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Mark Z. Jacobson is a professor of civil and environmental engineering for the Doerr College of Sustainability and College of Engineering at Stanford College. He’s well-known to CleanTechnica readers for his efforts to chart a course towards a future through which the power wanted to energy human civilization is plentiful, inexpensive, and renewable. He and his workforce at Stanford have created two wonderful research. One in all them gives an in depth street map for a way each state in america can transition to 100% renewable power. One other gives the identical detailed evaluation for 139 nations around the globe. Now he and his colleagues have printed a brand new examine that advocates for the usage of fireplace bricks to retailer warmth created by renewables.
Fireplace Bricks & Course of Warmth
The transition away from fossil fuels to wash, renewable power relies on power storage options. The one most individuals are acquainted with is batteries, that are nice for storing electrical energy and releasing it on demand. However about 17% of all world emissions are attributable to burning fossil fuels to provide course of warmth, which is utilized in a myriad of business purposes from baking bread to creating cement, iron, and aluminum. Batteries are able to storing electrical energy to make that course of warmth, however on this new examine, printed within the journal PNAS Nexus on July 10, 2024, Mark Jacobson and his colleague Daniel Sambor reveal that fireplace bricks can do the identical job for about one-tenth the price.
“By storing energy in the form closest to its end use, you reduce inefficiencies in energy conversion,” Sambor, a postdoctoral scholar in civil and environmental engineering, informed TechXplore. “It’s often said in our field that ‘if you want hot showers, store hot water, and if you want cold drinks, store ice’; so this study can be summarized as ‘if you need heat for industry, store it in fire bricks.’” Jacobson added, “The difference between fire brick storage and battery storage is that the fire bricks store heat rather than electricity and are one tenth the cost of batteries. The materials are much simpler too. They are basically just the components of dirt.”
The know-how entails assembling heat-absorbing bricks in an insulated container, the place they’ll retailer warmth generated by photo voltaic or wind energy for later use on the temperatures required for industrial processes. The warmth can then be launched when wanted by passing air by means of channels within the stacks of fireplace bricks, which permits cement, metal, glass, and paper factories to run on renewable power even when wind and sunshine are unavailable. The bricks are constituted of the identical supplies because the insulating bricks that lined primitive kilns and ironmaking furnaces hundreds of years in the past. To optimize for warmth storage as an alternative of insulation, the supplies are merely mixed in numerous quantities.
An Evaluation Of 149 Nations
The researchers got down to look at the influence of utilizing fireplace bricks to retailer most industrial course of warmth in 149 nations in a hypothetical future the place every nation has transitioned to wind, geothermal, hydro energy, and photo voltaic for all power functions. These 149 nations are answerable for 99.75% of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. “Ours is the first study to examine a large scale transition of renewable energy with fire bricks as part of the solution,” Jacobson mentioned. “We found that fire bricks enable a faster and lower cost transition to renewables, and that helps everyone in terms of health, climate, jobs, and energy security.”
The workforce used pc fashions to match prices, land wants, well being impacts, and emissions concerned in two situations for a hypothetical future the place 149 nations in 2050 are utilizing renewables for all power functions. In a single state of affairs, fireplace bricks present 90% of commercial course of warmth. Within the different, there’s zero adoption of fireplace bricks or different types of thermal power storage for industrial processes. Within the no fireplace brick state of affairs, the researchers assumed warmth for industrial processes would come as an alternative from electrical furnaces, heaters, boilers, and warmth pumps, with batteries used to retailer electrical energy for these applied sciences.
The researchers discovered the state of affairs with fireplace bricks might reduce capital prices by $1.27 trillion throughout the 149 nations in contrast with the state of affairs with no fireplace brick storage, whereas decreasing demand for power from the grid and the necessity for power storage capability from batteries. Options for accelerating the transition to wash power are additionally related to human well being. Earlier analysis has proven that air air pollution from burning fossil fuels causes thousands and thousands of early deaths annually. “Every bit of combustion fuels we replace with electricity reduces that air pollution,” Jacobson mentioned. “And because there is a limited amount of money to transition at a high speed, the lower the cost to the overall system, the faster we can implement it.”
Mark Jacobson has spent his profession understanding air air pollution and local weather issues and growing power plans for nations, states, and cities to resolve these issues. However his deal with fireplace bricks is comparatively new and is impressed by a want to establish efficient options that might be adopted rapidly.
“Imagine if we propose an expensive and difficult method of transitioning to renewable electricity. We would have very few takers. But, if this will save money compared with a previous method, it will be implemented more rapidly,” he mentioned. “What excites me is that the impact is very large, whereas a lot of technologies that I’ve looked at, they have marginal impacts. Here I can see a substantial benefit at low cost from multiple angles, from helping to reduce air pollution mortality to making it easier to transition the world to clean renewables.”
Simply Say No To Nukes
Prior to now, Mark Jacobson has been criticized for ignoring nuclear energy as one supply of zero emissions power. This examine explains why. “Whereas some suggest the usage of nuclear reactors to supply electrical energy and warmth for business, newly deliberate nuclear will not be included right here for a number of causes. First, newly deliberate nuclear reactors will unlikely compete with [other forms of renewable energy] as a result of the time lag between planning and operation of a brand new typical nuclear reactor as we speak is 12 to 22 years — too lengthy to assist resolve world local weather and air air pollution issues — versus 1 to five years for brand new wind and photo voltaic farms.
“Second, the levelized cost of newly planned conventional nuclear reactors is 3 to 14 times that of new onshore wind. Nuclear also faces several well known energy security risks. Small modular nuclear reactors are expected to face similar time lag, cost, and security risks. As such, nuclear is not considered further here.” Advocates for nuclear energy can be distressed by Jacobson’s evaluation, however who would need to pay 3 to 14 instances extra for one thing than essential? From a strictly financial viewpoint, it’s exhausting to make a enterprise case for nuclear.
The Takeaway
Just lately now we have reported on a number of firms which are in search of to commercialize fireplace bricks for warmth storage. One is Electrified Thermal Options, an MIT spinoff that has discovered a approach to make fireplace bricks that take the place of wires to conduct electrical energy and generate warmth. One other is Rondo Vitality, which has begun putting in its fireplace brick thermal storage models in a number of places around the globe to supply course of warmth. What’s attention-grabbing right here is how know-how that helped people harness warmth to create the Bronze Age is as soon as once more getting used to additional the clear power revolution. All the pieces outdated is new once more, it appears. And never a second too quickly.
