Private communication
Electricity Decarbonization, No Holy Grail By Herbert Inhaber hinhaber@hotmail.com July 13, 2022 Herbert Inhaber was a Senior Research Scientist at the U. S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and a Science Advisor at the Canadian Atomic Energy Control Board. He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society, and holds a Ph.D. in physics and mathematics from the University of Oklahoma. The Holy Grail of renewables like solar photovoltaic and wind turbines is some sort of storage, where excess electricity from sunny and windy days is collected when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. When this happens, backup sources like coal, natural gas and nuclear (although nuclear does not produce CO2) are not needed. Decarbonization of the electricity system would be achieved. Until recently, the major storage for utilities was so-called “pumped storage”, in which excess energy was used to pump water to a lake in the hills. When the potential energy in the water was needed, it flowed down, turning turbines. Unfortunately, there are few places in the U.S. with the right topography for this storage system. Note: John Shanahan, Editor of website: allaboutenergy.net - The Swiss company ENERGY VAULT Enabling a Renewable World, uses the simple idea of lifting solid objects when there is excess energy and letting them down when they need supplemental energy for electricity. This is similar to pumping water uphill to a storage reservoir. This idea has the advantage of not needing a hill with a reservoir and therefore being applicable at many more sites. It is obviously more expensive. It is a question of how far anti-fossil fuel and anti-nuclear power alarmists will go to avoid these reliable and abundant energy sources. Some clues to a potential battery storage system are gleaned from a recent visit by President Biden to a Ford plant, manufacturing thr F-150 Lightning. This is an electric version of the F-150 truck, the best-selling U.S. model for years.
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