[HN Gopher] Ore Energy unveils battery based on only iron, water...
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Ore Energy unveils battery based on only iron, water and air
Author : belter
Score : 60 points
Date : 2024-05-27 09:29 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (siliconcanals.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (siliconcanals.com)
| christkv wrote:
| Cool whats the energy density of this? The sodium batteries also
| look promising.
| krallja wrote:
| Iron-air batteries are not for applications that require
| energy/mass density, like laptops and electric vehicles.
| They're for fixed infrastructure like grid-scale batteries,
| where energy/$ is the relevant function. It needs to be almost
| literally as cheap as dirt.
| cge wrote:
| They seem very focused on grid applications, yes. Beyond
| their key claim of a 10x cost advantage over lithium, it
| seems like they're only claiming the batteries will hold a
| charge for around a hundred hours: not at all good for long-
| term storage or devices, but perfectly reasonable for the
| grid.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| Is there any kind of grid-scale seasonal storage technology
| on the horizon? Batteries seem right out from the gate
| unless the cost drops to 1/10 of current. The only
| practical one I see is synthesizing a fuel (methane,
| hydrogen, whatever) which can be stored ~forever.
| tpm wrote:
| Even if cost drops, we'd need an absurdly huge amount of
| batteries for seasonal storage. But let's see what the
| future brings.
| szvsw wrote:
| This isn't exactly what you are asking for, but in terms
| of seasonal storage, the ground is at least commonly used
| in district heating and cooling systems via borefields as
| essentially a thermal battery. Buildings reject heating
| into the loop during summer, and it then gets dumped into
| the ground at the bore field, and similarly, in winter
| the pull heat from the loop which comes from the bore
| field. Ultimately, this relies on the fact that the
| borefield is already essentially at the right temperature
| to start (which is pretty trivial to achieve at a depth
| of around say 200m). One caveat is that if you live in a
| heating-dominated climate (so cold and snowy), you need
| to inject heat into the ground so that that the net
| balance of the thermal demand on the year is unbiased.
| However, you could see a version of this where you
| actually just overcool your buildings in summertime when
| you have excess solar potential, and then pull that heat
| back out in winter and end up balanced. This strategy
| wouldn't work in a cooling-dominated climate unless you
| have excess clean electricity in winter but not summer.
|
| From the perspective of the grid, this would effectively
| be a form of seasonal storage, since you no longer need
| to spend any electricity to inject heat into your
| borefield for balancing purposes, and additionally, you
| would have lower DeltaTs in winter than you would
| otherwise so your heat exchanger efficiencies ought to
| improve.
|
| Edit: It's _almost_ certainly a better idea to use proper
| batteries that operate on the timescale of a day to soak
| up the excess electricity during the day and reuse it
| during the evening peak, rather than use the excess to
| pump heat into the ground, but still, there might be at
| least _something_ there if there is a need for truly
| seasonal storage...
|
| Maybe I will try to run some sims of this kind of system
| sometime over the summer.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Heating sand -- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-
| environment-61996520
| out_of_protocol wrote:
| > hold a charge for around a hundred hours
|
| Meaning background discharge is quite high, impacting
| efficiency. Good enough to smooth daily peaks though
|
| Also, 10x cheaper than pricy li-ion might not be enough,
| there are lots of other [weird] solutions, like pumping
| water up. Better question - how many cycles will battery
| last? This impacts price a lot
| alwa wrote:
| Shuttling water around, though, depends on having a
| bucket big enough and high enough to put enough water
| into to matter. A big ol' bucket of rust might be easier
| to site if you don't have a dam or a hillside reservoir
| handy.
| giaour wrote:
| I think this was just poor wording in the article. My
| local power company (Dominion Energy VA) recently started
| a huge iron-air battery project because the technology
| supports _100 hours of active discharge_ [0]. I 'm sure
| there's some background discharge, but it takes a lot
| longer than 100 hours for iron to naturally rust through.
|
| [0]: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/iron-air-
| battery-renew...
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Pumping water up requires massives amounts of water,
| rarely available for regular homes
| ephbit wrote:
| It says ~ 2 kWh/kg (kg of iron) according to [1].
|
| Assuming you can just store it as piles of iron dust (somehow
| shielded from air/oxygen) and assuming a gross density of 5
| t/m3 for iron dust you'd get a volumetric energy density in the
| ballpark of 10,000 kWh/m3.
|
| [1]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal%E2%80%93air_electroche...
| moneytide1 wrote:
| "If you want to make something dirt cheap, make it out of dirt.
| Preferably dirt that's locally sourced."
|
| - Don Sadoway (liquid metal battery comprising liquid layers of
| magnesium and antimony separated by a layer of molten salt)
| poslathian wrote:
| 309fun!
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| Classic Hacker News, an existing technology reimplemented in
| rust.
| catoc wrote:
| I see what you did there :-)
| threesevenths wrote:
| I'd use a rofl emoji but it is blocked on HN
| out_of_protocol wrote:
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| Seriously though, cheap components (CPU is made of silicon,
| hard to find something cheaper, and growing silicon crystals
| are hard enough by itself) is just first step to cheap final
| product. There are way too much other stuff to do, like
| ability to repurpose existing production lines (vs cost of
| building totally new ones)
| belter wrote:
| Ownership model ensures no short circuits?
