as bedrocks of India’s industrial growth and modernisation, giving a rising number of Indian people access to modern energy services. This includes adding new electricity connections for 50 million citizens each year over the past decade. 

The rapid growth in fossil energy consumption has also meant India’s annual CO2 emissions have risen to become the third highest in the world. However, India’s CO2 emissions per person put it near the bottom of the world’s emitters, and they are lower still if you consider historical emissions per person. The same is true of energy consumption: the average household in India consumes a tenth as much electricity as the average household in the United States.  

India’s sheer size and its huge scope for growth means that its energy demand is set to grow by more than that of any other country in the coming decades. In a pathway to net zero emissions by 2070, we estimate that most of the growth in energy demand this decade would already have to be met with low-carbon energy sources. It therefore makes sense that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced more ambitious targets for 2030, including installing 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, reducing the emissions intensity of its economy by 45%, and reducing a billion tonnes of CO2. 

These targets are formidable, but the good news is that the clean energy transition in India is already well underway. It has overachieved its commitment made at COP 21- Paris Summit [a.k.a. 2015, at the same conference that produced the Paris Agreement] by already meeting 40% of its power capacity from non-fossil fuels- almost nine years ahead of its commitment, and the share of solar and wind in India’s energy mix have grown phenomenally. Owing to technological developments, steady policy support, and a vibrant private sector, solar power plants are cheaper to build than coal ones. Renewable electricity is growing at a faster rate in India than any other major economy, with new capacity additions on track to double by 2026...

Subsidies for petrol and diesel were removed in the early 2010s, and subsidies for electric vehicles were introduced in 2019. India’s robust energy efficiency programme has been successful in reducing energy use and emissions from buildings, transport and major industries. Government efforts to provide millions of households with fuel gas for cooking and heating are enabling a steady transition away from the use of traditional biomass such as burning wood. India is also laying the groundwork to scale up important emerging technologies such as hydrogen, battery storage, and low-carbon steel, cement and fertilisers..."

-via IEA (International Energy Agency), January 10, 2022

Note: And since that's a little old, here's an update to show that progress is still going strong:

-via Economic Times: EnergyWorld, March 10, 2023

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #12

March 29-April 5 2024

President Biden united with Senator Bernie Sanders at the White House to review Democratic efforts to bring down drug prices. President Biden touted his Administration’s capping the price of insulin for seniors at $35 a month and capping the price of  prescription drugs for seniors at $2,000 a year. Biden hopes to expand both to all Americans through legislation next year with a Democratic congress. The President also praised Senator Sanders' efforts as chair of the Senate Health Committee which has lead to major drug manufacturers capping the price of inhalers at $35 a month. “Bernie, you and I have been fighting this for 25 years,” Biden said “Finally, finally we beat Big Pharma. Finally.”

The White House gave an update on its actions around the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster. The federal government working with state and local governments hope to have enough of the remains of the bridge cleared to partially reopen the Port of Baltimore by the end of the month and have the port working normally by May. The Administration has already released $60 million in emergency money toward rebuilding and promises the federal government will cover the cost. The Department of Labor has released $3.5 million for Dislocated Worker Grants and plans up to $25 million to cover lost wages. The Small Business Administration is offering $2 million in emergency loans to affected small businesses. The Administration is working with business and labor unions to keep workers at work and cover lost wages.

Vice-President Harris and EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced $20 billion to help finance tens of thousands of climate and clean energy projects across the country. The kinds of projects that will be financed through this project include distributed clean power generation and storage, net-zero retrofits of homes and small businesses, and zero-emission transportation. 70% of the funds, $14 billion, will be invested in low-income and disadvantaged communities. The project is part of a public private partnership so for every 1 dollar of federal money, private companies have promised 7 dollars of investment, bring the total to $150 billion for ongoing financing of climate and clean energy projects for years to come.

The Department of Transportation announced $20.5 billion in investments in public transportation. This represents the largest single investment in public transit by the federal government in history. The money will go to improving and expanding subways, light rail, buses, and ferry systems across America. The DoT hopes to use the funds to in particular expand and improve options for public transport for people with disabilities and seniors.

The Departments of Energy and The Treasury announced $4 billion in tax credits for businesses investing in clean energy, critical materials recycling, and Industrial decarbonization. The credits till go toward 100 projects across 35 states. 67% of the credits ($2.7 billion) will go to clean energy, wind, solar, nuclear, clean hydrogen, as well as updates to grids, better batter storage, and investments in electric vehicles. 20% ($800 million) will go to to recycling things like lithium-ion batteries, and 13% ($500 million) to decarbonization in industries like automotive manufacturing, and iron and steel.

