Cryogenic Air Energy Storage - the new long duration energy solution?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 มิ.ย. 2024
- Cryogenic Air Energy Storage sounds a bit sci-fi doesn't it? But it's real and in operation today. The question is can it be scaled to become a globally significant long duration energy storage solution that can fit seamlessly in with other storage technologies on national grid networks? Well, that's the aspiration of a UK firm called Highview Power, and they are now well on the way to realising that goal.
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I love how you took the criticism of just hyping up fly-by-night ventures, and actually started going through your back-catalog to do follow-up videos.
I haven't seen all his videos but the many I have seen have been very clear about caveats and unknowns to new technology.
@@Novacification I think he has been pre-empting the obvious criticism recently. Not necessarily a bad thing.
@@jamesphillips2285 I do think following up on previously covered technology is a good idea. They can't all be winners, so it's nice knowing what is and isn't working. Some people tend to just shoot down any mention of new ideas though, regardless of how they're presented. Fingers crossed this will address some of the criticism :)
Yeah, unfortunately 90% of these sorts if channels just uncritically republish press releases with high production quality stock footage and word salad. Matt Ferrell is one of the worst. He means well but manages to promote borderline "free energy" level vapourware technology.
@@SpencerHHO I like Matt Ferrell's videos but he's so enthusiastic that he comes across as being an uncritical thinker at times. His videos would be better if he spent at least a few minutes on the probability of economic success and the down sides of the ideas he's discussing. There's a huge difference between technically possible and economically affordable.
The fact that workers in oil and gas industry will be able to easily transfer to this industry is why i think it's a winner. Almost all equipment is off the shelf and supply chains in place. And you have a ready set of trained workers with transferable skills.
yup
That kind of mal-educated thinking is why North Koreans eat weeds and bugs, while Green Party leadership have a mansion on each Coast and a Carbon Cap & Trade *Scheme* (legal name) to pay for it. The energy density of diesel even after processing cost is 10x times the energy density of cryogenics after subtracting processing cost and carbon. None of these wack ideas pencil energy balance _OR CORPORATE WOULD ALREADY BE RACING TO BUILD THEM._
I love the revisit / update series. Its cool and all the new things you talk about but hardly any media revisit things and then you have no idea if any actually follow through on what they say or get off the ground. Keep it up!
He is one of the few that doesn't just repeat businesses marketing BS. That is why I like him.
Excellent! This is a thoroughly plausible energy storage method. Make it so!
No, YOU make it so!
Liquid air energy storage seems really underrated. Once you've built the charging and discharging plants, you can simply add more insulated tanks to increase energy storage capacity. Even with flow batteries, you'd have to process additional electrolyte solution to increase capacity; liquid air beats almost every other material in how easy it is to increase capacity. Just add a tank and liquefy the air all around us!
You also have the added bonus of absorbing many useful gases in the process. You could capture nitrogen, oxygen, and argon via liquefaction. Using fractional distillation, you could separate these and sell them for a profit. You could even liquefy and capture CO2 (albeit it would be a pretty small volume). It would probably be cheaper than other carbon capture concepts as most of the energy would be spent liquefying the nitrogen and oxygen which would be used for energy storage. Liquid CO2 would be a small byproduct that you could filter out and capture.
I also see serious potential for combined cooling, heating, and power which few other energy storage systems truly offer. For example, you could use some of the cold energy to refrigerate agricultural and pharmaceutical products or you could use the waste heat produced via compression to carry out desalination. You could make efficient use of cryogenic energy for other technologies and processes that go beyond just generating electricity.
You could kill several birds with 1 stone (large energy storage with easily added capacity, air separation, carbon capture, combined cooling heating and power, etc...). The achilles heel of this concept is the liquefaction plant itself which is large and complex, making it expensive. If someone found a way to efficiently liquefy air in a smaller and less complicated set-up (maybe magnetic refrigeration or a thermoacoustic heat pump?) this would be the holy grail of energy storage.
Liquid air energy storage has intrinsic limits to efficiency that aren't there with chemical batteries. They are heat engines, so they are limited by Carnot efficiency.
@@richdobbs6595There are chemical energy storage systems with a lower round trip efficiency than LAES (iron air batteries for example). LAES also has an RTE that is fairly comparable to flow batteries (45-60% for LAES vs 50-75% for flow batteries).
