A thought on storing excess energy...

[catnhatnh]

I've seen several interesting suggestions on mass storage of renewable energy, but what these have in common is the acceptance that the lowest possible waste loss is the optimum solution. I posit there is a better possible use of excess energy production.
Certain industrial processes are "energy intensive" and among the worst are metal smelting operations which need massive amounts of raw electricity to turn ores into metals. But currently metal smelting is performed to demand...but suppose instead smaller plants were introduced regionally and operated only when a surplus of power was predicted?
Let's picture a small aluminum plant built in southern New Hampshire... The workers are trained to operate the plant and then laid off. Heavy rains occur in the northern part of the state while clear skies and high winds are predicted in the south.Hydro wind and solar inputs are all peaking and storage capacity has maxed.... existing generating plant shutdowns are slow and costly in the regular grid but a high enough wage will have casual workers moving their schedules to make shifts. Nearly free excess energy flow is utilized as an advantageous source of cheap production, workers are paid a premium, and a necessary process saves storage losses and cuts the price of a valuable commodity.
10 days later, the workers return to their other careers and the plant shuts down until the next predictable energy glut.
Triple win-prime earnings for the workers who get top shelf wages for flexibility, commodities are produced at a discount price, and the regional grid can cover peak periods without excessive storage capacity built to buffer temporary surges.
I'm sure there are other applications but I see an advantage to using up "surplus energy" during a predictable glut over overtaxing storage.

[Gregorian]

1. I think economy of scale plays an important role that is hard to beat.

And not just that of efficiency. Larger energy conversion equipment has higher efficiency, especially if it is of a combustive process. Even ignoring energy production, transportation is an issue. A centralized process location does have the advantage of more dense infrastructure. I don't know, this is how we functioned before the corporate society began to refine itself into the situation we find today. The blacksmith, tannery, winery, cooking oil. But the very nature of our advanced society requires things like Tungsten refining, precision bearing manufacturing. Bearings are, I believe, a very good example of the problem we face when trying to decentralize manufacturing. Either we have all of the machinery in one or two central locations, or we effectively stretch the factory around the nation. And not only does that mean moving materials around, but it means highly specialized and expensive equipment would also need to be duplicated. Not something that is financially feasible.

I'm afraid that what we have is a society that simply cannot be sustained. Ball bearings are an extreme luxury. Gasoline is an extreme luxury. So much so that wars can be fought over these things, and Americans will quietly sit at home while others die in their names. Not to mention the death of an entire planet in space.

I'm afraid because what this may mean is that we have literally gone too far. And by too far I don't mean just technologically, but socially. We could have pursued the life we are accustomed to, if we hadn't grown to be so many doing it. Now we're faced with two problems at the same time. Two problems which in tandem are forcing us to face a grim reality. One of less than we are comfortable.

And then again, it's not binary. It's not all or nothing. And that is the approach we'll need to take. And so I could address your question from that standpoint. But it would exclude many of the things we're accustomed to, such as tires, bearings, and many other specialized things. The very things that do make our lives so comfortable. The appearance would inevitably look like a society of years gone by.

[catnhatnh]

7. My thought was...

...the simplest plant, using the most basic skills, to absorb excess energy production in the most energy intensive uses would have value. Ball bearings are NOT energy intensive-the equipment is and is best utilized 24/7...My posit is that in small scale where energy gluts occur it might be better to have production plants eat up the extra than to try to overbuild storage if a series of regional plants could reasonably use the excess....

[Gregorian]

8. I know that is what you meant. It's a good thought.

But the problem as I see it is that too much of our society is literally addicted to processes that cannot be fractured into smaller pieces. Or so I think. It may be that we simply must. And what you are saying is certainly a fractional improvement. It's like the Priuses in that they are only a small improvement, but an improvement nonetheless. They still require rubber, glass, paint, transportation, energy. But they use less gas. And with so many cars, they are an improvement worth doing.

But take the Bosch-Haber cycle. The thing that makes the nitrogen for our soil so that we can grow more plants than nature will allow. That takes 1% of our energy needs right there. And it's big equipment, if I'm correct. I don't think that process likes to work in small volumes.