The Department of Agriculture announced $1.5 Billion in investments in climate-smart agriculture. USDA plans to support over 180,000 farms representing 225 million acres in the next 5 years move toward more climate friendly agriculture. 40% of the project is reserved for disadvantaged communities, in line with the Biden Administrations standard for climate investment. $100 million has been reserved for projects in Tribal Communities.

The Department of the Interior approved the New England Wind offshore wind project. To be located off Martha’s Vineyard the New England project represents the 8th such off shore wind project approved by the Biden administration. Taken together these projects will generate 10 gigawatts of totally clean energy that can power 4 million homes. The Administration's climate goals call for 30 gigawatts of off shore wind power by 2030. The New England Wind project itself is expected to generate 2,600 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 900,000 homes in the New England area.

The Department of the Interior announced $320 Million for tribal water infrastructure. Interior also announced $244 million to deal with legacy pollution from mining in the State of Pennsylvania, as well as $25 million to protect wetlands in Arizona and $19 million to put solar panels over irrigation canals in California, Oregon and Utah. While the Department of Energy announced $27 million for 40 projects by state, local and tribal governments to combat climate change

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Electrons, not molecules

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then SAN FRANCISCO (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

When hydrocarbon barons do their damndest to torch the Earth with fossil fuels, they call us dreamers. They insist that there's a hard-nosed reality – humanity needs energy – and they're the ones who live in it, while we live in the fairy land where the world can run on sunshine and virtuous thoughts. Without them making the tough decisions, we'd all be starving in the frigid dark.

Here's the thing: they're full of shit.

Mostly.

Humanity does need energy if we're going to avoid starving in the frigid dark, but that energy doesn't have to come from fossil fuels. Indeed, in the long-term, it can't. Even if you're a rootin' tootin, coal-rollin' climate denier, there's a hard-nosed reality you can't deny: if we keep using fossil fuels, they will someday run out. Remember "peak oil" panic? Fossil fuels are finite, and the future of the human race needn't be. We need more.

Thankfully, we have it. Despite what you may have heard, renewables are more than up to the task. Indeed, it's hard to overstate just how much renewable energy is available to us, here at the bottom of our gravity well. I failed to properly appreciate it until I read Deb Chachra's brilliant 2023 book, How Infrastructure Works:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/17/care-work/#charismatic-megaprojects

Chachra, an engineering prof and materials scientist, offers a mind-altering reframing of the question of energy: we have a material problem, not an energy problem. If we could capture a mere 0.4% of the sun's rays that strike the Earth, we could give every person on the planet the energy budget of a Canadian (like an American, only colder).

Energy isn't just wildly abundant, though: it's also continuously replenished. For most of human history, we've treated energy as scarce, eking out marginal gains in energy efficiency – even as we treated materials as disposable, using them once and consigning them to a midden or a landfill. That's completely backwards. We get a fresh shipment of energy every time the sun (or the moon) comes up over the horizon. By contrast, new consignments of material are almost unheard of – the few odd ounces of meteoric ore that survive entry through Earth's atmosphere.

A soi-dissant adult concerned with the very serious business of ensuring our species isn't doomed to the freezing, starving darkness of an energy-deprived future would think about nothing save for this fact and its implications. They'd be trying to figure out how to humanely and responsibly gather the materials needed for the harvest, storage and distribution of this nearly limitless and absolutely free energy.

In other words, that Very Serious, Hard-Nosed Grown-Up should be concerned with using as few molecules as possible to harvest as many electrons as possible. They'd be working on things like turning disused coal-mines into giant gravity batteries:

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/02/06/this-disused-mine-in-finland-is-being-turned-into-a-gravity-battery-to-store-renewable-ene

Not figuring out how to dig or flush more long-dead corpses out of the Earth's mantle to feed them into a furnace. That is a profoundly unserious response to the human need for energy. It's caveman shit: "Ugh, me burn black sticky gunk, make cave warm, cough cough cough."

Enter Exxon CEO Darren Woods, whose interview with Fortune's Michal Lev-Ram and editor Alan Murray contains this telling quote: "we basically focus our technology on transforming molecules and they happen to be hydrogen and carbon molecules":

https://fortune.com/2024/02/28/leadership-next-exxonmobil-ceo-darren-woods/

As Bill McKibben writes, this is a tell. A company that's in the molecule business is not in the electron business. For all that Woods postures about being a clear-eyed realist beating back the fantasies of solarpunk-addled greenies, Woods does not want a future where we have all our energy needs met:

https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/the-most-epic-and-literal-gaslighting

That's because the only way to get that future is to shift from molecules – whose supply can be owned and therefore sold by Exxon – to electrons, which that commie bastard sun just hands out for free to every person on our planet's surface, despite the obvious moral hazard of all those free lunches. As Woods told Fortune, when it comes to renewables, "we don’t see the ability to generate above-average returns for our shareholders."