Also, RTE isn't the be-all and end-all for energy storage. If that were the case, we'd be using lithium ion for all energy storage. The problem with chemical energy storage is scalability. For example, a GWh scale Li-ion energy storage facility would be too expensive and costly to maintain. If you want additional capacity, you have to add more battery packs which have a fixed cost (if you want 2x the capacity it will be 2x the cost). Because of discharging/charging cycles, the batteries would also degrade far too quickly within 5-10 years.
Flow batteries avoid these problems and are more scalable (if you want 2x the capacity, it will be less than 2x the cost since you simply need more electrolyte and a bigger tank). However, LAES would probably be even more scalable than flow batteries (just add more insulated tanks and that's it). Add the other benefits I mentioned in my original comment and LAES seems to be pretty viable at least for large scale energy storage.
@@richdobbs6595 Are they heat engines? I'm not positive, but I think they aren't. Part of the energy storage is using air as a spring, so at least that part isn't subject to Carnot inefficiency. The liquefaction process produces heat, which is stored, and the expansion process uses that heat to return the liquid air to a gaseous state. Wouldn't the heat energy of these two processes be about equal? This seems too inherently efficient to be a heat engine, although Dave mentioned 60% round trip, and a combined cycle gas turbine (definitely a heat engine) can do that.
@@incognitotorpedo42 The cryogenic temperatures give LAES a higher Carnot efficiency compared to other thermal energy storage systems. With a cold reservoir temperature of around -200 degrees Celsius and a hot reservoir temperature of 20 degrees Celsius, you get a Carnot efficiency around 75%. Compare this to a hot thermal energy storage system with the same temperature differential (20 degrees for the cold reservoir and 240 degrees for the hot reservoir) and you get a much lower Carnot efficiency of around 40%.
@@incognitotorpedo42 Yes, they are classic heat engines. You would need to store energy in an incompressible fluid for the Carnot limits to not apply. Under those circumstances you might as well try storing energy by compressing water. At least then you don't have to worry about cryogenic engineering.
No doubt along with thousands of others, I was waiting for an update of your earlier video of cold air storage. I'm delighted that this one seems to actually be feasible and about to happen 👍
More please.
Simple mechanics and thermodynamics.
And scaleable in any respect.
GO FOR IT! 👍👍👍
With respect to a lower efficieny compared to battery this tech is good to go now at once at very large scale everywhere in the world to handle the fluctuation of wind and PV how probably holds back a bit now.
What does it cost, how does it affect the rate you pay for electricity.
Yes! Yes! Yes! This is the best energy storage solution that I've seen. There is no new tech, and it can be built to whichever scale is necessary. I can't wait to see this flower blossom!
Or just start fracking at a fraction of the cost...
@@manoo422or buy a horse that costs less to feed, lives longer and is faster than the one you have at the moment.
@@manoo422 Poisoning your water table is far more expensive than this.
@@hurrdurrmurrgurrIf you are feeble minded and cant see past the propaganda...
@@andyphillips7435Or maybe just hide at the back of your cave, which is exactly where they ecomentalists would like everyone.
Your content always makes my Sunday evening more positive. Thanks!
I like to remind folk who react with negative comment and question to evolving technologies etc. of the adage: "People who say that something can not be done should get out of the way of those who are in the process of doing it."
Many of the comments and questions which appear below your presentations fit into that mantra rather nicely.
There is a Highview plant in Vermont, USA. Green Mountain Energy.
As an air separation unit operator, its definitely an interesting idea! Another upside is that extra liquid can be sold off, as liquid air gasses are very commonly used in industry. One issue I see though, is that you can't just turn an ASU on at the flick of a switch. Our plant is usually around 6-8 hours from first start to producing usable liquid (assuming there are no issues). Our plant is also over 40 years old, so modern plants may be better suited to quick start up and shut downs.
Dave, Northern Powerhouse, love it!
Thanks Dave!
_"We'll just use more Lithim batteries"..._
was never a solution for mass scale grid storage. Inividuals yes, mobile uses sure. But not for grid scale. So it's fantastic having attention put towards these projects, and a channel covering technologies that aren't being sold to you as personal consumer advertizing.
We should use BOTH. Simultaneously.
Lithium Batteries can instantly absorb any "excess" power from wind & solar (actually: in most cases a lack of consumption for ~whatever~ reason).
