blurring the lines of the definition of a "battery"
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 11:46 pm
we all know what batterys are. they are devices that we use to store energy.
but allow me to blur your definition if i may
put on your thinkin' caps...
a battery is used to store energy. if the battery is easily transportable then it is also a useful way to get energy from one location to another (generally more remote) location.
ok.. so this is how you make and use a transportable battery:
1) you invest a certain amount of energy to manufacture it *
2) you charge it *
3) you transport it to the site it will be used *
4) you discharge it (generally over time)
5 a) you either transport it back to a recharging post and go back to step 2 *
b) or you discard it and go back to step 1.
* note and all of these (*) steps use energy
The Big-House-Battery Illustration
now think of this... what if you had a huge upscaled battery the size of a house. this battery is manufactured for millions of dollars, comes fully charged, and then transported to some outback location and plonked down and secured. from this location it can run power to a few hundred homes, thereby acting as a kindof power plant - gradually using up it's energy reserves until it's flat. ok, now this huge battery is also so efficient that it would run for a whole 20years non stop before it ran outof energy. when it runs outof energy it can be dismantled/destroyed and they can simply truck a new battery out to replace it. doing that only once every 20years, it's not too bad.
assuming the technology was available, do you think it's feasible? i think it is. power plants as we know them today are really barely any different.
point 1: -LIFESPAN-
A power plant well may only have a 20year lifetime before it is scheduled to be replaced. no different to the big-house-battery which also need to be replaced after 20years.
point 2: -RELIANT ON OUTSIDE CONSTRAINTS-
A power plant is generally ALWAYS reliant on an outside source of fuel. But some power plants are reliant on constant sources that don't run out, such as solar/wind/hydroelectric/geothermal power. This is really no different to the big-house-battery because even batterys will refuse to run in certain extreme conditions. The constraint of needing to put a wind farm IN a place that's windy is similar to the constraint of needing to keep a battery UNDER a certain temperature, or OUTOF the rain. So when you think about it, the big-house-battery really IS reliant on outside factors just as a renewable power source is, both the big-house-battery and renewable energy have constraints in their operating environment.
"But keeping the operating environment free of rain and extreme temperatures is so easy as to be trivial" you may say. Well so is harvesting solar energy, prettymuch everywhere has access to solar energy, it's trivial - the "need sun" operating environment for a solar renewable energy plant is of little more triviality than the "need constant temp" operating environments of big-house-battery (who's main natural resource competition would be solar energy - since in the illustration it's in the outback in the middle of no-where). Both constraints are are easily satisfied on earth.
point 3: -MANUFACTURE ENERGY COSTS-
Big-house-battery will take a bit of work/energy to manufacture and charge. Powerplants also take a bit of work/energy to build. No difference there.
The materials shipped out to build the powerplant is the same concept as the big-house-battery being shipped out - just something to be transported from one location to another.
Do you See?
so with all of these points in mind. see how the powerplant really has most of the advantages of a simple REALLY BIG single use battery.
- you invest energy into it.
- satisfy the trivial constraints and you get energy out again.
ok, now that that's understood, how about this:
what would you think if someone built a powerplant somewhere that is so inefficient that it will NEVER be able to produce as much energy as was used to make it - an energy NEGATIVE powerplant?
it sounds pretty dumb at first impressions doesn't it. but compare it to any battery, for example the big-house-battery illustration:
the big-house-battery although being highly efficient takes more energy to manufacture and charge than it will ever discharge to the homes around it. it is energy negative. it produces NO energy, you only get what you put in when you manufactured and charged it and in this case you get out LESS than that.
so like a battery... you build a powerplant out in the middle of the outback to supply power to a few hundred nearby homes. the powerplant never runs out like a battery does, but in 20 years it breaks down, before it ever produces as much power as you invested into it. just like a battery that lasts 20years.
Ecconomics
it's just ecconomics. the energy you invest is just equity, an investment of capital. a true powerplant may be likened to something you invest money in to make more money. but a battery would be likened to something you invest money into just as a safe way of storing your money - as a money battery. things like a house/boat/classic-car/gold bullion.
you may still be loosing money at a slow rate, but it will still be a better option than investing in something else that will loose your money faster again (like just keeping your money loose & therefore being at the mercy of the money market).
investing your money to make more money is all the things a money battery is, and generally more.
just as a powerplant is all the things a battery is, and generally more.
an investment that's going no-where is just like a battery.
