Forum Topic

Battery packs to store electricity

Are these battery packs suitable for storing off-shore and wind-farm electricity as well as that produced from domestic solar panels?  How expensive, in terms of money and ecologically, are they?  

Jennifer Selig ● 2201d29 Comments

They're coming, they're coming.  Of course you also have to think about how they are improving the longer they are on the market.  Renting the batteries so that they are replaced when they no longer work means that they are not disposed of just anywhere and there is more control of any danger that they may be.https://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/transport/electric-cars-and-vehicles/buying-second-hand-electric-car-or-van

Philippa Bond ● 2192d

https://resource.co/article/rare-earth-metal-recycling-project-launched-birmingham-university-0Just a little something on the circular economy.

Philippa Bond ● 2192d

There should always be room for bright women, just as long as they are bright!

Jennifer Selig ● 2195d

Jennifer there are too many men in parliament.  Margaret Thatcher was a scientist.

Philippa Bond ● 2195d

MPs themselves  don't need to have a science degree, they have to know a man who does.  The secret of leaders is that they do just that, lead and select the right people/person to do the individual task required and make sure they do it.

Jennifer Selig ● 2196d

Not enough MPs have science degrees!  Parliament is full of lawyers, historians and classicists and not enough scientists.

Philippa Bond ● 2196d

Raymond - you paint a very gloomy picture and I don't doubt it's true.  Surely "someone" (whoever that is) must realize and enlist scientists to try and find solutions.  All those clever guys sending men out to far flung planets and walk on the moon and they can't fix this domestic "crisis" does not seem too strong a word.

Jennifer Selig ● 2196d

I did not realise what you state about a Prius. Remember the fridge mountain? Well we could end up with a battery mountain. I still do not fully understand how Hydrogen is produced. I read recently that the surplus electricity produced from windfarms could be used to produce hydrogen. Surely it cannot be that simple.

Nichols Beard ● 2196d

Sadly the cost of retrieval way exceeds the cost of the raw material which is why so much raw material is still being extracted.  Applies to a lot more than batteries. But  what happened to spent lithium is something we should all be worried about. It is far more toxic than the concern of Fracking potentially contaminating water.Yet demand for Lithium simply to power devices is now huge and hybrid and electric vehicles are adding to that ecological imbalance.Problem is we live in a city and it is being deliberately overloaded. It does not matter what we do, the need to survive in overcrowded conurbation will outstrip any form of counter measures

Raymond Havelock ● 2197d

Science doesn't stand still and high-tech isn't always the answer or the only answer.Re batteries we have been warned to take more care just charging our phones. There are batteries in many tools and equipment and toys nowadays.  Many of the fires in rubbish snd recycling trucks have been attributed to them.  A good reason to follow the guidelines for disposing of waste electrics and electronics is that precious metals can be retrieved.  Unfortunately the cheap prices of many goods encourage excessive purchase and indiscriminate and careless use and disposal. There is always a bigger picture.

Philippa Bond ● 2197d

You've answered my opening post enquiry regarding monetary and environmental expense of producing these batteries.  Thank you.

Jennifer Selig ● 2197d

The whole electricity thing being 'green and clean' is a bit of a clutching at straws myth.The environment is a global issue.The problems are not yet solved so all that is happening is the pollution problem is just getting shifted from place to place.The finite raw materials and toxic materials to produce a battery requires more pollution and use of minerals than the life of any current battery can justify.The same with hydrogen fuel. It uses more energy to produce hydrogen fuel than the end yield.So the pollution and use of finite resources increases just to produce 'clean' vehicles. So TfL and it's ULEZ are actually increasing the use of finite resources and pollution by increasing demand and passing the problem to another part of the planet.As an example, A Prius would have to do 145,000 miles before it becomes less polluting than a small engined diesel.The problem is the battery life expires near to that point so the car would have to last at least 28 years and 4 batteries before being marginally less polluting.And that does not include what to do with toxic expired batteries.Electric motors do emit toxins, Carbon and copper are gradually burned in an electric motor All batteries emit small degrees of toxic fumes.In China there are now whole lakes so toxic that they are sealed off as a result of lithium mining.The demand for copper which is diminishing faster than oil and coal will make electric motors completely unaffordable along with all the other traditional uses for copper.  It is likely that copper will exceed platinum in value at current demand.The cost of solar panel manufacture means that it is near a decade before its own energy costs are covered.By the time they do make a return, they are almost life expired. Finding a way of producing hydrogen that does not use energy.It works out as a guide example, that it takes 4 gallons of diesel to produce 0.5 of a gallon of Hydrogen.  Until the safe high volume production and transportation of hydrogen is cracked - (and it is way off) that remains the only potentially environmentally sound means of fuel.So all that is happening is the use of resources and increase in use of toxic materials is being shifted to other places.Rather ironically , R&D into diesel and petrol engines has now slumped to almost zero worldwide with all funding eroded away and yet engineers were getting very close to zero emission petrol and diesel propulsion with high efficiency.  That will now not happen as ignorance and panic has dominated pragmatic development.

