Construction Begins on World’s Biggest Liquid Air Battery
June 24th, 2020If you’re like me, you’re thinking, “The efficiency has to be very low.”
I found this on the Wikipedia entry for cryogenic energy storage:
In isolation the process is only 25% efficient, but this is increased to around 50% when used with a low-grade cold store, such as a large gravel bed, to capture the cold generated by evaporating the cryogen. The cold is re-used during the next refrigeration cycle.
Efficiency is further increased when used in conjunction with a power plant or other source of low-grade heat that would otherwise be lost to the atmosphere. Highview Power claims an AC to AC round-trip efficiency of 70%, by using an otherwise waste heat source at 115 °C. The IMechE (Institution of Mechanical Engineers) agrees that these estimates for a commercial-scale plant are realistic. However this number was not checked or confirmed by independent professional institutions.
It will be interesting to see how it goes.
Via: Guardian:
Construction is beginning on the world’s largest liquid air battery, which will store renewable electricity and reduce carbon emissions from fossil-fuel power plants.
The project near Manchester, UK, will use spare green energy to compress air into a liquid and store it. When demand is higher, the liquid air is released back into a gas, powering a turbine that puts the green energy back into the grid.
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The new liquid air battery, being developed by Highview Power, is due to be operational in 2022 and will be able to power up to 200,000 homes for five hours, and store power for many weeks. Chemical batteries are also needed for the transition to a zero-carbon world and are plummeting in price, but can only store relatively small amounts of electricity for short periods.
Liquid air batteries can be constructed anywhere, said Highview’s chief executive, Javier Cavada: “Air is everywhere in the world. The main competitor is really not other storage technologies but fossil fuels, as people still want to continue building gas and coal-fired plants today, strangely enough,” he said.
Fewer Children Dying During Covid?
June 23rd, 2020Via: The HighWire:
Data shows deaths are up over previous years. At the same time, childhood mortality is down over 30%. What is behind this dramatic decline in child death?
30% Of Americans Didn’t Make Their Housing Payment In June
June 22nd, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
A stunning 30% of Americans didn’t make their housing payment for June – a figure that is likely going to ripple through the housing industry in coming months. According to a new survey by Apartment List, the rate is similar to May and shows that even though other industries are rebounding, the situation has not yet improved meaningfully in housing.
Viral Images Of Putin’s ‘Cathedral Of War’ Like “A Glimpse Of An Alien Civilization”
June 22nd, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
At a moment that monuments in the West from statues of Thomas Jefferson to George Washington to Winston Churchill to Confederate generals like Robert E. Lee to various war memorials are being torn down, a new unprecedented in size memorial has gone up in Russia on the occasion of the country celebrating its 75th anniversary ‘Victory Day’ which commemorates the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945.
America’s Own Color Revolution
June 22nd, 2020Via: William Engdahl:
Color Revolution is the term used to describe a series of remarkably effective CIA-led regime change operations using techniques developed by the RAND Corporation, “democracy” NGOs and other groups since the 1980’s. They were used in crude form to bring down the Polish communist regime in the late 1980s. From there the techniques were refined and used, along with heavy bribes, to topple the Gorbachev regime in the Soviet Union. For anyone who has studied those models closely, it is clear that the protests against police violence led by amorphous organizations with names like Black Lives Matter or Antifa are more than purely spontaneous moral outrage. Hundreds of thousands of young Americans are being used as a battering ram to not only topple a US President, but in the process, the very structures of the US Constitutional order.
If we step back from the immediate issue of videos showing a white Minneapolis policeman pressing his knee on the neck of a black man, George Floyd, and look at what has taken place across the nation since then, it is clear that certain organizations or groups were well-prepared to instrumentalize the horrific event for their own agenda.
The Cave Kingpin Buying Up America’s Underground
June 22nd, 2020Via: Outside:
John Ackerman has spent millions procuring a majority of the known caves in Minnesota, which add up to dozens of miles of underground passageways and likely make him the largest cave owner in the U.S. He collects and charts them in the name of preservation, but his controversial methods have created many opponents.
China’s Surprise, Years in the Planning: An EMP Attack
June 22nd, 2020Yeah, well, China’s not alone in this area.
Via: The Hill:
Hopefully, the U.S. Navy is better prepared to cope with an EMP attack than are DOE and DHS. A nuclear EMP attack against U.S. aircraft carriers is the key to victory in China’s military doctrine, as noted in a Feb. 12, 2000, article in the official newspaper of the Shanghai Communist Party Central Committee:
“The weak points of a modern aircraft carrier are: 1) As a big target, the fleet is easy for a satellite to reconnoiter and locate. … 2) A high degree of electronization is like an Achilles’ heel for an aircraft carrier fleet, which relies heavily on electronic equipment as its central nervous system. These two characteristics determine one tactic.” Therefore, military strategist Ye Jian said in the article in Jiefang Ribao: “The possession of electromagnetic pulse bombs (missiles) will provide the conditions to completely destroy an aircraft carrier fleet, and the way to complete victory in dealing with aircraft carrier fleets.”
DARPA Wants Nuclear Thermal Propulsion
June 22nd, 2020Via: Ars Technica:
There are many ways to get around space, but most of them are pretty slow. This is why, even when launching at an optimal time, a spacecraft leaving Earth requires about six months to reach orbit around Mars.
For decades, many rocket scientists have looked to a propulsion system powered by a nuclear reactor as the fastest practical means of getting to Mars and other places in the Solar System more quickly.
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But now, the US Department of Defense is getting interested in space-based propulsion. Last month, through a presolicitation, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced its intent to have a flyable nuclear thermal propulsion system ready for a demonstration in 2025.
Through this Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO program, the defense agency seeks technology that will allow for more responsive control of spacecraft in Earth orbit, lunar orbit, and everywhere in between, giving the military greater operational freedom in these domains.
“Activity in cislunar space is expected to increase considerably in the coming years,” Maj Nathan Greiner, manager of the DRACO Program, told Ars. “An agile nuclear thermal propulsion vehicle enables the DOD to maintain Space Domain Awareness of the burgeoning activity within this vast volume.”
SpaceX Boca Chica Drive-By
June 22nd, 2020This is quite a surreal scene. Tents, trailers, portapotties, solar panels, propellant tanks, pickup trucks, ground tracking equipment… Prototypes of parts of the largest rocket ever launched from Earth (Starship + Superheavy stack).
Via: NASASpaceflight – bocachicagal:
This drive past SpaceX’s Boca Chica facilities helps show how everything is laid out. Head down HWY 4 towards Boca Chica and encounter in order STARGATE, the build site, storage areas, the Ground Tracking Station, and finally the launch site.
Photos of SpaceX’s Starlink Prototype Ground Station Antennas
June 22nd, 2020Via: Reddit User darkpenguin22:
More: SpaceX Starlink Antennas Spied at Starship Factory for First Time