Woods dresses this up in high-minded seriousness kabuki, saying that Exxon is continuing to invest in burning rotting corpses because our feckless species "waited too long to open the aperture on the solution sets terms of what we need as a society." In other words, it's just too late for solar. Keep shoveling those corpses into the furnace, they're all that stands between you and the freezing, starving dark.

Now, this is self-serving nonsense. The problem of renewables isn't that it's too late – it's that they don't "generate above-average returns for our shareholders" (that part, however, is gospel truth).

But let's stipulate that Woods sincerely believes that it is too late. It's pretty goddamned rich of this genocidal, eminently guillotineable monster to just drop that in the conversation without mentioning the role his company played in getting us to this juncture. After all, #ExxonKnew. 40 years ago, Exxon's internal research predicted climate change, connected climate change to its own profits, and predicted how bad it would be today.

Those predictions were spookily accurate and the company took them to heart, leaping into action. For 40 years, the company has been building its offshore drilling platforms higher and higher in anticipation of rising seas and superstorms – and over that same period, Exxon has spent millions lobbying and sowing disinformation to make sure that the rest of us don't take the emergency as seriously as they are, lest we switch from molecules to electrons.

Exxon knew, and Exxon lied. McKibben quotes Woods' predecessor Lee Raymond, speaking in the runup to the Kyoto Treaty negotiations: "It is highly unlikely that the temperature in the middle of the next century will be significantly affected whether policies are enacted now or 20 years from now."

When Woods says we need to keep shoveling corpses into the furnace because we "waited too long to open the aperture on the solution sets terms of what we need as a society," he means that his company lied to us in order to convince us to wait too long.

When Woods – and his fellow enemies of humanity in the C-suites of Chevron and other corpse-torching giants – was sending the arson billions to his shareholders, he held back a healthy share to fund this deceit. He colluded with the likes of Joe Manchin ("[D-POLLUTION]" -McKibben) to fill the Inflation Reduction Act with gifts for molecules. The point of fantasies like "direct air carbon-capture" is to extend the economic life of molecule businesses, by tricking us into thinking that we can keep sending billions to Exxon without suffocating in its waste-product.

These lies aren't up for debate. Back in 2021, Greenpeace tricked Exxon's top DC lobbyist Keith McCoy into thinking that he was on a Zoom call with a corporate recruiter and asked him about his work for Exxon, and McCoy spilled the beans:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/01/basilisk-tamers/#exxonknew

He confessed to everything: funding fake grassroots groups and falsifying the science – he even names the senators who took his bribes. McCoy singled out Manchin for special praise, calling him "a kingmaker" and boasting about the "standing weekly calls" Exxon had with Manchin's office.

Exxon's response to this nine-minute confession was to insist that their most senior American lobbyist "wasn't involved at all in forming policy positions."

McKibben points to the forthcoming book The Price Is Wrong, by Brett Christophers, which explains how the neoclassical economics establishment's beloved "price signals" will continue to lead us into the furnace:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3069-the-price-is-wrong

The crux of that book is:

We cannot expect markets and the private sector to solve the climate crisis while the profits that are their lifeblood remain unappetizing.

Nearly 100 years ago, Upton Sinclair wrote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Today, we can say that it's impossible to get an oil executive to understand that humanity needs electrons, not molecules, because his shareholders' obscene wealth depends on it.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from RMI:

1. Batteries Become Everybody’s Best Friend

Battery prices continue to drop and their capacity continues to rise. The cost of electric vehicle (EV) batteries are now about 60 percent what they were just five years ago. And around the world, batteries have become key components in solar-plus-storage microgrids, giving people access to reliable power and saving the day for communities this past hurricane season.

2. Americans Get Cheaper (and Cleaner) Energy

State public utility commissions and rural electric co-operatives around the country are taking steps to deliver better service for their customers that also lowers their rates. At the same time, real momentum is building to prevent vertically integrated utilities from preferencing their coal assets when there are cleaner and cheaper alternatives available.

3. A Sustainable Shipping Future Gets Closer

More than 50 leaders across the marine shipping value chain — from e-fuel producers to vessel and cargo owners, to ports and equipment manufacturers — signed a Call to Action at the UN climate change conference (COP29) to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission fuels. The joint statement calls for faster and bolder action to increase the use of zero and near-zero emissions fuel, investment in zero-emissions vessels, and global development of green hydrogen infrastructure, leaving no country behind.