Then (when they have enough stored charge "above the minimum" reserved for power failures), the more "slow" & "deep" power storage systems can be activated to run up for several hours [at their ideal rates, without forcing them].
-> A key aspect is that both systems should be placed together, to minimize power transfer loses [in the same installation].
A big thumbs up to Highview Power. Lovely to see something this useful coming out of Manchester,England.
I will just write what others wrote - I love that you started this series of re-visiting the projects you talked about. Excited to hear about energy storage projects!
Thanks 🙏 so much for the update! I am intrigued by the removal of CO2 as a byproduct of this process. Seems like a much more economical way to remove it.
Yes, keep us informed on the Manchester facility.
They use a mole sieve to remove the CO2 and water from the incoming air. Air plants just vent it.
I think so, too.
@@dave4882They don't have to.
Separated would be more accurate.
Removal? Separation and the what do they do with it?
Ive long believed that intermittent energy sources (solar, wind) are not replacements for the coal-fired power plant, but for the coal mine. This isn't a metaphor I hear talked about frequently, but this technology really drives it home.
Another fantastic video Dave. Looking forward to you gaining 1 million subscribers !
This is the one of you're review video's I was most looking forward to. I see this as one of the most valuable energy storage methods as it can also be used to extract carbon dioxide simultaneously. You get a 2 for.
It was also my favorite in 2019/20 and I think what led Me to your channel and a weekly view for the past 4 years
I really like these update videos.
It is nice to see if the ideas have panned out.
Each storage idea that passes basic viability should be tried.
Having multiple types of production and storage makes the system more resilient than having a single source.
Thank you for this update, I've been following this company for a while and it's encouraging to hear this progress and how it compares to other technologies in this field. This is something I would love to see around Scotland in community-owned wind/tide systems as part of a network of distributed generation and storage system that would empower and provide good careers in many communities ... unlikely at present as our governments (Scot and UK) have sold our assets and resources for giveaway prices and failed to learn from Norway and other countries in how to ensure the profits from these stay mostly in country and for the common good.. but that's another topic!! Great videos, thank you..
3 energy storage solutions I'd like you to explore please:
1. Home Biogas Production for self sufficiency. (gas, heating, electricity, vehicle fuel, energy storage and production)
2. Iron Batteries (Iron and sea water apparently? huge containers)
3. Ambri Molten Salt Batteries.
I'd be fascinated to explore these as home solutions and grid where possible
Both cryogenic air storage and compressed air storage are particularly attractive technologies as shown in Dave's video here due to the capacities that can be realised AND due to the fact they are used to drive rotating machines - in other words, synchronous machines. This could make them a critical part of any black-start response, just as pumped hydro already is, without the complexities and cost of large grid-forming inverters. Also, the use of rotating machines inherently adds to system inertia.
Stability is good 😊
Useful comment.
I don't know if you will see this comment, but I may have a good topic for a video: Oceanic Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). Seems like a geothermal, but using temperature difference between surface and deep water in the ocean/seas. They are going to test it in Canary Islands. It may be worth a thought!
Dude. I'm pretty sure we see things differently, but i really like you and your style...
Great video as usual 👌
This is exactly what these types of channels should be doing, so thank you for revisiting these topics. It makes this channel feel like I'm actually learning about the future, and not just consuming techno-optimistic tales for escapism. Please keep em coming!
Loving this revisit series.....thanks Dave!
Sounds like a winner. Thanks for the follow up.
Appreciate the comparative updates to expand the context.
Using thermodynamics to advantage is a good plan. Makes me want to get the shovel out and start building one in my backyard.
ok, but I think you're going to need more than a shovel...
@@incognitotorpedo42 Not to worry, I have TWO shovels...
I appreciate that you highlight that utilities always want a broad portfolio of generation options. These options will have very different cost points, and other advantages and disadvantages. Meaning that even solutions that don't look all that great by comparison may find a niche in the portfolio.
Among all the new kind of energy storage solutions that I had heard over the years, the cryogenic air system sounded most promising to me back in 2020s when I first heard about it, which is why I mentioned it in one of my own videos, which I never do for any unproven tech. This ticks most checkboxes when it comes to technical, economical, ecological and logistical feasibility. The best part is it uses not just existing technologies from other industries, but also use the exact same parts and equipment from them, not to mention, it would be location independent, no external raw material(either continuous or one time) would be needed except for air which is free and omnipresent on earth, also, I loved how they made it so circular and closed loop. which is why I was mostly confident that this will succeed and may even become one of the major energy solutions in the next decade.
