Bronze Age technology could aid switch to clean energy

Know-how with roots going again to the Bronze Age might supply a quick and cheap answer to assist obtain the United Nations local weather objective of web zero emissions by 2050, in response to current Stanford-led analysis in PNAS Nexus.

The know-how includes assembling heat-absorbing bricks in an insulated container, the place they’ll retailer warmth generated by photo voltaic or wind power for later use on the temperatures required for industrial processes. The warmth can then be launched when wanted by passing air by way of channels within the stacks of “firebricks,” thus permitting cement, metal, glass, and paper factories to run on renewable power even when wind and sunshine are unavailable.

These programs, which a number of corporations have lately begun to commercialize for industrial warmth storage, are a type of thermal power storage. The bricks are created from the identical supplies because the insulating bricks that lined primitive kilns and iron-making furnaces 1000’s of years in the past. To optimize for warmth storage as a substitute of insulation, the supplies are mixed in numerous quantities.

Batteries can retailer electrical energy from renewable sources and supply electrical energy to generate warmth on demand. “The difference between firebrick storage and battery storage is that the firebricks store heat rather than electricity and are one-tenth the cost of batteries,” stated lead examine creator Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering within the Stanford Doerr Faculty of Sustainability and Faculty of Engineering. “The materials are much simpler too. They are basically just the components of dirt.”

Excessive warmth storage

Many industries require high-temperature warmth for manufacturing. Temperatures in factories want to succeed in not less than 1,300 levels Celsius (almost 2,400 levels Fahrenheit) to provide cement, and 1,000 C (about 1,800 F) or hotter for glass, iron, and steelmaking. Immediately, about 17% of all carbon dioxide emissions worldwide stem from burning fossil fuels to provide warmth for industrial processes, in response to Jacobson and co-author Daniel Sambor’s calculations. Producing industrial warmth from renewable sources may all however get rid of these emissions.

“By storing energy in the form closest to its end use, you reduce inefficiencies in energy conversion,” stated Sambor, a postdoctoral scholar in civil and environmental engineering. “It’s often said in our field that ‘if you want hot showers, store hot water, and if you want cold drinks, store ice’; so this study can be summarized as ‘if you need heat for industry, store it in firebricks.'”

Substantial financial savings

The researchers got down to study the affect of utilizing firebricks to retailer most industrial course of warmth in 149 nations in a hypothetical future the place every nation has transitioned to wind, geothermal, hydropower, and photo voltaic for all power functions. The 149 nations are liable for 99.75% of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. “Ours is the primary examine to look at a large-scale transition of renewable energy with firebricks as a part of the answer,” Jacobson stated. “We found that firebricks enable a faster and lower-cost transition to renewables, and that helps everyone in terms of health, climate, jobs, and energy security.”

The crew used pc fashions to match prices, land wants, health impactsand emissions concerned in two eventualities for a hypothetical future the place 149 nations in 2050 are utilizing renewables for all power functions. In a single state of affairs, firebricks present 90% of business course of warmth. Within the different, there’s zero adoption of firebricks or different types of thermal power storage for industrial processes. Within the no-firebrick state of affairs, the researchers assumed warmth for industrial processes would come as a substitute from electrical furnaces, heaters, boilers, and warmth pumps, with batteries used to retailer electrical energy for these applied sciences.

The researchers discovered the state of affairs with firebricks may reduce capital costs by $1.27 trillion throughout the 149 nations in contrast with the state of affairs with no firebrick storage, whereas lowering demand for power from the grid and the necessity for power storage capability from batteries.

Clear power, cleaner air

Options for accelerating the transition to scrub power are additionally linked to human well being. Earlier analysis has proven that air air pollution from burning fossil fuels causes hundreds of thousands of early deaths every year. “Every bit of combustion fuels we replace with electricity reduces that air pollution,” Jacobson stated. “And because there is a limited amount of money to transition at a high speed, the lower the cost to the overall system, the faster we can implement it.”

Jacobson has spent his profession understanding air air pollution and local weather issues and growing energy plans for nations, states, and cities to unravel these issues. However his deal with firebricks is comparatively new, impressed by a want to establish efficient options that might be adopted shortly.

“Imagine if we propose an expensive and difficult method of transitioning to renewable electricity—we’d have very few takers. But, if this will save money compared with a previous method, it will be implemented more rapidly,” he stated. “What excites me is that the impact is very large, whereas a lot of technologies that I’ve looked at, they have marginal impacts. Here I can see a substantial benefit at low cost from multiple angles, from helping to reduce air pollution mortality to making it easier to transition the world to clean renewables.”