Summing Up
so... i propose that we think outside the box and expand our simple definition of what a battery is and isn't. we need to think in terms of pure ecconomics: what's put in, what's pulled out. we may see that some strange things can be considered as batterys.
We could see that even power plants themselves can be considered batterys (it makes it easier to comprehend if you think of an inefficient "energy-negative" powerplant). They are an investment of energy and materials, so a way of moving accessable energy from one place to another - just like a battery does. When you see a solar panel being manufactured, don't forget the amount of energy needed to make that panel (it's not a trivial amount), think of it as an investment of energy, so that energy (ie: the enormous heat required to smelt the silicon) is now in a much more mobile form. no wires. like a battery. It may not be hot, or tingle, or explode when destroyed, but it's still an investment of energy that can discharge that energy (and more) again - all the properties of a battery (and more).
We also need to remember that energy is more than just electricity. We use petrolium (gasoline) as liquid fuel right now - hydrocarbons have a lot of potential energy in them and by burning them we release that energy - just like discharging a battery. If that car could reverse the process and turn air and carbon into Hydrocarbons again, it would be considered a battery. This is prettymuch what Fuel Cells do (just with hydrogen, not hydrocarbons) but that's perhaps a topic for a later post, or maybe even a later thread.
Zinc Energy - a manufactured hydrogen battery to replace hydrocarbons
I read yesterday about a project which has started to use massive quantitys of refined Zinc as a way of storing energy - like a solid MAN-MADE substitute for hydrocarbons.
basically Zinc Oxide is blasted in a solar furnace to convert it to pure Zinc. this pure Zinc is the charged state of the "battery" - it's like unburned hydrocarbons.
when Zinc is mixed with water it produces hydrogen and Zinc Oxide again - which can then be put through the whole process again.
so it's like a battery, that when discharged does not produce electricical potential between 2 points (electiricity) but instead produces hydrogen from water.
massive quantities of Zinc can be stockpiled as a supply of hydrogen energy. just like we stockpile oil and petrolium as a source of hydrocarbon energy.
what do you think?
but allow me to blur your definition if i may
put on your thinkin' caps...
a battery is used to store energy. if the battery is easily transportable then it is also a useful way to get energy from one location to another (generally more remote) location.
ok.. so this is how you make and use a transportable battery:
1) you invest a certain amount of energy to manufacture it *
2) you charge it *
3) you transport it to the site it will be used *
4) you discharge it (generally over time)
5 a) you either transport it back to a recharging post and go back to step 2 *
b) or you discard it and go back to step 1.
* note and all of these (*) steps use energy
The Big-House-Battery Illustration
now think of this... what if you had a huge upscaled battery the size of a house. this battery is manufactured for millions of dollars, comes fully charged, and then transported to some outback location and plonked down and secured. from this location it can run power to a few hundred homes, thereby acting as a kindof power plant - gradually using up it's energy reserves until it's flat. ok, now this huge battery is also so efficient that it would run for a whole 20years non stop before it ran outof energy. when it runs outof energy it can be dismantled/destroyed and they can simply truck a new battery out to replace it. doing that only once every 20years, it's not too bad.
assuming the technology was available, do you think it's feasible? i think it is. power plants as we know them today are really barely any different.
point 1: -LIFESPAN-
A power plant well may only have a 20year lifetime before it is scheduled to be replaced. no different to the big-house-battery which also need to be replaced after 20years.
point 2: -RELIANT ON OUTSIDE CONSTRAINTS-
A power plant is generally ALWAYS reliant on an outside source of fuel. But some power plants are reliant on constant sources that don't run out, such as solar/wind/hydroelectric/geothermal power. This is really no different to the big-house-battery because even batterys will refuse to run in certain extreme conditions. The constraint of needing to put a wind farm IN a place that's windy is similar to the constraint of needing to keep a battery UNDER a certain temperature, or OUTOF the rain. So when you think about it, the big-house-battery really IS reliant on outside factors just as a renewable power source is, both the big-house-battery and renewable energy have constraints in their operating environment.