What I'm saying is our biggest energy uses do not lend themselves to smaller decentralized enterprises. Mining. Logging, manufacturing of steel, cement.

My point is we're actually in more trouble than fixing will take care of. We need to change in a magnitude. And of course, that isn't going to happen by choice.

[kristopher]

2. Interesting thinking but it probably has little chance of being successful

As a broad based focus for dealing with storage, your scenario probably has too much uncertainty built into it. If we were living in a smallish, isolated community it would probably be a very good approach to maximizing energy use. But in a large scale, industrial culture one of the more important parts of business decision-making is the degree of certainty related to return on investment that any capital project provides to its investors. I can't see a way that the industrial production of most products could be planned in the manner necessary to meet the needs of consumers.

There are ways it can and is being done on a more limited basis however. Investigate "combined cycle generation" for natural gas plants. It uses waste heat for a variety of industrial applications. With Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) this will certainly be a part of the future grid, although we will hopefully replace the fossil fuel component with biofuels.

[catnhatnh]

3. I'll reply to my own posting....

Smelting is at its base very much a blunt force/low tech process. It eats energy and shits metal. Energy costs tons until you have too much. Then it becomes given into storage losses or used to an advantage. I was just suggesting an adjustment to the high end of the flux.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. I think earlier agricultural models worked somewhat the way you suggest.

They were often very dependent on the weather, for example. What you sort of need is a roving labor force that does the smelting when the winds are high, makes hay when the sun shines, harvests corn in the fall, cuts ice from the pond and maybe logs in the winter, plows as soon as the fields are dry in the spring, builds houses in the summer, etc. It could be a very interesting, fulfilling, and gratifying way to live.

[Dead_Parrot]

4. It has it's good points...

There's a similarity to the way agriculture was run (still is, in some places) - depending on the time of year you might be a ploughman, a shearer, a thatcher, a harvester, or a thresher: No particular reason why you couldn't be a smelter in the middle if it's not too skilled.

I think the downside is the way things are funded and managed these days. When some outfit builds a $50million smelter, they don't want the workers saying "Corn's ripe! See you next spring!" and buggering off for the rest of the year - they want them working day and night to pay the thing off (and subsequently to buy a new Jag every month).

The way around this would be to have the smelter (or whatever) held in common: A sort of co-operative hi-tech local fiefdom. You could extend this to a country-scale co-operative, although I think that would tend to work out about as well as the USSR (i.e., not very). A non-state version might be OK.

The other downside it it means you've got a lot of physical resources tied up in a unit sitting idle for much of the time. If you've got access to lots of free resources this isn't a problem, but most people don't.

[catnhatnh]

6. I get your point...

mine is that if energy cost is 90% of your production cost then running production just a few weeks a year and producing a needed commodity at 60% or more below market norms might make a smaller facility viable. My model assumes utilizing all renewables and the ability to predict periodic or more temporary climate driven gluts...IE:in New Hampshire in the spring, for a short period when the snow melts we COULD have more hydro power than it would be economically storable or even a predictable period of clear skies coupled with winds could trigger a high energy use production run. The idea is to use the surge up in an industrial process rather than to overbuild an infrastructure to store the surges and accept losses.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. Although you are still building more infrastucture

Assume the world needs 365 tons of Aluminium per year (Takes a bit of imagination!). You can build one plant that runs all year producing 1 ton per day, but requires you to build more energy infrastructure: Or can can build a plant that produce 4 tons per day and run it just in spring - no energy build, but obviously a fourfold increase in the smelting infrastructure. In any sort of capitalist society it's the cheaper option that will be built, which favours the first option even if the second is more efficient.

Hey ho... :(

[madokie]

10. WE have a gray and ductile iron foundry down the road a tad

and I worked there back in the '80 doing electrical contract work and the coal plant down the road a bit, maybe two miles, control when the smelters can come on. The foundry loads the furnaces and sets the controls for ready and then when GRDA decides it has the excess they turn the power on. Back then we were getting 20 minutes of smelting per hour, not always using that much. 20 minutes is what it took to melt the charge of recycled steel.