Inventor's creation not just hot air

"An inventor has developed a system that uses liquid air to power engines"

Hi peeps,

personally this isn’t my thing, but I noticed no one had shared the love yet so I have


Link

reply to post by ototheb85


Can you post a text report please, I run on dial-up, and so do alot of folks around ATS. Thanks,

John

Originally posted by swan001
reply to post by ototheb85

 

Can you post a text report please, I run on dial-up, and so do alot of folks around ATS. Thanks,

John

Serously? On dial up?? I didn't know dial up was still an option.

Anyway, Here you go John.

Turning air into liquid may offer a solution to one of the great challenges in engineering - how to store energy. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers says liquid air can compete with batteries and hydrogen to store excess energy generated from renewables. IMechE says "wrong-time" electricity generated by wind farms at night can be used to chill air to a cryogenic state at a distant location. When demand increases, the air can be warmed to drive a turbine. Engineers say the process to produce "right-time" electricity can achieve an efficiency of up to 70%. IMechE is holding a conference today to discuss new ideas on how using "cryo-power" can benefit the low-carbon economy.
The technology was originally developed by Peter Dearman, a garage inventor in Hertfordshire, to power vehicles. A new firm, Highview Power Storage, was created to transfer Mr Dearman's technology to a system that can store energy to be used on the power grid. The process, part-funded by the government, has now been trialled for two years at the back of a power station in Slough, Buckinghamshire. More than hot air The results have attracted the admiration of IMechE officials. Mr Dearman uses his garage as a laboratory "I get half a dozen people a week trying to persuade me they have a brilliant invention," head of energy Tim Fox told BBC News. "In this case, it is a very clever application that really does look like a potential solution to a really great challenge that faces us as we increase the amount of intermittent power from renewables."

Dr Fox urged the government to provide incentives in its forthcoming electricity legislation for firms to store energy on a commercial scale with this and other technologies. IMechE says the simplicity and elegance of the Highview process is appealing, especially as it addresses not just the problem of storage but also the separate problem of waste industrial heat. The process follows a number of stages: "Wrong-time electricity" is used to take in air, remove the CO2 and water vapour (these would freeze otherwise) the remaining air, mostly nitrogen, is chilled to -190C (-310F) and turns to liquid (changing the state of the air from gas to liquid is what stores the energy) the liquid air is held in a giant vacuum flask until it is needed when demand for power rises, the liquid is warmed to ambient temperature. As it vaporizes, it drives a turbine to produce electricity - no combustion is involved IMechE says this process is only 25% efficient but it is massively improved by co-siting the cryo-generator next to an industrial plant or power station producing low-grade heat that is currently vented and being released into the atmosphere.

The heat can be used to boost the thermal expansion of the liquid air. More energy is saved by taking the waste cool air when the air has finished chilling, and passing it through three tanks containing gravel. The chilled gravel stores the coolness until it is needed to restart the air-chilling process. Delivering durability Highview believes that, produced at scale, their kits could be up to 70% efficient, and IMechE agrees this figure is realistic. "Batteries can get 80% efficiency so this isn't as good in that respect," explains Dr Fox. "But we do not have a battery industry in the UK and we do have plenty of respected engineers to produce a technology like this. "What's more, it uses standard industrial components - which reduces commercial risk; it will last for decades and it can be fixed with a spanner." In the future, it is expected that batteries currently used in electric cars may play a part in household energy storage. But Richard Smith, head of energy strategy for National Grid, told BBC News that other sorts of storage would be increasingly important in coming decades and should be incentivised to commercial scale by government. He said: "Storage is one of four tools we have to balance supply and demand, including thermal flexing (switching on and off gas-fired power stations); interconnections, and demand-side management. Ultimately it will be down to economics." Mr Dearman, who also invented the MicroVent resuscitation device used in ambulances, told BBC News he was delighted at the success of his ideas. He said he believed his liquid air engine would prevail against other storage technologies because it did not rely on potentially scarce materials for batteries.

