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#101 2023-02-26 16:26:01

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,825

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

Terraformer,

Troubles with recalcitrant politicians aside, what's stopping interested members of the community from building their own heat energy storage system?  Why can't you connect with other interested parties in your town to build a demonstrator unit?

You need a hot box that collects heat from sunlight, tubing to run the water into storage tanks, and a cold sink that uses colder ground water to exchange heat to generate movement for pumping power.  A space heating demonstrator unit is easiest to make, and the one most likely to immediately improve living conditions.  Hot potable water can come later, followed by generating electricity.  In other words, worry about hot showers and electricity after you already live in a warm house that doesn't cost a fortune in terms of gas or electricity bills.

If your heat pump can affordably deliver heat in the winter and water heating, then it's taken care of the lion's share of personal / home energy consumption.  Anything beyond that is a bonus, and reaching a point of diminishing returns as construction costs increase.  If you can affordably keep the inside temperature set to something livable and supply hot water, then someone with a lot of engineering expertise, like Calliban, can later figure out how to go the extra mile by delivering electricity for appliances.

There will probably not be a practical singular solution for all of your energy needs.  Maybe a photovoltaic panel is the correct solution for powering home electronics because they consume so little power.  The key to containing overall cost and complexity is first accepting and then working around the fact that neither thermal nor electrical power are silver bullets.  We devolve into wildly expensive and complex solutions whenever we start thinking that every problem is a nail, and every solution is a hammer.  We have screws and screw drivers for a reason.  Nails are not suitable fasteners for every type of material.

So...  Direct electric for machines that directly consume electricity (lights, electronics, electric motors, cooktops- all stuff that's difficult and expensive and potentially dangerous to power using low-cost but crude on-premise heat engines).  Direct thermal for devices that are going to use thermal power anyway (space and water heaters or air conditioners).  When you start trying to power industrial processes like space or water heating / cooling using low conversion efficiency photovoltaics to supply massive amounts of low-grade heat, that's how costs go exponential.

Don't fixate on the superficial aesthetics of any solution intended to reduce our over-reliance on fossil fuels.  Fixate on whether or not it gets the job done for the lowest cost, knowing that money is a proxy for energy and labor, and that efficiency at scale is what makes a solution viable or non-viable.  We need to differentiate what works at a home level, which seems to be what SpaceNut is working on, and what works at a town or city level, which is a very different question.

Beyond that, you can easily "go broke" trying to increase the efficiency of things like home insulation quality or how much energy a particular machine uses.  If it doesn't get hot or cold enough, then you're better off worrying about generation instead of absolute efficiency of every aspect of society's machinery.  LED lights are much more efficient than incandescent, but now nobody turns their lights off, so the actual "accomplishment" associated with banning incandescent lightbulbs was an increase in energy usage and increase in the cost of a lightbulb.  Regardless of what the intent was, only the end result matters.

Think about washing clothes for a moment.  Back in the day, there was no electrical power required to wash clothes, thus no electric motors or much of anything besides soap and water and a bucket required to do it, so no energy was spent on making washing machines or electronic controls for washing machines, or transporting washing machines from the factory to the homes, or washing machine repairmen driving big trucks to homes to repair them, etc.  There are lots of great reasons to use washing machines, and I'm not at all suggesting that we go back to the old ways of washing clothes, but energy efficiency is not one of them.  That's why, if we want to continue to use washing machines, that they should be as simple and long-lasting as we can make them.  Cleaning your clothes is not supposed to be an arcade game, thus it should require no computerized control system to do it.  No dings, bops, bells, whistles, or flashing lights are required- all that stuff is frivolous nonsense.

Online

#102 2023-02-26 16:40:44

Terraformer
Member
From: The Fortunate Isles
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,904
Website

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

I mean, I don't *need* the city councils support for what I had in mind to start with, but since they already showed an interest in it and rolling it out across the town would entail digging up streets and drilling boreholes on council owned land...

I'm pretty confident the town council will be onboard if this goes ahead. Assuming a lot of them stay on after May. That's who I was going to contact if city weren't interested. Easier to approach the relevant organisations if the town council is onboard.

For our street, neighbourhood heating would take either boreholes under the streets (as was done in Cornwall) or running a short stretch of pipe from the nearby school field (the far easier
and less disruptive option).