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| This was a perfectly crafted comment thank you!!
| binary132 wrote:
| Rust is too hard. Can't we just use the Sea?
| laserbeam wrote:
| Battery reporting is still painful huh? People still not learning
| how to report?
|
| You need a table with at minimum: density, charge time, number of
| cycles, cost to produce, state of development (lab, factory
| prototype, production...). Bonus points for
| losses/efficiency/your special metric that you can win on.
|
| Density matters even for stationary storage. Less, but you can't
| just omit it. Like you can't omit it for gravity batteries which
| have an energy density comparable to that of raw lemons.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I think this holds for reporting on any field where you have
| expertise or deep knowledge. I read the news and just end up
| frustrated that something happened, and I don't have the key
| details.
| kevin_b_er wrote:
| This is very light on the details of their batteries,
| unfortunately.
|
| Iron-air batteries have been known for awhile now, the challenge
| is making them commercially viable. If I recall, their efficiency
| is awful for one. There's a company called Form Energy in West
| Virginia that is supposedly nearly done with a factory to build
| them for grid storage.
| tim333 wrote:
| I was going to say this is very reminiscent of Form even down
| to the weird caims of "100 hours of storage duration." I mean
| what does that even mean?
|
| Still there's this stuff
|
| >Slick project renderings and the promise of a 100-hour storage
| solution allowed the company to raise nearly $1 billion...
| https://www.power-eng.com/energy-storage/form-energys-100-ho...
|
| So I guess it's good for that.
|
| There seems to be a lot of future projection
|
| >Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power, meanwhile, plans to
| deploy a 15 MW/1,500 MWh Form Energy system as early as 2026,
| pending regulatory approval
|
| And zero actual stuff about I made a trial one and hooked it to
| my roof solar and it works fine - they started in 2017 so you
| think they might have done that by now.
|
| I hope it all works though. It would be good for green energy.
|
| Here's Form on HN in 2021
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27944600
| NullPrefix wrote:
| >100 hours of storage duration
|
| Self discharge rate?
| coretx wrote:
| All of the subsidy within the desired time frame.
| Animats wrote:
| Funny how the picture of the building is exactly like this one on
| LoopNet, the commercial realty site.[1] Except that the battery
| article clipped off the logo on top of the building, which isn't
| that of Ore Energy.
|
| [1] https://www.loopnet.com/learn/detachable-design-this-
| sustain...
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| Ore Energy is based in the Matrix One building, which is that
| in the photo
|
| https://www.matrixic.nl/en/?companies=ore-energy-b-v
| alwa wrote:
| That article describes the architectural features of the
| "Matrix ONE" building in the Netherlands. Matrix ONE appears to
| be part of an "innovation hub" where firms research things like
| sustainable energy:
|
| "Matrix ONE is the largest of seven buildings that now make up
| the Matrix Innovation Center, part of Amsterdam Science Park,
| where scientists and entrepreneurs work on sustainable
| solutions for current and future problems." [0]
|
| Seems reasonable to me that they would use a picture of the
| iconic building where their company works, much as a firm in
| New York's World Trade Center might post that iconic silhouette
| without implying the whole thing is theirs.
|
| It's not fake, although I see how it could be taken to imply
| they're bigger than they are. Even so it signals that this
| enterprise is somewhat more serious than a crank in his
| suburban garage, for whatever value that signal conveys...
|
| [0] https://www.mvrdv.com/projects/393/matrix-one
| yencabulator wrote:
| You aren't going to own a whole building with EUR10M
| investment.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| The article is... light on details. Even with the wikipedia
| article [0] I'm having a hard time seeing how the pieces fit
| together. What's the interface between the air and the
| electrolyte, and the interface between the electrodes and the
| grid? It can't quite just be some wires connected to a bunch of
| FeO powder in a pool, right?
|
| Also, it seems like in the charging process, they crack water to
| get back the H2 they consumed while discharging, and just throw
| off the oxygen. Because the discharge process involves using the
| Fe to crack water into H2 and O and immediately running the H2
| through a fuel cell to get H2O again. I guess that's easier than
| just storing H2 and running it back and forth through a fuel
| cell? Am I just tired or is this wiki article written kind of
| badly?
|
| Anyway, it sounds like the company in the OP is based on figuring
| out implementation details rather than brand new technology,
| which is kind of encouraging, as these things go.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal%E2%80%93air_electrochemi...
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| Deregulate nuclear especially small scale reactors utilizing
| known technologies that make them incapable of melting down. Why
| engage in the insane mental gymnastics to set up some Rube-
| Goldberg machine of centralized wind and solar with battery
| backup. The costs are incredibly distorted for wind, solar and
| nuclear - with the latter being artificially expensive due to
| regulation and misinformed sentiment and the former being
| artificially inexpensive due to costs being hidden in the
| lifecycle, supply chain, and problems only seen at very large
| scale.
| nephanth wrote:
| > In Europe, up to 60 per cent of renewable energy capacity goes
| unused on sunny and windy days. This results in the reliance on
| fossil-based energy resources such as coal or gas to meet
| electricity demands when renewable sources are unavailable.
|
| I am really curious as to what hides behind this number. Afaik
| solar and wind aren't dispachable. You cannot just tell your
| solar panel or wind farm to stop producing energy if you have too
| much.
|
| So if 60% of the capacity goes unused, it must be dispatchable
| hydraulic, in which case, isn't that kind of a good thing?
| lars_francke wrote:
| Wind energy is dispatchable. "Redispatch". Around here the wind
| turbines are turned off all the time when there's too much
| energy. The wind farm operators are compensated for that.
|
| Solar is not as trivial which is why batteries and other
| storage mechanisms are important. Or Power to X things where
| power can be dumped if needed.
| taneq wrote:
| Huh? Solar panels can certainly be 'turned off when there's
| too much energy' generation. In fact that's their default
| state, they don't generate any power until you pull current
| from them. They just sit there with a voltage difference
| across them.
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