4. Corporations Fly Cleaner

In April, 20 corporations, including Netflix, JPMorgan Chase, Autodesk, and more, committed to purchase about 50 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), avoiding 500,000 tons of CO2��emissions — equivalent to the emissions of 3,000 fully loaded passenger flights from New York City to London. SAF is made with renewable or waste feedstocks and can be used in today’s aircraft without investments to upgrade existing fleets and infrastructure.

5. More and More Places Go From Coal to Clean

Around the world, coal-fired power plants are closing down as communities switch to clean energy. From Chile to the Philippines to Minnesota coal-to-clean projects are creating new jobs, improving local economic development, and generating clean electricity. In September, Britain became the first G7 nation to stop generating electricity from coal — it’s turning its last coal-fired power plant into a low-carbon energy hub. And in Indonesia, the president vowed to retire all coal plants within 15 years and install 75 gigawatts of renewable energy.

6. Methane Becomes More Visible, and Easier to Mitigate

Methane — a super-potent greenhouse gas — got much easier to track thanks to the launch of new methane tracking satellites over the past year. In March, the Environmental Defense Fund launched MethaneSAT, the first for a non-governmental organization, and the Carbon Mapper Coalition soon followed with the launch of Tanager-1. By scanning the planet many times each day and identifying major methane leaks from orbit, these new satellites will put pressure on big emitters to clean up.

7. EVs Speed By Historic Milestones

This past year was the first time any country had more fully electric cars than gas-powered cars on the roads. It’s no surprise that this happened in Norway where electric cars now make up more than 90 percent of new vehicle sales. And in October, the United States hit a milestone, with over 200,000 electric vehicle charging ports installed nationwide.

8. Consumers Continue to Shift to Energy-Efficient Heat Pumps for Heating and Cooling

Heat pumps have outsold gas furnaces consistently since 2021. And while shipments of heating and cooling equipment fell worldwide in 2023, likely due to broad economic headwinds, heat pumps held on to their market share through. And over the past 12 months, heat pumps outsold conventional furnaces by 27 percent. Shipments are expected to continue increasing as states roll out home efficiency and appliance rebate programs already funded by the Inflation Reduction Act – worth up to $10,000 per household in new incentives for heat pump installations. Link: Tracking the Heat Pump & Water Heater Market in the United States – RMI

9. China Reaches Its Renewable Energy Goal, Six Years Early

China added so much renewable energy capacity this year, that by July it had surpassed its goal of having 1,200 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy installed by 2030. Through September 2024, China installed some 161 GW of new solar capacity and 39 GW of new wind power, according to China’s National Energy Administration (NEA). China is deploying more solar, wind, and EVs than any other country, including the United States, which is — by comparison — projected to deploy a record 50 GW of solar modules by the end of 2024.

10. De-carbonizing Heavy Industry

For steel, cement, chemicals and other heavy industries, low-carbon technologies and climate-friendly solutions are not only increasingly available but growing more affordable. To speed this process, Third Derivative, RMI’s climate tech accelerator, launched the Industrial Innovation Cohorts to accelerate the decarbonization of steel, cement, and chemicals. Also on the rise: clean hydrogen hubs — powered by renewable energy — designed to supply green hydrogen to chemical, steel, and other heavy industries to help them shift to low-carbon production processes.

[kadextra]

The Eggs

A lore overview & theory longpost :]

Let's start with a recap. The eggs were given by the Federation to the island residents to care for. A backstory was also given by Pato, saying the eggs were left behind by a dragon mother who flew off after the wall explosion. An egg has 2 lives, if it dies you get punished, if it's alive and happy you get a prize. But nobody really cares about a prize anymore, all the parents love their eggs sooo much that just being together with them is a prize. The eggs have developed unique, endearing personalities and have become a central part of the narrative in such a massive way that it'd take hours to describe. Some sadly passed on, and more eggs have joined the cast as new players arrived.

The Code Entity

A strange entity made of binary code began to hunt down the eggs, viciously attacking and bringing them all down to one life. The reason why is still unknown, but it seems to want the residents to leave the island. I'll make a separate lore post about this guy eventually, there's a lot to say theory-wise and a lot we still don't know about it.

The Strange Cracks

At one point, all the eggs were kidnapped from their homes in the night. The announcement of their return said they would be given back "unharmed" but they returned with odd cracks in them, as if they were injured. The eggs all acted unusually scared and extra fragile after the incident, and couldn't wear armor without pain. They slowly regained their confidence after a few days and went back to normal, along with a eggstatistics change saying they've "matured."