Meanwhile, there is a *lot* of work to be getting on with in just improving the insulation here. Which should be cheaper than the crazy estimates that are usually trotted out, if we aim for just good rather than perfect. At some point you hit diminishing returns, and I don't think spending an extra £5k to save 100W of heating during the coldest parts of winter is worth it.

LED lights are much more efficient than incandescent, but now nobody turns their lights off, so the actual "accomplishment" associated with banning incandescent lightbulbs was an increase in energy usage and increase in the cost of a lightbulb.

Eh, not really. LED lights are just *that* much more efficient that you'd need to keep them on for like 10x as long as incandescents to use the same amount of power. At some point you run out of time to run them in. Jevon's paradox runs into Leibig's law of the minimum, or the rate limiting step, or the order of the algorithm. If you build 100 lane highways, you won't get induced demand to fill them all; eventually, you run out of cars to put on those roads.

Last edited by Terraformer (2023-02-26 17:11:10)


Use what is abundant and build to last

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#103 2023-02-26 17:13:54

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,428

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

Thanks, kbd512 for post 95 equations for using bricks and for other thermal numbers to make use of.

The issue for water is that it gives up the stored much lower heat level to quickly which requires a greater volume to serve the same goal. The sand battery will make use of a higher stored heat level for a much more compact volume that releases the heat at a slower rate. Of course, the end results mean complexity to give the desired effect of heat for the home.

When water is stored at too low of a level, we get Legionnaire bacteria that will grow so that makes a heat system not viable for such a task if we cannot get it hotter.

Its looking like we need a combination of each to achieve the overall goal.

Terraformer, it appears as if a bot did the reply when it is parroting back words for the initiated request.

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#104 2023-02-26 17:30:28

Terraformer
Member
From: The Fortunate Isles
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,904
Website

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

As I said before, I feel like keeping water at 60c to prevent legionnaire growth is a holdover from the days before ultrafiltration and UV sterilisation. We could probably make 45c water storage safe now, with far less energy use for non-pasteurising sterilisation methods. But we can always upgrade later, so it's not a big deal.

Designing systems so we *can* upgrade them later *is* a big deal. That's why I want to insulate the pipes, even if it's only being used as a normal ground source heat pump system at first, and why I want the top 5m of the boreholes insulated rather than used. A small increase in construction expense to make it easy to slash operational expense later.


Use what is abundant and build to last

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#105 2023-02-26 18:00:28

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,428

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

Asking the question of UV intensity spectrum and location that it is. Impact of UV irradiation at full scale on bacterial communities in drinking water

Water in a full-scale drinking water treatment plant was irradiated with ultraviolet (UV) doses of 250, 400, and 600 J/m2, and the effect on bacterial communities investigated using 16s rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, heterotrophic plate counts (HPCs), coliform, and Escherichia coli counts. The bacteria in the irradiated water were also analyzed following storage for 6 days at 7 °C, to approximate the conditions in the distribution system.

41545_2020_57_Fig1_HTML.png?as=webp

Does UV Light Kill Bacteria in Water? (You Might be Surprised)

Ultraviolet A light effectively reduces bacteria and viruses including coronavirus

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#106 2023-02-26 21:52:39

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,825

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

Terraformer,

Eh, not really. LED lights are just *that* much more efficient that you'd need to keep them on for like 10x as long as incandescents to use the same amount of power. At some point you run out of time to run them in. Jevon's paradox runs into Leibig's law of the minimum, or the rate limiting step, or the order of the algorithm. If you build 100 lane highways, you won't get induced demand to fill them all; eventually, you run out of cars to put on those roads.

It's not that a LED light isn't wildly more efficient at generating visible light than an incandescent bulb, it's that now there are more than 10X as many lights and most people (not you, specifically, but you're not the only person in the world using lightbulbs) leave all of them on, all the time.  The same applies to TV sets.  They're not even watching the damn things, but they have one in every room and in general they're turned on all the time.  I can walk into pretty much any home in America, including my own, and see lights in rooms that nobody is in and TVs that nobody is watching.  Every time I leave my office, I end up turning at least one light or TV off that my wife or children have left on.  In all the homes of friends and family that I have, as well as any other random acquaintance I've made where I go to their house or apartment, I see the same behavior.