"I have been working on this off and on for close on 50 years," he told BBC News. "I started when I was a teenager because I thought there wouldn't be enough raw materials in the world for everyone to have a car. There had to be a different way. Then somehow I came up with the idea of storing energy in cold. "It's hard to put into words to see what's happening with my ideas today." John Scott, from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), added: "At present, pumped-hydro storage is the only practical bulk storage medium in the British grid. "However, locations are very restricted," he told BBC News. "In the future, if new storage technologies can be deployed at a lower cost than alternatives, it would benefit the power system." A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said it would shortly launch a scheme to incentivise innovation in energy storage. Other grants are available from Ofgem.

source

vvv

oh wow.....that is good.

SO....... solved.........when do governments and industries convert.......?

No BS......this is great....when?

reply to post by VreemdeVlieendeVoorwep


Thanks VVV

Gonna read it offline now.

reply to post by ototheb85


Wow I hope this it true. S+F

This is my modem.

wow this is impressive stuff.

Lets hope we go this way in the future.

so how much energy does it produce in comparison to the amount of energy it takes to create the required quantaties of liquid air?

I am not impressed.

Running things on liquid air isn't as the BBC clip suggest going to solve the worlds energy crisis. It would take a lot more energy for the refrigeration to get the liquid air to the very cold temperatures not to mention condensing the air to liquid to begin with. That's two unneeded unnecessary steps that waste tons of energy. How are these people not seeing this which is obvious to me?

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


Well if you read the page with this video they say you can store energy produce at night from wind when it's just waste.

Originally posted by Dolby_X
reply to post by JohnPhoenix

 

Well if you read the page with this video they say you can store energy produce at night from wind when it's just waste.

edit on 4-10-2012 by Dolby_X because: big finger

I saw that. You can store that same energy with batteries and capacitors too. I honestly don't see how they just let wind energy go to waste simply because it's not turning a certain RPM's like it might in the day.

Originally posted by JohnPhoenix
I am not impressed.

Running things on liquid air isn't as the BBC clip suggest going to solve the worlds energy crisis. It would take a lot more energy for the refrigeration to get the liquid air to the very cold temperatures not to mention condensing the air to liquid to begin with. That's two unneeded unnecessary steps that waste tons of energy. How are these people not seeing this which is obvious to me?

I was about to say the same thing.

Originally posted by DaveNorris
so how much energy does it produce in comparison to the amount of energy it takes to create the required quantaties of liquid air?

Obviously that is the first question people should ask. I think they purposely play it off the way they do to spark interest from people, as a number of uneducated will think this is something revolutionary... Or usable by itself.

What is interesting though, is the mention of using waste heat to produce the condensed air. Which would otherwise not be used, and if that's the case it would be quite useful, not to mention profitable.

As far as using it as a battery for energy storage from wind farms, that's interesting depending on the energy loss during conversion which I suspect is probably high.

However, this reminds me of a thread awhile ago where we were discussing using hydrogen as a storage medium for solar fields in the desert, the biggest problem having no water around to use the electricity to split the water.

The main caveat of using solar in places that offer the most sun is they are too far to carry the load via traditional methods like wires, etc.

Now, here's something interesting.

A giant solar farm in the middle of the desert that uses all its energy to make liquid air, then transports it to wherever to be used commercially.

You would have to crunch the numbers to see if it would even be viable, but it's worth doing that at least. Interesting....




Nevermind, it's useless, and really no different than compressed air engines when you think about it. Wow, really suffering the hangover effects of clouded head...

IMechE says this process is only 25% efficient but it is massively improved by co-siting the cryo-generator next to an industrial plant or power station producing low-grade heat that is currently vented and being released into the atmosphere.

no point...

I found a BBC link for this, as standard 25% efficient, but if you can use waste heat to reheat the air (like next to a power station), then you can get 75%.

liquid air 'offers energy storage hope'

what is the by product when the gas becomes exhaust? Does it return air back to amosphere or is a percentage of air lost for good? Otherwise good idea SnF