Raymond Havelock ● 2198d

I think I'll try to go somewhere outside London and swap my not-so-old-but-soon-to-be-banned-diesel car for an equally-old-but-not-banned petrol version of the same vehicle, rather than buy any kind of far-too-expensive-and-at-the-moment-totally-impractical electric car.

Peter Evans ● 2198d

You're the same as me Jennifer as I have a 14 year old petrol car that surprisingly passes the ULEZ emissions requirements.  Small petrol engine and turbocharger make it a Euro 4 standard.  Diesels though have to reach Euro 6 standard as they throw out a lot of particulates which are increasingly being understood to be very toxic.  If you do buy a new or second hand petrol or diesel car then check it on the ULEZ Checker to make sure it passes - you just need to put the registation number in.  Some diesel cars that are less that 2 or 3 years old fail, including some that are labelled 'bluetec' and other environmentally friendly sounding names.

Lorne Gifford ● 2199d

I'll have to hope my ancient petrol car will stagger on for another 4-5 years!  Currently it passes as OK to drive in the congestion zone but for how  many more months/years I wonder.

Jennifer Selig ● 2200d

I'd suggest waiting until 2022 or 23 as that's the point electric cars will become cheaper and with longer range that petrol or diesel.  Once they're cheaper to buy, or the monthly payments are lower as that's how people buy cars nowadays, the average Joe or Jill going into a showroom will buy them in huge numbers.Recharging will move from today's wires from brightly coloured charging points to understreet induction charging.  Same way a smart phone is charged by induction rather than wires.  Park your car at night and by the morning it's fully charged without you having to do anything other than click the 'charge my car' app on your phone.  You can expect induction charging to suddenly appear everywhere as local councils will realise it's a good income stream - pay to charge as well as pay to park.Much as I like petrol powered sports cars, the future is electric.  Mind you, they do have the advantage that all their stored energy goes into motive power instead of only a third of it with petrol or diesel (the vast majority goes straight to heat out of the exhaust pipe and radiator), so you get an awful lot of power.

Lorne Gifford ● 2200d

Gracious my question seems to stirred up a hornet's nest.  I had no idea all the complications but obviously supplying the electricity does not seem to be the problem is it utilising it safely once it is produced.  For the ordinary  non-chnical bod in the street, should I be buying a fully electric car and I will I be able to fully charge it in the street (can't do so where I live).  Also how many miles will; it take me before I have to charge it up again and are these charging places available all over the UK?  Finally, can one find a 2nd hand all electric car yet?  Don't think I can afford a brand new one.

Jennifer Selig ● 2200d

Pretty instantaneous to anyone who might try and cut it, as it's half a million volts of direct current surrounded by seawater!More seriously, integrity management is an important part of subsea engineering, not only for high voltage cables, but also oil and gas pipelines and the internet.  97% of all internet data goes via subsea fibre-optic cables and there are frequent examples of them accidentally being cut.  Perfect engineering and redundancy are the keys.  UK-Germany is a twin cable system, one at +525 kv and the other at -525 kv, giving a little over a million volts of difference.  Damage one cable and it will run at half power whilst being repaired.  You've also got to find it to cut it, and that's not so easy with something buried under the seabed.

Lorne Gifford ● 2200d

When we talk about mega grids what about hi jacking. We have trouble at the moment with Iran which we have got sucked into. Remember those oil well fires with (I think) Red Adare. With solar farms a cable cut and the result is instantaneous.

Nichols Beard ● 2200d

Hi ChristopherThe statistical analysis of potential super-grid connections around Europe took me a while to compile and is commercially sensitive.  Bits and pieces of information exist on the internet, but the full model is safely tucked away here in Brentford.  Amazing what you can do with a bit of maths and a spreadsheet or two.  Got to admit though that one-hour renewable generating and spot-price timesteps over several years of historical data for most of Europe makes them enormously large spreadsheets.I agree that there's a balance with storage, particularly distrubuted storage along the lines of the Tesla solution, but the way things are developing I suspect the balance will be heavily in favour of immediate transmission with only limited storing for later use.  A much better rate of return on the transmission option.  At half a million volts the transmission loses are very small.The North Africa solar schemes are 'on-hold'.  I've been to some of the target countries over the last couple of years and the security situation isn't good, in fact my 'b**gger, this is dangerous' radar was lit up like a christmas tree and I'm not the sort of person who gets worried easily.  I don't see anyone investing a large amount into fixed assets there until it's an awful lot better.  The IceLink project to capture Icelandic geothermal and hydro power has also just gone on-hold.  Issue there is that despite huge resources, Iceland doesn't have the generating capacity to make it viable.  Needs a combined generating and transmission scheme.