The LED bulbs themselves, because they're easily 3X heavier than a traditional bulb, also require more materials, different and more energy-intensive materials, and they're not easy to recycle.  An incandescent bulb has a Zinc or Brass base, a very thin evacuated glass envelope, and a tiny Tungsten filament.  The incandescent bulbs were made to be cheap and disposable, which is how all lightbulbs are treated, regardless of cost.  A LED bulb has a thick plastic housing, the same base, a heavy Aluminum heat sink to regulate the LED's temperature, and a semiconductor.  If all you do is look at the thing itself, rather than how it's used and how it's made, then yes, LEDs look great compared to incandescent bulbs.

Lighbulbs don't get recycled, despite being made by the billions.  They all get tossed in the trash.  LED bulbs are functionally non-recyclable, just like incandescent bulbs.  As far as how long lightbulbs last, they make 10,000 hour and even 20,000 hour incandescent bulbs, and they're made from the same materials, albeit with thicker filaments.  There are also a literal handful of lights that have been turned on almost continuously for over 100 years, using Carbon filaments instead of Tungsten.  No LED comes close to matching that kind of longevity.  If all you had to do was replace that little LED chip, which oddly enough is how all high-end LED flashlights are made, then LEDs would become a much better solution in every metric that concerns energy and materials availability.

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#107 2023-02-28 09:44:43

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,777

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

This blog is all about low temperature baking.
https://vaporbaker.wordpress.com/2010/0 … es-so-far/

It is possible to bake quite effectively at temperatures of 121°C.  Cooking times are longer, but nutrition is improved if intense heat is removed.  Some recipes will bake at temperatures as low as 100°C, but require 8-10 hours cooking time.

Sous vide cooks at temperatures of 60-90°C.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-temperature_cooking

This is relevant to thermal storage, because heat at such low temperatures can be stored for long periods of time.  Fourier's law states that the heat flux by conduction across a barrier, is proportional to temperature difference and inversely proportional to the thickness of the barrier.  It should be possible to build underground pit cookers that maintain temperatures in these ranges for long periods with only intermittent heating.  If our energy supply is intermittent, this provides a means of cooking, even when power is not available.

Last edited by Calliban (2023-02-28 09:57:23)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#108 2023-03-04 07:42:45

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,263

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

For Terraformer re #99

Congratulations again for making contact with a live person with an interest in your proposal.

The reply contains a promise, which I have captured below...

Terraformer wrote:

Well that was pleasingly quick smile

Dear []

<snip>

Indeed [] city council is about to undertake a Local Area Energy Plan (LAEP) to assess the district's energy demand and how it might be reduced by greater attention to energy efficiency; and how the remaining energy demand might be met from low-carbon sources.

I'm going to forward your email - minus contact details - to the officers working most closely on the matter for their consideration and to help inform the LAEP. I'm not going to promise that you're going to get a pilot study commissioned to consider your particular proposal in that [] triangle but I can promise that your suggestion will meet with open minds.
<snip>

<snip>

The promise needed some time (on the order of a few seconds) for completion.

It is now time for you to follow up (in your usual courteous way) to find out if the promised action was completed. I note that a study is to be carried out, with funds provided by an unnamed source.  It would not be out of order to inquire about possible service on the team that is going to be doing the study.  Nor would it be out of order to request reports from the team as it carries out its work.

(th)

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#109 2023-03-22 06:50:48

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,263

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

For Terraformer re #99

It's time for a follow up ... have you called the person who replied to your inquiry?

I am almost certain that absolutely NOTHING is going to happen if you do not take an active role in prodding folks to actually move forward.  There are FAR more reasons to do nothing, than there are to actually do something useful.

(th)

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#110 2023-03-22 06:57:08

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,263

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

For SpaceNut re thermal energy storage in a home where electricity is available.

It is possible to make a simple (but effective) thermal energy storage device by using discarded but still working electric ovens.

The oven cavity can be stacked with bricks, and the oven can be set to warm to 500 degrees Fahrenheit before a storm, and while power is still available.

After the power is lost, the oven door can be tilted open to allow for a release of enclosed thermal energy.

If you can find several of these for low price, or even just for the cost of renting a truck if they are available for free at a construction site, then you can line a wall in your basement with a set of them.  If you can find a stash of brick available for low cost or just for the cost of renting a truck, then you can load the ovens for their future emergency duty.  The only remaining expense would be hiring a contractor to wire the 220 VAC wiring, which would ideally be done through pipe to protect the wires from possible damage.

You could set up just ** one ** oven like this as a proof-of-concept.