"But keeping the operating environment free of rain and extreme temperatures is so easy as to be trivial" you may say. Well so is harvesting solar energy, prettymuch everywhere has access to solar energy, it's trivial - the "need sun" operating environment for a solar renewable energy plant is of little more triviality than the "need constant temp" operating environments of big-house-battery (who's main natural resource competition would be solar energy - since in the illustration it's in the outback in the middle of no-where). Both constraints are are easily satisfied on earth.
point 3: -MANUFACTURE ENERGY COSTS-
Big-house-battery will take a bit of work/energy to manufacture and charge. Powerplants also take a bit of work/energy to build. No difference there.
The materials shipped out to build the powerplant is the same concept as the big-house-battery being shipped out - just something to be transported from one location to another.
Do you See?
so with all of these points in mind. see how the powerplant really has most of the advantages of a simple REALLY BIG single use battery.
- you invest energy into it.
- satisfy the trivial constraints and you get energy out again.
ok, now that that's understood, how about this:
what would you think if someone built a powerplant somewhere that is so inefficient that it will NEVER be able to produce as much energy as was used to make it - an energy NEGATIVE powerplant?
it sounds pretty dumb at first impressions doesn't it. but compare it to any battery, for example the big-house-battery illustration:
the big-house-battery although being highly efficient takes more energy to manufacture and charge than it will ever discharge to the homes around it. it is energy negative. it produces NO energy, you only get what you put in when you manufactured and charged it and in this case you get out LESS than that.
so like a battery... you build a powerplant out in the middle of the outback to supply power to a few hundred nearby homes. the powerplant never runs out like a battery does, but in 20 years it breaks down, before it ever produces as much power as you invested into it. just like a battery that lasts 20years.
Ecconomics
it's just ecconomics. the energy you invest is just equity, an investment of capital. a true powerplant may be likened to something you invest money in to make more money. but a battery would be likened to something you invest money into just as a safe way of storing your money - as a money battery. things like a house/boat/classic-car/gold bullion.
you may still be loosing money at a slow rate, but it will still be a better option than investing in something else that will loose your money faster again (like just keeping your money loose & therefore being at the mercy of the money market).
investing your money to make more money is all the things a money battery is, and generally more.
just as a powerplant is all the things a battery is, and generally more.
an investment that's going no-where is just like a battery.
Summing Up
so... i propose that we think outside the box and expand our simple definition of what a battery is and isn't. we need to think in terms of pure ecconomics: what's put in, what's pulled out. we may see that some strange things can be considered as batterys.
We could see that even power plants themselves can be considered batterys (it makes it easier to comprehend if you think of an inefficient "energy-negative" powerplant). They are an investment of energy and materials, so a way of moving accessable energy from one place to another - just like a battery does. When you see a solar panel being manufactured, don't forget the amount of energy needed to make that panel (it's not a trivial amount), think of it as an investment of energy, so that energy (ie: the enormous heat required to smelt the silicon) is now in a much more mobile form. no wires. like a battery. It may not be hot, or tingle, or explode when destroyed, but it's still an investment of energy that can discharge that energy (and more) again - all the properties of a battery (and more).
We also need to remember that energy is more than just electricity. We use petrolium (gasoline) as liquid fuel right now - hydrocarbons have a lot of potential energy in them and by burning them we release that energy - just like discharging a battery. If that car could reverse the process and turn air and carbon into Hydrocarbons again, it would be considered a battery. This is prettymuch what Fuel Cells do (just with hydrogen, not hydrocarbons) but that's perhaps a topic for a later post, or maybe even a later thread.
Zinc Energy - a manufactured hydrogen battery to replace hydrocarbons
I read yesterday about a project which has started to use massive quantitys of refined Zinc as a way of storing energy - like a solid MAN-MADE substitute for hydrocarbons.
basically Zinc Oxide is blasted in a solar furnace to convert it to pure Zinc. this pure Zinc is the charged state of the "battery" - it's like unburned hydrocarbons.
when Zinc is mixed with water it produces hydrogen and Zinc Oxide again - which can then be put through the whole process again.
so it's like a battery, that when discharged does not produce electricical potential between 2 points (electiricity) but instead produces hydrogen from water.
massive quantities of Zinc can be stockpiled as a supply of hydrogen energy. just like we stockpile oil and petrolium as a source of hydrocarbon energy.
what do you think?