Mountains Storing Clean Energy

Mountains—could soon store a whole lot of clean energy. These vertically blessed places are ideal spots for a well-established form of energy storage that is getting renewed attention: pumped storage hydropower.

As the country transitions to a clean power grid, researchers are searching for the best ways to store energy to use when winds slow down, clouds block the sun, and the grid needs a boost. 

Some experts are hoping to forge better batteries, like the well-loved lithium-ion batteries that power electric cars. But batteries are like cheetahs—they often run best for short distances. 

Pumped storage hydropower may be older technology but, like us endurance-running humans, can outlast their competition, often storing energy for eight to 12 hours at a time or more. 

Utility-scale batteries are often too expensive if they are built to store more than four hours of energy.  READ MORE...

Electric Aviation Technology

Normally, electric aviation is the last thing we consider when talking about military aircraft. Militaries around the world use a LOT of fossil fuels, and this is particularly bad for aviation. 

The power density just isn’t there for most types of planes to be able to effectively use battery power, and the higher performance planes militaries often need are even less favorable to that. 

Things like fighter jets use tens of thousands of gallons of fuel, just to carry a pilot and some bombs and missiles around.  READ MORE...

Battery Has 700 Mile Range - 10 Minute Charging Time

Last month, Toyota announced it has a new electric car strategy. Around the CleanTechnica latte bar, the general consensus is that it’s about damn time.

“The next-generation battery EVs will adopt new batteries, through which we are determined to become a world leader in battery EV energy consumption. With the resources we earn, we will improve our product appeal to exceed customer expectations and secure earnings. We will roll out next-generation BEVs globally and as a full lineup to be launched in 2026. By 2030, 1.7 million units out of 3.5 million overall will be provided by BEV Factory. Please look forward to a carmaker-produced battery EV that inspires the hearts of all customers.”


Now just a few weeks later, Toyota is telling the world it has made a technological breakthrough that will allow it to cut the weight, size, and cost of batteries in half. Think for a minute. If true, what might the implications be for the EV revolution? And no, you are not allowed to include the words “game changer” in your response.

On July 3, the company said it had simplified the production of the material used to make solid-state batteries and hailed the discovery as a significant leap forward that could dramatically cut charging times and increase driving range. 

“For both our liquid and our solid-state batteries, we are aiming to drastically change the situation where current batteries are too big, heavy and expensive. In terms of potential, we will aim to halve all of these factors.”said Keiji Kaita, president of the Toyota research and development center for carbon neutrality.

He added that his company has developed ways to make batteries more durable, and believed it could now make a solid-state battery with a range of 1,200 km (745 miles) that could charge in 10 minutes or less and would be simpler to manufacture than a conventional lithium-ion battery.  READ MORE...

Fusion Energy

Fusion has an amazing future as a source of energy. Which is to say, in space craft beyond the orbit of Jupiter, sometime in the next two centuries. Here on Earth? Not so much. At least, that’s my opinion.

Nuclear electrical generation has 2.5 paths. The first is nuclear fission, the part that is the major electrical generation source that provides about 10% of the electricity in the world today. The 0.5 is radioisotope thermoelectric generator, where a tiny chunk of decaying radioactive material is used with a thermocouple to provide electricity to space probes. If you read or saw The Martian, that’s what he dug out of the pit and put in his jury-rigged long-distance Mars buggy.

And then there’s fusion. Where fission splits atoms, fusion merges them. Instead of radioactive fuel, there’s a lot of radioactive emissions from the merging of things like hydrogen-3, deuterium, and tritium that irradiates the containment structures. Lower radioactive waste that doesn’t last as long, but still radioactive waste for those who think that’s a concern.

Compared to CO2e emissions causing global warming, I don’t consider a few thousand tons of radioactive waste to be significant. Among other things, I spent enough time with epidemiologists building the world’s most sophisticated communicable disease and pandemic management solution that I ended up with a much better appreciation of the statistics of radiation and health. It’s not a big concern compared to coal or global warming.

But fusion generation of electricity, as opposed to big honking nuclear weapons using fusion, is a perpetual source of interest. When Lewis Strauss, then chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, talked about nuclear being “too cheap to meter” in 1954, he was talking about fusion, not fission. Like everyone since the mid-1950s, he assumed that fusion would be generating power in 20 years.

And so here we are, 67 years later. How is fusion doing?  To read more about the future of fusion, CLICK HERE...