(th)

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#111 2023-03-29 11:17:46

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,263

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

For Terraformer re "Quick" response from government official....

http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 76#p206676

A month has gone by .... I'm hoping you have time to follow up with your contact, to see what has happened.

I am doubtful anything is going to happen in your community unless you are there to poke and prod and move things along.

There appear to be generous allocations of national wealth available for communities to apply toward goals judged worthy.

For a goal to be judged worthy, it seems to me a presentation is required, and that requires a presenter, and a presenter needs a support team.

It seems to me that this forum is good for banter about possibilities, but for anything to happen in the Real Universe, it is necessary to apply pressure ON the Real Universe.

(th)

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#112 2023-04-29 12:19:51

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,263

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

tahanson43206 wrote:

For Terraformer re "Quick" response from government official....

http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 76#p206676

A month has gone by .... I'm hoping you have time to follow up with your contact, to see what has happened.

I am doubtful anything is going to happen in your community unless you are there to poke and prod and move things along.

There appear to be generous allocations of national wealth available for communities to apply toward goals judged worthy.

For a goal to be judged worthy, it seems to me a presentation is required, and that requires a presenter, and a presenter needs a support team.

It seems to me that this forum is good for banter about possibilities, but for anything to happen in the Real Universe, it is necessary to apply pressure ON the Real Universe.

(th)

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#113 2023-04-29 12:28:12

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,263

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

For Calliban re Thermal Energy exchange in concrete ...

In the past, you've posted about stone not being a particularly useful energy exchange store ...

It seems to me (working from memory) that you've reported that thermal energy flow through stone is poor compared to other materials.

Therefore, my hopes are modest when I asked this question .... for new construction of a building (home or business) where concrete walls are specified for below grade components (foundation, etc) is it reasonable to consider embedding pipes for fluid to be used in conjunction with thermal energy exchange systems?

A heat pump may be constructed with air as the destination of thermal energy or the source.

I'm thinking of heat pumps constructed with fluid delivering (or pulling) heat energy via pipes in ground locations.  An ideal location would appear to be a pond of sufficient size, and I know of an installation that has worked well in that configuration.

My question is about concrete as a source of thermal energy in winter, and a destination for thermal energy in summer.

Is this a practical idea, or is the thermal conductivity of concrete too poor for this application?

Update later same day: I asked ChatGPT about use of concrete for a heat pump, and it found three studies. The chat is posted in the ChatGPT topic.


(th)

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#114 2023-04-29 15:13:29

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,428

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

Like all stone or concrete walled homes, it is the conduction of temperatures that are external to the home that is the issue. This is what will cause a greater heat level to keep the home warm throughout that is the issue and if you want that area to be useful space for use then that cold is high compared to keeping it comfortable.

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#115 2023-04-29 15:17:51

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,263

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

For SpaceNut re #114

Thank you for continuing to build this topic!

The situation of a home owner considering an upgrade is what I had in mind.  A concrete foundation built upstream from an existing foundation would be designed to block further incursion of water into the home below.  It appears that concrete is capable of hosting a set of pipes for heat pump activity.  The concrete can hold thermal energy, and apparently it can accept it or give it up.  The advantage of having the pipes enclosed in concrete (as compared to just loose in the ground) is that the installation will last for a long time.  The potential disadvantage of thermal conductivity must be taken into account during design of the installation.

(th)

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#116 2023-04-29 19:06:09

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,428

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

Interesting an envelope wall.

Turning Up the Heat: Thermal Energy Storage Could Play Major Role in Decarbonizing Buildings

Berkeley Lab researchers have reported a breakthrough in phase-change materials, which will improve the affordability of thermal energy storage. Phase-change materials can be added inside walls and automatically keep a building cool or warm depending on the ambient temperature.

In the United States, buildings account for 40% of total energy consumption. Of that, almost half goes toward thermal loads, which includes space heating and cooling as well as water heating and refrigeration. In other words, one-fifth of all energy produced goes towards thermal loads in buildings.

A NEW USE FOR A 3,000-YEAR-OLD TECHNOLOGY: CONCRETE THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE

TES-infographic-702x1024.png


To simulate plant operating conditions in the laboratory, researchers cycled samples of 3 different concrete mixes from 400°C to 600°C more than 1,500 times and continuously exposed other samples to 600°C for 5,000 hours, periodically assessing material properties. One mix outperformed the other two, meeting or exceeding targets established by modeling a full-scale system. It had no damage at the tube-concrete interface.