Most interesting. Looking forward to the follow-up.
Looks great! Similarly would love a checkin on Energy Dome. Started about the same time, but has already crearted a 5MW demonstrator plant. . Is now breaking ground on a 20MW/200MWh full scale facility. I like it cause working with CO2 seems much simpler than dealing with all the different gasses in air. Would love to see your take!
Thank you for all your work in informing the public. And me.
Great NEWS ! Actually real world happening Grid storage !!! love it , thx for brightening up my day !
Thanks so much for your refreshingly thorough and balanced research and presentations. My friends and I look forward to every video.
Awesome stuff! This is such great news. We need solutions like this
That 60% efficiency is a stretch and it’s very maintenance intensive, note the manpower required for operation. In comparison pumped hydro has a 100 year lifespan with almost no maintenance, and then refurbish the turbo pump/generators, and good for another century.
Good information! Thank you for doing the heavy lifting
I can't believe that Highview liquid compressed air vid was four years ago - ffar out.
As blown away as I was at the time, there was another vid that you did after that based on compressed CO2 that impressed me more.
Whatever happens though, for these project to proceed Brian and Kevin from accounts must be kept happy LOL. It is great to see this project getting up I must say.
A true breath of fresh air!
Love ya work man.
I love these follow up videos. Reviewing some failures would also be extremely informative.
I remember the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project. It was kind of the opposite temperature wise. They melted salt from which the heat would be used for about 12 hours to generate electricity, 'on demand'. It looked great on paper. However, in practice, the maintenance proved to be quite expensive. There were many pump failures, tank failures, and the super heater failures. When working with large temperature deltas and many moving parts, there are a lot of things which can fail and cost more money than anticipated. Hopefully, lessons were learned and this new project will work effectively.
This kind of technology is used all the time in the chemical industry. Whereas molten salt is not so common. So this should be more scalable, reliable and sustainable. All power to the gods of thermodynamics.
Engineers always underestimate maintenance costs when they design a system.
One of the most coherent, simple and solid and genuinely renewable solutions that you have presented. Scaleable and not dependant on topography etc.
Thank you!
Bravo! Keep up the faith!
Great move to review topics you discussed in the past to see how well they've performed years later.
Agree…
Great update 👍😃
Your review of the numerous examples of battery vapour ware has been interesting !🤭
Top drawer graphics, easy to understand explanations and great delivery as ever Dave..not to mention an empathy with Project Managers which can only be based on experience. 😊
Thanks Dave. Those facilities in NT which you mentioned are geared for producing that rated power for 12 hours. Clearly, at lower loads they should be able to run for a day or longer. This provides an excellent buffer for those relatively rare occasions when the Sun doesn't shine after a night with no wind. Sure, the overall efficiency is only about 60%, mostly because of the work which has to be done in cooling and heating the gases, but other losses can be minimised through experience. And 60% is better than the inefficiencies incurred in needing to install even larger over-capacity electricity generators which include fossil-fuel burning power stations.
At last, something real is happening ! Thank you - very enjoyable.
60% round trip energy is a lot better than 0%. Let's build this out quickly and large scale and stop wasting excess renewable energy
Super interesting thank you 😊❤
I was hoping to hear about the air storage project being constructed in one mine caverns in Broken Hill too. But, then I realised it's using compressed air.
As @trueriver1950 asked: fractional distillation will be very easy for CO2 (option to remove that in the process) and the noble gases (Ar/Kr/Xe).
Cheap xenon and krypton would be a massive gamechanger for space technologies, providing cheaper propellant for ion drives. Also, you would be able to capture many pollutants that would otherwise be hard to catch.
This is a fascinating technology and great video
Hi Dave. Did you make a video about Hysata electrolyzer? I couldn't find it. Maybe interesting to cover.
yeah, maybe as part of the follow-up video of the facility
We order 5 units!! Seriously, this is solid excellent news !!
As an engineer I am concerned about the losses incurred in using any "thermodynamic process" as a first step to store energy. The electrical energy that is used is what we call "purely available" or work-equivalent energy. Any process that produces liquid air by current methods only provides ~ 33% yield insofar as removing the real and latent heat to do so. The capture of the waste heat had therefore be better good in order help compensate for this relatively bad performance relative to batteries, which stand at around 90% efficiency of return. At this point I would only consider adopting this approach only if there were strong incentives to make heat rather than to electrically power something later. best regards DKB
Can't believe I've been watching this channel for all this time, I've been just waiting for an update about liquid air battery
great news, thank you! LAES has a bright future and it is a practicable way to go!
