Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to store power in molten salt

Re:Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to stor... by macawfish on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @11:49PM (#18722592)

This is extremely exciting technology! Any energy science aficionado worth their salt knows that molten salt can have very high energy density.

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Re:Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to stor... by londons_explore on Thursday December 20, 2018 @06:20AM (#18723985)

The paper says that at around 600C, nearly all materials have the same energy density.

Molten salt was chosen because it is a liquid, cheap, safe, and stable.

The paper also considers using rocks, but they're tricky to pump...

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Re:Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to stor... by ElijahLynn on Thursday December 20, 2018 @12:03AM (#18722632)

Do you have to keep the salt molten?

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Re:Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to stor... by macawfish on Thursday December 20, 2018 @12:10AM (#18722651)

I believe it melts when it gets hot.

Not sure if you need to keep it hot enough to stay molten...

By the way, this is not new tech! What excited me here is the prospect of bringing these batteries into large scale production. Imo, this is the kind of thing that could transform how we heat and cool homes and other buildings. But right now it's quite niche and hard to access.

Here's Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_battery?wprov=sf...

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Re:Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to stor... by bayesian_horse on Thursday December 20, 2018 @01:09AM (#18722834)

You should take it with a grain of salt, tho.

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Re:Alphabet spinoff Malta raises $26M for technology to stor... by macawfish on Thursday December 20, 2018 @01:15AM (#18722856)

How can you even distinguish one grain from another once the molten situation kicks in?

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