“1,500 thermal cycles are equivalent to more than three years of operation, so these tests give us a reasonably good indication of how the system will perform long-term,” said Hume.

Demonstration in Alabama
In collaboration with Southern Company, Storworks Power, and engineering company United E&C, EPRI plans to demonstrate the optimized design at Alabama Power’s Plant Gaston.

The system will consist of 60 blocks, each weighing 18 tons with approximately 200 kilowatt-hours of storage capability. In total, the system will measure 50 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 30 feet tall, and provide 10 megawatt-hours of thermal storage. The blocks are designed to be transportable to the site. While the system is pilot-scale, larger, commercial-scale systems could be deployed by simply adding blocks.

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#117 2023-04-29 19:24:17

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,428

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

NETL EXPLORES CONCRETE SOLUTIONS TO STORE THERMAL ENERGY

Concrete slabs store thermal energy and heat homesregister_fur_betonteilaktivierung.jpg?x32997

Sort of like radaint heat

A 20 m² solar thermal field is enough to supply considerably more than half of the amount of heat and hot water usually required in a low-energy home, and if 40 m² of solar thermal collectors were to be combined with a brine-to-water heat pump, the slabs to store and release heat could even provide as much as 80 % (see the chart below).

On the other hand, if a building owner decides on a PV system and a heat pump, currently a very popular combination in newbuilds, he or she will have to be content with a much lower percentage. A 20 m² PV system and an air-to-water heat pump will meet only 24 % of annual heat demand. Even a 60 m² PV installation cannot achieve values above 42 %.

cement_heating_chart_1.png

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/08/31/us … re-energy/

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#118 2023-04-29 19:28:49

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,263

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

For SpaceNut re #116

Thanks for picking up on this subtopic (concrete storage)....

I am trying to relate that 200 KWH figure to home heating .... If you had one of those blocks installed in the property upstream from the house, then it would act as a water block while serving as an energy store.  In winter, if you could load the block to full capacity before a power outage, how might you draw down the stored energy to keep the house reasonably warm?  I'd presume you might be able to use a mechanical system (such as a bicycle mounted on a stand) to move liquid through the system.  Is that practical?  is there another way to use the heat itself to move itself?  Perhaps a small Sterling engine?

(th)

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#119 2023-04-30 12:43:46

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,428

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

We know that temperature ranges allow for material abilities to not only hold the heat but to act as the carrier of it to lower subsystems that will make use of. With that temperature ranges we will need different working fluids as well.

heat transfer fluids, coolants and glycols

US_map_glycol_percentage-1.jpg

With that you can also use the same loop for cooling as well.

Radiant Heating and Cooling

Hey, my feet are chilly
Homeowners who think a radiant-floor system will guarantee warm feet all winter long may be in for a surprise. In a well insulated house, this is probably not going to happen.

Even on a very cold day the floor will be only a few degrees warmer than the room. If the thermostat is set for 70°, let’s say, the floor temperature will be 75° or so—a lot cooler than the bottom of an unshod foot. If the slab were warmed to the point where it felt like your favorite pair of fleece slippers the room would be overheated.

Well-insulated houses that have been carefully air-sealed have low heating loads. A radiant floor system powered by a boiler that produces 75,000 or 80,000 Btu per hour is overkill, what Theodore Bernstein would call an “atomic flyswatter.” The case for an expensive heating system built around a powerful boiler begins to collapse as the building enclosure becomes better insulated and air-sealed.

So with temperature we can change the volume of the storage and change a higher into one that is lower as we move it from 1 energy level to another as we use it.

I know that I've been looking at the wintertime heat use versus what could be the period of time that we use called summer for collection of that heat energy to be used later. From what I am reading the storage tanks heat temperature will fluctuate throughout the year from 20'C to 50"C.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_ … gy_storage

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#120 2023-04-30 19:51:40

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,428

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

Something else to consider is how hot we need to make things or to perform given processes.
https://www.bvp.com/atlas/how-thermal-s … ate-crisis


Thermal Storage Technology

https://icax.co.uk/thermalbank.html

Black surfaces absorb heat
Tarmac roads tend to absorb the heat of the sun up to the point when they radiate heat as quickly as they are absorbing it: the surface temperature of tarmac can often reach 15°C higher than the ambient air temperature.
ICAX collects heat using water circulating through an array of pipes embedded in the surface of the tarmac and deposits it in ThermalBanks constructed beneath the insulated foundation of buildings. The temperature across the ThermalBank can be increased from its natural temperature of 10°C to over 25°C in the course of the summer months.