The Heaven Meetings

When an egg dies, the Federation gives the parents 5-10 minutes to say farewells in a white room. It's always really wholesome and emotional to watch. But lots of questions can be raised about how the Federation seem to have the power to revive an egg from the dead in the first place. If they can do it for 10 minutes, why can't they just... revive them permanently? q!Max asked his egg son Trump why he couldn't just leave during his meeting, and got answers alluding that the egg was trapped there. That "they" are too powerful, so he can't leave. What's really going on here? Are the dead eggs even dead?

Case of Richarlyson

The Brazilians noticed that their egg, Richarlyson had one smaller leg compared to the rest, as if he was underdeveloped. And strangely, he also had a weird substance left on him (visually shown as a slimeball) which they thought could be part of the mother dragon's placenta. q!Cellbit gave the sample to supercomputer SOFIA to analyze, the results being given a few days later. Turns out, the substance's composition had zero traces of DNA, it wasn't even biological. Instead, it was found to be some type of chemical preservation fluid... meaning Richarlyson was in some kind of stasis/storage before being given to the Brazilians, and rushed out at such short notice he couldn't even be cleaned off in time.

The Pomme DNA Test

A sample of the newest & youngest egg's DNA, Pomme, was given to SOFIA to analyze. The genetic results were:

65% Oxygen, 18% Carbon, 10% Hydrogen, 3% Nitrogen, 1.5% Calcium, 1% Phosphorus, Potassium, Sulfur, Sodium, Chlorine, Magnesium. These results are normal for a biological composition of a living creature. However, there were also traces of "unusual elements" in the DNA....

Silicon, Gold, Cobalt, Copper, Palladium, Cadmium, Bismuth, Uranium.

Silicon is used for making alloys.

Gold is a valuable metal.

Copper is a metal used as an electric conductor.

Palladium is a rare metal, also used for electronics.

Cadmium is a heavy metal used to make batteries and it's also toxic.

Bismuth is a crystalline metal again used for electronic appliances.

Uranium is literally radioactive and used for nuclear power.

HUH? These elements and metals are totally unnatural to find traces of in a living creature. edit: this is wrong, these elements and metals are common to find traces of in a living creature. However, SOFIA said they are unusual in the eggs. What does this mean..?

Connections

What if I told you there is a certain type of egg where it's normal to find metals all over?

Fabergé eggs.

Fabergé eggs are valuable decorative eggs made with crystals and rare metals like gold. And it just so happens that as a lead-up to the QSMP, Quackity Studios released a teaser image, with morse code inside leading to a document where many suspicious letters, including this one was found:

This potential connection can't be ignored. Real Fabergé eggs obviously aren't alive like our little eggs, but it's entirely possible that thanks to the traces of metals in their composition, the name is being used as a codeword to refer to them.

All of these things considered, don't forget that the eggs are still living creatures. The "unusual" parts in the genetic makeup are very few compared to oxygen, carbon, calcium, etc. Most of the weird ones do happen to relate to electronics and machines, but if anything, it's likely that the eggs could be cyborgs - a biological organism that's just enhanced with technological parts.

It's becoming more and more evident that the "dragon mother" story is a load of hogwash. The eggs might've been developed in a lab, and transported to the island by the Federation. Whatever intentions or experiment they have running, we don't know... but these poor eggs have no idea about any of this. They are innocent and being used.

They just existed one day, got adopted and began to know love. And no matter what happens, no matter what they really are, dragons or not, we and the parents will continue to love them <3

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Researchers seek to make energy and carbon storage feasible on a large scale in Brazil

The GeoStorage Project includes the development of solutions such as a hydrogen super battery, energy storage with compressed air, and blue hydrogen in the pre-salt layer.

USP’s Research Center for Greenhouse Gas Innovation (RCGI) has just announced the creation of GeoStorage, a hub(integrated research unit) composed by a series of projects aimed at positioning Brazil as a global leader in large-scale energy and carbon storage systems. The studies are aimed at improving the use and development of new energy sources in the Country, as well as reducing emissions of pollutants such as carbon dioxide (CO₂). This new initiative expands RCGI’s portfolio, which is dedicated to developing crucial technologies for the energy transition, further strengthening the center’s role in energy innovation and sustainability.

“Brazil has extraordinary potential to stand out in this sector, aligning itself with the main international initiatives. GeoStorage’s technologies are essential to the energy transition, and the growing interest of global companies in applying them reinforces the hub’s relevance in the energy scenario,” says RCGI’s CEO and scientific director, Julio Meneghini. “With the demand for clean hydrogen projected for 2050 and carbon capture estimated to reach 115 gigatons by 2060, the impact of these technologies is clear and transformative for the future of sustainable energy,” adds Pedro Vassalo Maia da Costa, director of thehub and researcher at USP’s School of Engineering (Poli).

