Powering up: UK hills could be used as energy 'batteries'

[polygonum_on_google]

Anyone convinced?

Powering up: UK hills could be used as energy 'batteries'

Engineers explore using gentle slopes rather than steep dams or mountains to store electricity

RheEnergise is bringing innovation to pumped hydro storage. We call our new solution High-Density Hydro ?.

HD Hydro ? uses our proprietary HD Fluid R-19 ?, which has 2.5x the density of water. R-19 gives RheEnergise projects 2.5x the power and 2.5x the energy when compared to water.

I wonder what their proprietary HD Fluid R-19 ? actually is?

They claim: Our innovative fluid R-19 TM is environmentally benign and has been engineered to be non-reactive and non-corrosive.

[S]

I expect they say its because of PE = m.g.h

where PE is Potential energy = mass x value of gravity x hieght.

So by increasing the mass by 2.5x, you then get 2.5 x the PE.

[charles]

But you've had to expend 2.5 the amount of power to get it up hill first.

[Owain Lastname]

I don't know, but Google's best effort is that it is "a full-matte coverage that is smudge-proof, long-lasting and light on the skin"

Owain

[Martin Brown]

Snake oil. You would need to manufacture and handle it in enormous quantities to store enough energy to be worthwhile. Liquid bromine is the first thing that springs to mind with about that density. But it doesn't match the non-reactive/non-corrosive tags.

Gallium would be even better nearly 6x the denisty of water and melts at about 40C. Relatively benign otherwise.

R-19 TM is an odd choice of name for a eco bollocks product.

It signifies hazardous risk of forming organic peroxides in chemistry.

[Tim Streater]

If you're using it as an energy storage system, why does that matter?

[Theo]

Barium sulphate is used as a component of drilling mud because it has a density 4.5x that of water. Mud ponds are something the oil industry already knows how to deal with, although they aren't pretty. Drilling muds overall go up to about 2.4x

It sounds a bit like the oil industry is in decline they're looking for a new market for their existing product. Pumping drilling mud is something they already do at scale.

Although it's really hard to compete with 'free' water. I wonder how big a tank you would need for a decent sized battery at average UK hilliness?

Theo

[Tim+]

Dunno but barium salts are commonly used to increase the density of drilling mud.

Can?t imagine that suspended particles would do a turbine any good though.

Tim

[Andy Burns]

Looks like milkshake

[Andy Burns]

but as well as getting 2.5x out, you have to put 2.5x in, plus you have to deal with losses from pumping a more viscous fluid.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Art students don't Do Sums.

[nothanks]

It's proposed as a battery; no batteries are 100% efficient. Dinorwig is similar (albeit using water) and has been in use for many years.

[Andy Bennet]

Go the whole hog and use Mercury.

[polygonum_on_google]

Trouble with that is they appear to be claiming same sort of capacity despite lower height AND gentler slope AND (from the diagram) smaller volume. They can only get the advantage of higher density once but their claims appear to require them to do so three or four times over.

[Max Demian]

Yeah! Specific gravity 13.6!

[charles]

and you'd need one at both ends

[Tim Streater]

How big is the lake at the top of Dinorwig?

The question of the gentleness of the slope is only relevent in that you might need more land to contain the system, and perhaps it affects efficiency. What counts is the *head*.

[Jethro_uk]

Is it some sort of silly season ?

Apparently we're "only" 2 years from flying cars in 2023.

tinyurl.com/yx8tugnx

[Chris Hogg]

+1 to all that. Wiki on drilling fluids here. idea of using it to store significant amounts of energy, as in Pumped Storage, Dinorwig etc is complete bollocks of course.

[Tim Streater]

>

Ah, this old chestnut. See:

which I read about when I was a small boy, probably in the Eagle Annual. Where I also read about how there'd be gyrocopters flying from airports to city centres for passengers by 1960.