Lorne Gifford ● 2200d

LorneI would be interested in looking at the statistical analysis on mega grid electricity supply. can you supply a link?I am a bit concerned about night time electricity consumption, so while a mega grid looks very worthwhile and effective, I am not yet convinced we need no storage at all. Combining the two could be a more effective solution to reduce transmission losses and improve the economics of renewable suppliers by avoiding a situation where some get very little income as they mostly supply during glut periods, while others get much more as they are able to supply during scarity periods.I remember reading about a project to install solar in north africa, and export much of it to Europe. Given that North Africa gets so much more sunshine than the UK, it seems to make sense to put them there and export the electricity. Europe would get lower electricity costs, and North africa get much needed investment and income. Do you know if that project is still proceeding?Some astonishing numbers were produced saying that covering less than 5% of the sahara with solar in Algeria alone could generate more electricity than world wide demand!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec#/media/File:Fullneed.jpg

Christopher Gillie ● 2201d

The solution to the intermittent nature of wind and solar generation is not batteries.  You need to think outside the box and on a much bigger scale to come up with a cost and technically effective solution.  That solution is wiring - and specifically wiring together the electricity grids of different countries to create a super-grid that covers a large geographical area.  With a large grid you find it's always windy or sunny somewhere.  When it's windy in the UK we can export electricity and when it's not windy we can import it.  No need for storage, just buy and sell on the wholesale spot market.  This isn't some fantasy solution either as I conceived and developed just such a power interconnector with my two partners that will be operational by the end of 2022. Think of it as a big wire running at half a million volts for 750 km across the North Sea between the UK and Germany and capable of carrying a fair percentage of either countries electricity supply.  It will kill off the last of the coal fired generation, so is very good for the environment (displacing a million tonnes of CO2 each year), and will reduce electricity bills as surplus electricity generation is very cheap, and is all being done with 100% private finance, so is equally good for the tax payer.  www.neuconnect.eu and https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/do-you-vote-your-head-heart-wallet-lorne-gifford/ if you want to understand it a bit better.

Lorne Gifford ● 2201d

HiThe dreamliner fires were indeed very dangerous, which is why they grounded the whole fleet until they fixed the problem. The key bit there for me is they have fixed the problem. Saying fires happen in the old batteries is clearly true. I looked up what they did to resolve the issue and it seems unfair to say the replacement batteries would catch fire.https://www.geek.com/news/how-boeing-fixed-the-787-dreamliner-1552766/Despite their best efforts, they could not force the new ones to catch fire. The reference to venting in that article was to do with battery leakage, not to venting to outside the aircraft, but perhaps they missed that bit out.

Christopher Gillie ● 2201d

I dont know about electric cars. However the dreamliner fires sound very dangerous as its an aircraft and you cannot stop half way across the atlantic. The FAA called in specialists. Anyway the outcome was that fires happen with these batteries. The solution wasp to encase the battery in a stainless steel case vented to outside the aircraft. The Dreamliner generates huge ammonts of electricity and consumes it.

Nichols Beard ● 2201d

Hi NicolsBattery safety is obviously important, but it should be compared with fossil fuel safety, not against perfection. As an example, the biggest explosion since WW2 was because of a fossil fuel depot in 2005.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-34919922I have read about some electric cars catching fire, and it gets a lot of attention, but the large number of fossil fuel vehicle fires are less newsworthy and so go under reported. I would like to find data on what, statistically, the risks are, rather than just rely on newspaper headlines.I tried searching for electic car insurance costs and why they are higher. I found this:https://www.altenergymag.com/article/2019/07/car-insurance-and-its-impact-on-adoption-of-electric-cars/31313It seems to suggest that costs are higher because electric vehicles are more expensive in the first place. If you have other information I would be glad to read it.

Christopher Gillie ● 2201d

Christopher I would be very uneasy with these big batteries. I read it can add £200.00 to your car insurance if you put your electric car in the garage overnight and another £200.00 if you charge it. Also read about the battery fires on the Boeing Dreamliner. One was with the aircraft locked up overnight.

Nichols Beard ● 2201d

Christopher I would be very uneasy with these big batteries. I read it can add £200.00 to your car insurance if you put your electric car in the garage overnight and another £200.00 if you charge it. Also read about the battery fires on the Boeing Dreamliner. One was with the aircraft locked up overnight.

Nichols Beard ● 2201d

Tesla used lots of interconnected versions of their home units in order to make the biggest grid scale battery in the world. They have since launched this:https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/blog/introducing-megapack-utility-scale-energy-storageAll using the same litium ion battery technology they use in their cars.

Christopher Gillie ● 2201d

No good for windfarms Scotland are going to have windfarms  connected to batteries which are about the size of a football pitch. The ones you are thinking of are made by Teslar for in a house. I dont know the price. As I understand it today the roof panel business is slowing since the government changed the price you can get for selling your electric back. I heard in Cornwall many solar panel businesses are closing down because of this.

Nichols Beard ● 2201d

"these battery packs" - Which ones?

Christopher Gillie ● 2201d