GeoStorage was officially launched during the International Conference on Energy Transition (ETRI 2024), held by the RCGI in São Paulo from November 5 to 7. The new research hub consolidates RCGI’s knowledge and experience in developing innovative technologies for the geological storage of carbon and hydrogen in Brazil, standing out with the patent for the technology of gravitational separation of methane and CO₂ in salt caverns, winner of the ANP Technological Innovation Award in 2019.

The initiative also includes renowned experts, such as Professor Colombo Tassinari, from USP’s Institute of Energy and Environment (IEE), who received the ANP Award for Scientific Personality in 2023, presented by the National Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP), and Nathália Weber, a non-profit organization that supports the development of carbon capture and storage projects in Brazil. In addition, GeoStorage is anchored in a robust base of scientific studies validated by publications and presentations at international conferences.

Continue reading.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

As California transitions rapidly to renewable fuels, it needs new technologies that can store power for the electric grid. Solar power drops at night and declines in winter. Wind power ebbs and flows. As a result, the state depends heavily on natural gas to smooth out highs and lows of renewable power. "The electric grid uses energy at the same rate that you generate it, and if you're not using it at that time, and you can't store it, you must throw it away," said Robert Waymouth, the Robert Eckles Swain Professor in Chemistry in the School of Humanities and Sciences. Waymouth is leading a Stanford team to explore an emerging technology for renewable energy storage: liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs). Hydrogen is already used as fuel or a means for generating electricity, but containing and transporting it is tricky.

Read more.

[hellsingghost1]

Blocks: 1868. Non-armor blocks: 663. Number of Large Industrial Cargo Containers: 4. Capacity: 1.69 ML. Number of Small Cargo Containers: 24. Capacity: 375 KL. PCU: 10,022. Converyors: 237.

Thrusters: 35. Hydrogen Thrusters: 19. Large Hydrogen Thruster: 2. Warfare Ion Thrusters: 14. Jump Drive: 3. Battery's: 47. Large Reactors: 2. Spotlights: 2. Gravity generators: 1. Gyroscopes: 10. Hydrogen Engines: 2. Refinery's: 1. Power Efficiency Modules: 5. Yield Modules: 1. Speed Modules: 2. Lights: 9. Ore Detectors: 2. Simple Laser Multitool. 1. Railgun. 1. KWP-200M Cannon Turret: 4. Phalanx CIWS Mk15-1B: 2. VLS-Mk-41 Missle Pods. 2. O2/H2 Generators: 2. Oxygen Tanks: 2. Max storage: 8KL KL. Small Hydrogen tanks: 21. Max storage: 15.75 KL.

Artifical masses: 0. Triangles: 2,205,159. Grid mass: 1,478,632. Physical shapes: 1580/65536. Weight: 1.48 Gg.

[fenrislorsrai]

ProPublica and Capital & Main reporters visited dozens of Remnant wells and tank batteries — facilities used for oil storage and early stages of processing — scattered across this rural stretch of New Mexico. Multiple sites emitted explosive levels of methane, with one leak clocked at 10 times the concentration at which the gas can explode. Several wells belched sour hydrogen sulfide at concentrations that maxed out the gas detector, registering levels three times as high as what is “immediately dangerous to life or health,” according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Oil Conservation Division inspectors hadn’t visited some of the wells since 2017, according to agency records. - - - Based on the per-well cleanup costs Fuge’s agency submitted to the federal government, the wells belonging to Remnant and a related company could cost the state $67 million if they are orphaned. The companies have only set aside about $1.5 million in bonds across three state and federal agencies. Under current New Mexico rules, companies only need to put up a single bond worth a maximum of $250,000 — no matter how many wells they have — with the Oil Conservation Division. The failed reform bill would’ve increased that cap to $10 million. The division can request additional bonds to cover the increased risk from idle wells, but when it asked Remnant and a related company for about $3 million, the operators put up less than a tenth of that and kept pumping oil. Weak bonding rules and an unwillingness to take on the industry have created similar shortfalls across the nation. The Pennsylvania General Assembly in the 1990s, for example, forced the state’s oil regulators to hand back money that oil companies had set aside to plug wells drilled prior to 1985, which numbered in the tens of thousands of wells. Oklahoma allows oil companies that prove they’re worth at least $50,000 — about the price of one of the ubiquitous pickup trucks cruising the oil fields — to set aside no money to plug their wells. And Kansas gives companies, no matter how many wells they own, the option of paying a flat $100 annual fee instead of setting aside a bond, as long as they have not committed recent infractions. Seven out of eight companies in the state take this route, leaving an average of less than $13 in bonds for each of the state’s 150,000 unplugged wells. The state’s estimated cleanup costs — which experts said may be low — would mean the state faces about a $1 billion shortfall between the bonds and plugging costs. “Regulations that may have worked well enough in the past have left the public and the industry ill-prepared for this last phase of life for millions of old wells,” Purvis, the petroleum reservoir engineer, said. “Left unchanged, current regulations and practices will continue to accrue liabilities that will ultimately fall on taxpayers.” All told, oil drillers have set aside only $2.7 billion in bonds with the 15 states that account for nearly all the country’s oil and gas production and $204 million with the Bureau of Land Management, the main federal oil regulator. The expected cost to plug and clean up wells in those states is $151.3 billion. ProPublica and Capital & Main obtained and analyzed more than a thousand pages of states’ applications for funding to plug orphan wells as part of the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The documents reveal for the first time states’ own estimates of the cleanup costs in a way that allows states to be compared. “You can give us probably the entire infrastructure act funding — $4.7 billion — and we'd probably spend that in Pennsylvania,” Kurt Klapkowski, head of the commonwealth’s Office of Oil and Gas Management, told a national meeting of regulators in October.