Thanks for another great video! Cryogenic air energy storage certainly has some advantages: building the plant from existing components is a big deal. That immediately makes this technology more feasible than others that require lots of new designs and testing. And as you said, it makes upgrades and replacements much easier and less expensive. Plus there's the lack of any dangerous or expensive materials. If one of these plants leak it's just going to spill liquid air. It can't catch on fire or spread contaminants around, and you wouldn't need to evacuate the neighborhood.
On the minus side it's only sixty percent efficient. That raises the price of the power it's storing, but as you showed on that chart (excellent way to summarize the information, btw) the main competitors are "Hydrogen and Fuel Cells" and "Compressed Air," where hydrogen has obvious disadvantages , fuel cells are (I think) still very experimental at this size, and compressed air has a similar efficiency to cryogenic air. Pumped hydro has them all beat, but that's massively expensive to build, and there's only so many places to put those facilities.
I love these follow ups
It feels like there's always something new just around the corner but rarely coming into reality, these put the lab science into planning reality
Love it
Cool you are presenting this. Really is the best solution for both intra-day and inter-day storage I think, including the perhaps ironic propane or CO2 compression/decompression options.
Well, that is good news.
Where would you say those Finish sand/silo energy storage systems land on that graph?
"What has thermodynamics ever done for us" BUSTED They fucking rock LONG LIVE PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY
Thank you. Impressive investments.
Reported very early years ago here:)
Be interesting to see it in practice. Cooling the air and liquefying it will release latent heat, which they also store, though I guess some will be lost at the time and over time in storage. Then when power output is required the liquid is pumped to high pressure before being vaporised back to gas where the stored heat is needed, plus some from the atmosphere - that bit may be difficult with the heat exchangers getting iced up.
Interesting concept though that this can take low grade heat from the atmosphere to vaporise the liquid. Bit like a heat pump!
Love these revisits, although FOUR YEARS since I watched the original. This sounds absolutely incredible in its potential. They are fast running out of excuses, why 'It'll never work'.
The company (Highview Power) canceled it's Vermont project back in June 2022. I didn't realize that.
Meanwhile, the power company in Vermont (Green Mountain Power) has 50 WM of power in VPP (virtual power plant) that started with the Tesla Powerwall program (in 2020). The power company has saved over $3 Million in the past few years.
Thanks for posting this, I was wondering how Highview power was going. The concept looked very promising.
Hyview's technology can be scaled up in energy capacity by relatively low cost increasing the size of the associated crogenic tank farm. Round trip efficiency of 60% is better than when I visited them, but still a significant handicap that restricts the economic use cases. Over the same period, lithium ion battery costs have coninued to reduce down to just over $50/kWh. I wish them success
One other advantage I see is that liquid air storage could be located in deserts where land is cheap and solar makes the most sense. Thus excess electricity could be stored on site with little to no loss due to long transmission lines. The air is also already dry making it easier to liquefy.
One of the most interesting things about this to me is that this is stuff the fossil fuels industry understands.
They have a lot of the equipment already as well.
This is something they could pivot to pretty easily and ensure profits going into the future.
Which would give them an incentive to move into the modern era with all the other industries, instead of worrying about becoming redundant.
I really hope they look into this and grab the opportunity to stay relevant and make money.
Thanks!
Gracias
You have a previous video about criogenic air storage to store energy.
I love this video. And it's exciting to hear that there are installation planned for Australia (even if not on the main grid, but hopefully it'll demonstrate to the nay-sayers that it's a real thing).
One question about grid scale storage in general - so you keep showing this chart which shows discharge time and rate of power vs. capacity (around minute 1:19 in this video) and my question is how is the storage with higher discharge time (i.e. slower) fit into the grid.
Is it used "behind" faster storage or is it connected directly?
What I mean to ask - when the grid needs frequent regulation (I think it's called FCAS in grid parlance) and the faster storage options are depleted because they don't have enough capacity, are the slower storages used to fill up the faster ones? Is this required at all?
60% efficiency is very impressive! This seems like something that could actually hit the market quickly.
