Energy storage: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:02, 2 September 2023

In the pursuit of green energy, storage is needed for 2 reasons:

To smooth out the intermittency of solar and wind power.
To store energy in electric vehicles.

Note: This page does not include thermal energy storage.

Types / Candidates

Type	Status
Sodium-ion batteries	Good potential / needs investment.
Sodium-sulfur batteries	Good potential / needs investment.
Hydrogen gas	Okay for some applications, but too lossy and platinum-intensive for others.
Lithium ferrous (iron) phosphate	Okay if used in moderation. A bit too lithium-intensive to be a general solution.
Lithium-ion batteries	Not scalable enough: Too cobalt-intensive.
Lithium-sulfur batteries	Can't handle enough charge cycles.
Lead-acid batteries	Toxic / hazardous.
Stationary storage only (power grid, not vehicles)
Iron redox flow batteries	Good potential / needs investment.
Compressed air	?
Pumped hydro	Only viable in rare geographical locations.
Flywheels	?
Gravity blocks	Not viable: Outrageously high environmental footprint of construction.

For more details, read the wikipage of each energy storage type. Links are in the table.

So far, sodium-based batteries seem to have the most hope of being a widespread solution - along with iron-based batteries for stationary energy storage.

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 <small>Note: This page does not include [[thermal energy storage]].</small>
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 So far, sodium-based batteries seem to have the most hope of being a widespread solution - along with iron-based batteries for stationary energy storage.
+<!--
 ==How much energy storage might be needed?==
 Some quick estimates:
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 There are more options for this type of energy storage, because it's stationary (not moving in a vehicle).
+These numbers might be reused on other wikipages to assess the large-scale viability of various types of energy storage. Don't worry if you're not familiar with <code>terajoules</code> as an [[energy/units|energy unit]].
-<!-- TODO: add better estimates.
-     NOTE: when these numbers change, also update the calculations on the pages for each energy storage type.
+TODO:
-     TALK: if a lot of calculations have to be reused in a lot of pages, consider creating a template
+* Improve the above commented-out calculations.
+* Put them in templates {{Grid energy storage}} and {{Vehicle energy storage}}
+* Use the templates on the wikipage of each energy storage type.
 -->
-These numbers might be reused on other wikipages to assess the large-scale viability of various types of energy storage. Don't worry if you're not familiar with <code>terajoules</code> as an [[energy/units|energy unit]].