News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on What's Ahead for U.S. Propane Marketers in Winter 2022-23?. Parent comment

Re:What's Ahead for U.S. Propane Marketers in Winter 2022-23? by mullingitover on Tuesday January 17, 2023 @01:43PM (#34416752)
Give it time. ESS is making huge iron-based flow batteries that fit in a 40 foot shipping container[1], have a 25 year operating life, and can be stacked up at a solar/wind site like lego blocks to turn the intermittent generation into steady supply. There's other stuff like this in development.

[1] https://essinc.com/energy-warehouse/

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What's Ahead for U.S. Propane Marketers in Winter 2022-23? by dahfizz on Tuesday January 17, 2023 @01:53PM (#34416923)
That website doesn't mention cost, but just the shipping container that houses the battery is going to cost much more than an equivalent propane tank.

The battery is quoted at 400kwh, which is 1,440 MJ of energy. That is equivalent to 30KG of propane. Three little tanks like this[1] has the same energy as your massive battery.

So yeah, propane is easier to store.

[1] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Bernzomatic-20-Pound-Refillable-P...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What's Ahead for U.S. Propane Marketers in Winter 2022-23? by mullingitover on Tuesday January 17, 2023 @02:35PM (#34417508)
I think these batteries would be used on the site of infra-scale renewables generation, a one-time installation, not something you'd store at your home. And there are already shipping container batteries that store 1MHW for $775k[1].

[1] https://www.electriccarpartscompany.com/1mwh-energy-storage-...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What's Ahead for U.S. Propane Marketers in Winter 2022-23? by dahfizz on Tuesday January 17, 2023 @02:50PM (#34417746)
The point is that batteries are many orders of magnitude off in terms of cost, weight, size compared to fossil fuel storage.

> Electricity will be like propane, soon.

Is not true for any reasonable definition of "soon". Our efforts would be better spent optimizing the grid for variable load rather than trying to solve storage. Actual grid scale storage will be unsolvable for decades.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What's Ahead for U.S. Propane Marketers in Winter 2022-23? by korroziya on Tuesday January 17, 2023 @02:58PM (#34417904)
>give it time

EIA predicts renewables will help fossil fuels make up half of the US' power generation in another 27 years.

[ Parent | on HN ]