You should read the whole article for exactly how companies get out of paying to cap wells. Which is basically bankruptcy... and then sometimes selling the remaining producing wells to themselves to continue producing, but without that pesky cleanup for the ones tapped out. there's also a breakdown of different states and their liabilities.

The main issue with the leaking wells is methane, which aside from being potentially explosive, is also a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.

[neoatlantiscodex]

We Don't Have Electric Cars (sic)

We have electric drivetrain cars. The reason this is important is that with gasoline, generation, storage, and usage are all combined together in gasoline.

For electric cars, we need to generate the electricity somewhere. It then has to be stored.

In order to replace gasoline/diesel cars with electricity, we'll need to at least double our electricity production, and in some places quadruple local grid capacity.

And no, that's no an exaggeration. The F-150 Lightning can store enough power to power an average US household for 3 days. Which means if you are charging it, you need enough electricity to power the household, and then add triple that capacity for the truck.

The only way we have to produce this much electricity in a reliable way is Nuclear.

As for storage, most cars use chemical storage. Chemical cells produce power through the differing electrical potential between metals. If you put an electrolytic fluid between them, (a fluid that can carry an electrical current), then electricity will flow. You can then put an electrical circuit between both ends.

We've developed rechargeable ones, but they degrade with every - single - charge. We've also reached the limit of this technology, and it requires elements that... are either mainly produced in China, (who doesn't want to share), or are mined by child slaves in Africa.

To be entirely fair, chocolate has a child slavery problem as well. We should maybe fix these issues, this is more focused on the technology.

Other storage mechanisms include supercapacitors. Supercapacitors can only store 5% of an equivalent lithium-ion battery, but can be fully charged in minutes. This means they do not have the range of chemical batteries, often only having a range of a few miles. But, if you take something that stops every few miles, and has a regular route, such as a bus, then this makes sense. There are countries trying it out right now.

Capacitors involve... honestly... tricking electricity. Electrical circuit can involve electrons flowing, or it can have electrons moving enough to get the next electron to move. You can create a circuit that allows the potential to travel along the circuit, while the electrons themselves get trapped.

Other methods involve mechanical storage, which literally means flywheels. This might seem a bit silly, but compulsators, Compensated Pulsed Alternators, use flywheels to store energy, and is the best way to turn a regular current into an extremely strong pulse. This is what they use for railguns, (tl;dr on railguns, materials are the problem).

There are other forms of storage, that don't have the problems of chemical storage, but are difficult to miniaturize. This makes them useful for grid storage.

The best storage we have for an electrical drive train is hydrogen. It never went anywhere, as the governments stopped pretending to care about it. But that's for the next post.

[chaunceymansanleandro]

Chauncey Man San Leandro: Electricity Generation Methods

Electricity can be generated through various processes, each with its own advantages, disadvantages, and applications. Here are some common types of electricity generation processes shared by Chauncey Man San Leandro:

Fossil Fuel-Based Generation:

Coal Power Plants: These plants burn coal to produce steam, which drives turbines connected to generators.

Natural Gas Power Plants: Natural gas is burned to spin turbines and generate electricity.

Oil Power Plants: Similar to natural gas plants, but they use oil as the fuel source.

Nuclear Power Generation:

Nuclear reactors use controlled nuclear fission reactions to heat water and produce steam that drives turbines connected to generators.