ICAX uses a ground source heat pump to extract heat from the ThermalBank when it is needed to heat the building in winter using underfloor heating. Unlike a normal ground source heat pump which typically starts with an autumn ground temperature of 10°C the heat pump in an Interseasonal Heat Transfer system starts with a temperature of over 25°C from the ThermalBank.

This may also work for some Add Thermal Mass Materials to Your Off-Grid Greenhouse

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#121 2023-05-01 07:41:08

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,263

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

For SpaceNut re #120

Thank you for the link to the Greenhouse website .... I was taken aback by the superiority of water as a medium for storage of thermal energy.  One thing you have in abundance on your property is water.  The water is unsuitable for drinking, but it would seem well suited for a thermal energy store.  I get the impression your location is unlikely to benefit much from solar radiation, but a large mass of water could store up plenty of thermal energy that could be pulled into the home when winter arrives. 

With your skills with a calculator, it might be possible for you to estimate the amount of water you'd need to enclose in an underground container, preferably one upstream from the home so that water does not press against the upstream wall.

A pond has a similar thermal storage capability.  A gent I know has a large pond North of the home, and a heat pump system pulls thermal energy from the pond during the winter, even though there is a layer of ice over the surface of the pond.

It might be practical to collect solar energy during the hot summer by exposing black pipe to the Sun, and running water from the thermal energy store through the pipes when the Sun is shining most brightly.

(th)

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#122 2023-05-01 20:42:54

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,428

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#123 2023-05-25 08:34:24

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,263

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

Because the topic of Thermal Energy Storage is "heating up" in another topic these days, I decided to ask Amazon what books or other items it might have in it's database.  I was not surprised to find there are items in the database. What I ** did ** find surprising was the number of scholarly works in the field.  An investigator could easily spend a small fortune on books.

All Departments
thermal energy storage
thermal energy storage
thermal energy storage from fundamentals to applications
1-16 of over 7,000 results for "thermal energy storage"
Sponsored Ad - The Off Grid Solar Power Bible: [7 in 1] Easy Illustrated DIY Guide + VIDEO COURSE to Safely Install and Ma...
Sponsored
The Off Grid Solar Power Bible: [7 in 1] Easy Illustrated DIY Guide + VIDEO COURSE to Safely Install and Maintain your Own Blackout-Free System. Go from Zero Know-How to Zero Electricity Bills.
by Caleb Stone | May 2, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars 890
Paperback
$7.62 List: $8.47
FREE delivery Wed, May 31 on $25 of items shipped by Amazon
Or fastest delivery Sat, May 27

Thermal Energy Storage Analyses and Designs
Thermal Energy Storage Analyses and Designs
by Pei-Wen Li and Cho Lik Chan | Jun 6, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars 1
Kindle
$100.00 Digital List Price: $125.00
Available instantly
Paperback
$125.00
FREE delivery Wed, May 31
Or fastest delivery Sat, May 27

Thermal Energy Storage for Medium and High Temperatures: Concepts and Applications
Thermal Energy Storage for Medium and High Temperatures: Concepts and Applications
by Wolf-Dieter Steinmann | Dec 2, 2021
Kindle
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(th)

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#124 2023-05-25 20:17:30

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,428

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

Now you know why the, "do it yourselfer" crowd is helping to blaze the way to knowledge that others pay to get.

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#125 2023-06-13 06:23:57

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,263

Re: Thermal Energy Storage

for Terraformer...

Welcome back !!!

It's been a while since I inquired about developments in your initiative with the government official.

Hopefully work is underway.

(th)

tahanson43206 wrote:

For Terraformer re "Quick" response from government official....

http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 76#p206676

A month has gone by .... I'm hoping you have time to follow up with your contact, to see what has happened.

I am doubtful anything is going to happen in your community unless you are there to poke and prod and move things along.

There appear to be generous allocations of national wealth available for communities to apply toward goals judged worthy.

For a goal to be judged worthy, it seems to me a presentation is required, and that requires a presenter, and a presenter needs a support team.

It seems to me that this forum is good for banter about possibilities, but for anything to happen in the Real Universe, it is necessary to apply pressure ON the Real Universe.

(th)

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