Hello Dave, it's to celebrate, this latest video is your 300th!!!"
Thanks for the update Dave, good to hear how they're doing. In my old job I did the Ashden Awards judging visit to their head office in London and prototype site in Manchester back in 2019. I think it's a great storage technology, a shame it's taking so long to get the sites built.
I love that you are revisiting earlier energy storage schemes. Cryogenic air has a lot going for it. But it probably isn't scalable down to household level.
What about compressed air storage which is scalable downwards. How is it progressing?
I remember thinking, "I want one in my backyard".
Love your vids and the clarity and the objectivity. If something is doubtful you say so.
The comparision to thermal storage solutions which are already being build, is missing. And a big thank, i learned of thsi method nearly 20 years ago and now there are site being build. Nice.
1 GW lithium battery storage site. This is a new order of magnitude.
60 percent round trip, plus possibly to piggyback co-located air distillation production with shared efficiencies, plus a means of extracting a teeny bit of carbon to be incorporated in greenwash... Every little bit helps. This is a winner.
Well done, UK.
I can see the attraction in Denmark and other low topography countries.
The more locally-tailored systems, the merrier.
High View's approach is so exciting. It'll be great to see a turbine actually start drawing from wind turbines
I wonder if fractional distillation producing oxygen as a by product would improve the economics?
While chilling down the nitrogen why not separate out the oxygen (which at standard pressure condenses first)?
If you remove the oxygen you have lost the energy you used to liquefy it.
An analogy would be storing energy by compressing steel springs and the sending the compressed springs to a refinery to be made into tin cans - absolutely pointless
@@PaulG.x You can capture the refrigeration from the LOX and use it to precool the incoming air. I work for one of those OEM's btw.
@@PaulG.x, it's just a question of what is more economical.
I was wondering similar things. It seems like it should be possible for the facility to double as a gas capture plant and use electricity instead of curtailing it, when applicable.
@te8547e can you restate that? Not sure I understand
what is funn is that renewables are starting to get so cheap, that incredibly inneficient but cheap energy storage options become more viable. energy loses don't matter so much when your energy is almost free.
Sounds perfect on several dimensions. Supply chain and workforce can be reassigned from fossil fuel industry so already doable quickly and at scale. Efficiency is also pretty decent, and the resource air is there and nontoxic unlike batteries.
Thanks Dave. That is the first I have heard of the Australian ventures. I will try to have a look at Owen Springs next time I'm in Alice Springs. I hope London goes well. Wish I could be there.
Hi Dave, Great video as always, keep up to good work. Did you do a video a while ago that was a very similar idea but using CO2, by a Spanish company I want to say, I believe the process was almost the same but they had like a great big tent for the ambient side, and again look very promising but be great to see where it is up to now.
The big thing going for this project is the Carnot efficiency is really good for the energy recovery part. It also should not be underestimated how many companies used cold storage/chilling in part or all of their manufacturing process. Similar installations to this can be used in place of refrigeration installations with the added benefit of co-generation, and no need to convert back to electricity to run the cold storage - think of all those supermarket and Mall air conditioners that could be replaced with a chiller/electricity co-generation concept.
The typical energy return from ln2 is about 100 watts per kilo (from Wikipedia, ln2 powered car ) as opposed to 1,200 watts from a kilo of petrol . I worked in the cryogenics industry for 39 years and the high cost of vessel manufacture vaccum systems and vaccuum pumps mass spectrometers to test weld quality and system integrity , make it impractical on a cost to energy basis .
They should build two 200MW/250GWH liquid air installations on the Isle of Grain, Kent, on the site of the two demolished fossil fuel power stations (Grain and Kingsnorth). It would be ideal to store the offshore wind turbine energy generated along the north Kent coast (Isle of Sheppey, Thanet and Kentish Flats), along with the Uk's largest solar PV farm, currently being constructed at Cleve Hill near Faversham. It would silence the nimbys who don't want lithium battery storage at Cleve Hill, make use of the existing grid high voltage network, end curtailment and provide ideal peak demand energy. It would also go a long way to addressing those winter dunkelflauten days. And if it's successful, just keep adding more storage along with renewable wind and solar. God, this is a no-brainer.
I remember this one and liked it a lot as well a similar one that used Co2 in the same way but it was a closed loop so no Co2 ever entered the atmosphere from it. It had the same benefits with scale up and using known and current technologies..