Renewable Energy Generation:

Solar Power: Photovoltaic (PV) cells convert sunlight into electricity.

Wind Power: Wind turbines capture kinetic energy from the wind and convert it into electricity.

Hydropower: Water flowing through dams or turbines generates electricity.

Geothermal Power: Heat from the Earth's core is used to produce steam that drives generators.

Biomass Power: Organic materials like wood, crop residues, and waste are burned or converted to biogas to generate electricity.

Hybrid Systems:

Some power generation systems combine renewable sources (e.g., solar and wind) with energy storage systems (e.g., batteries) to provide continuous power.

Tidal and Wave Energy:

Tidal and wave energy generators harness the kinetic and potential energy of ocean tides and waves to generate electricity.

Fuel Cells:

Fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, with water as the only byproduct.

Cogeneration (Combined Heat and Power - CHP):

Cogeneration systems produce electricity and useful heat simultaneously, improving overall energy efficiency.

Thermoelectric Generators:

These generators convert heat directly into electricity using temperature differences, often in remote or small-scale applications.

Microgrids:

Microgrids are localized electricity generation and distribution systems that can incorporate various energy sources, including renewables, to provide reliable power to specific areas.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC):

OTEC systems use temperature differences between warm surface water and cold deep water to generate electricity.

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs):

RTGs use the heat generated by the radioactive decay of isotopes to produce electricity, often used in space probes and satellites.

Piezoelectric Generation:

Piezoelectric materials generate electricity when subjected to mechanical stress or vibration, used in some specialized applications.

Chauncey Man San Leandro's final words, The choice of electricity generation method depends on factors such as resource availability, environmental impact, cost, and energy demand. Many regions are transitioning to cleaner and more sustainable energy sources to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change.

[yournightowl]

Your NightOwl #030

Fossil fuels ran out in the 2050’s. There’s none left in the ground, anywhere.

(There’s some left in state storage)

(And there’s some in universities and laboratories around the world)

But for all intents and purposes, we successfully chewed through all the dinosaur juice we could find. Go team! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Obviously we’ve had alternate fuels for a long time now, so the lights stayed on for everyone even on the day that the last oil well ran dry. But it’s almost

Embarrassing? To look back through the records and seeing what a mess of a scramble that transitory period was.

Wind, water and sun have always been there, but you can’t put them in a fuel tank, and if everyone was sitting around waiting for every car to charge its battery every 200 km,

Well you could forget about waiting in traffic. You’d spend your whole life waiting in your car in line at the refuel station. ˊ＿>ˋ

Hydrogen fuel’s the answer ofc, and it’s been around for a long time. Why weren’t we using it sooner?

i started some research with this subject in mind, fully expecting to find out that the very existence of h fuel got buried under orders from greedy, mustache twirling fossil fuel barons.

It wasn’t quite that bad. (づ￣ ³￣)づ

Hard for us to remember now, but hydrogen fuel is very flammable. Like spark some static electricity and your city block’s gone flammable.

Even if experts and machines can transport it safely, that’s only because they’re experts, and machines. Fuels need to be safe and simple enough that any slack-jawed consumers can pick them up off the shelf and dump them into the tank.

AGT was the tech that bridged that gap.

Absolute Grounded Territory refers to an environment that is, obviously, completely Grounded. Charge is neutral between all objects to the point where static electrical discharge can’t occur. Establishing AGT around a fueling station means that anyone can safely fuel up without having to worry about their pants fabric re-enacting the Hindenburg just because it’s a little dry out.

It’s a very common, very safe, very widely spread tech.

And yet I couldn’t tell you how it works. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe that’s okay. People in the 20th century drove their cars to the grocery store, to work, and to their neighbors house 50 meters away without ever stopping to think how their engine works. Perhaps that’s another measure of a technology’s success- how little the everyman notices its existence.

Which begs the question

What other technologies are so prevalent that i’ve gone blind to their intrusiveness?

refueled,

your nightowl

[bumblebeeappletree]

What do you do if a satellite runs out of batteries? It’s prohibitively expensive to send a team into orbit and pop in some new AAs, and as a result many satellites use very efficient, reliable and long-lived nickel-hydrogen batteries. We’re talking about batteries that last decades. That sounds like the sort of battery that could revolutionize grid-scale energy storage and really help out renewables back here on Earth, which is why EnerVenue is backing nickel hydrogen batteries as the next step forward! But if batteries rugged and powerful enough for spacecraft already exist, then why haven’t we used it back here on Earth until now?

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Hydrogen safety demonstration video - AlChE Academy: https://www.aiche.org/ili

Watch How Wave Power Could Be The Future Of Energy • How Wave Power Could B...

Video script and citations:

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