Stanford Study Supports Use Of Fire Bricks For Process Heat

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Mark Z. Jacobson is a professor of civil and environmental engineering for the Doerr Faculty of Sustainability and Faculty of Engineering at Stanford College. He’s well-known to CleanTechnica readers for his efforts to chart a course towards a future through which the power wanted to energy human civilization is abundant, affordable, and renewable. He and his crew at Stanford have created two wonderful research. Certainly one of them supplies an in depth highway map for the way every state in the United States can transition to 100% renewable power. One other supplies the identical detailed evaluation for 139 countries world wide. Now he and his colleagues have revealed a brand new examine that advocates for the usage of fireplace bricks to retailer warmth created by renewables.

Hearth Bricks & Course of Warmth

The transition away from fossil fuels to scrub, renewable power is dependent upon power storage options. The one most individuals are aware of is batteries, that are nice for storing electrical energy and releasing it on demand. However about 17% of all world emissions are attributable to burning fossil fuels to supply course of warmth, which is utilized in a myriad of business purposes from baking bread to creating cement, iron, and aluminum. Batteries are able to storing electrical energy to make that course of warmth, however on this new examine, revealed within the journal PNAS Nexus on July 10, 2024, Mark Jacobson and his colleague Daniel Sambor show that fireside bricks can do the identical job for about one-tenth the associated fee.

“By storing energy in the form closest to its end use, you reduce inefficiencies in energy conversion,” Sambor, a postdoctoral scholar in civil and environmental engineering, advised TechXplore. “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 fire bricks.’” Jacobson added, “The difference between fire brick storage and battery storage is that the fire bricks store heat rather than electricity and are one tenth the cost of batteries. The materials are much simpler too. They are basically just the components of dirt.”

The expertise includes assembling heat-absorbing bricks in an insulated container, the place they will retailer warmth generated by photo voltaic or wind energy 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 fireplace bricks, which permits cement, metal, glass, and paper factories to run on renewable power even when wind and sunshine are unavailable. The bricks are produced from the identical supplies because the insulating bricks that lined primitive kilns and ironmaking furnaces 1000’s of years in the past. To optimize for warmth storage as a substitute of insulation, the supplies are merely mixed in several quantities.

An Evaluation Of 149 International locations

The researchers got down to look at the affect of utilizing fireplace bricks to retailer most industrial course of warmth in 149 international locations in a hypothetical future the place every nation has transitioned to wind, geothermal, hydro energy, and photo voltaic for all power functions. These 149 international locations are accountable for 99.75% of world carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. “Ours is the first study to examine a large scale transition of renewable energy with fire bricks as part of the solution,” Jacobson mentioned. “We found that fire bricks 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, well being impacts, and emissions concerned in two eventualities for a hypothetical future the place 149 international locations in 2050 are utilizing renewables for all power functions. In a single state of affairs, fireplace bricks present 90% of business course of warmth. Within the different, there’s zero adoption of fireplace bricks or different types of thermal power storage for industrial processes. Within the no fireplace brick 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 fireplace bricks may reduce capital prices by $1.27 trillion throughout the 149 international locations in contrast with the state of affairs with no fireplace brick storage, whereas decreasing demand for power from the grid and the necessity for power storage capability from batteries. 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 thousands and thousands of early deaths every year. “Every bit of combustion fuels we replace with electricity reduces that air pollution,” Jacobson mentioned. “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.”

Mark Jacobson has spent his profession understanding air air pollution and local weather issues and creating power plans for international locations, states, and cities to unravel these issues. However his concentrate on fireplace bricks is comparatively new and is 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 would have very few takers. But, if this will save money compared with a previous method, it will be implemented more rapidly,” he mentioned. “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.”

Simply Say No To Nukes

Previously, Mark Jacobson has been criticized for ignoring nuclear energy as one supply of zero emissions power. This examine explains why. “Whereas some suggest the usage of nuclear reactors to supply electrical energy and warmth for business, newly deliberate nuclear isn’t included right here for a number of causes. First, newly deliberate nuclear reactors will unlikely compete with (different types of renewable power) as a result of the time lag between planning and operation of a brand new standard nuclear reactor at this time is 12 to 22 years — too lengthy to assist remedy world local weather and air air pollution issues — versus 1 to five years for brand spanking new wind and photo voltaic farms.

“Second, the levelized cost of newly planned conventional nuclear reactors is 3 to 14 times that of new onshore wind. Nuclear also faces several well known energy security risks. Small modular nuclear reactors are expected to face similar time lag, cost, and security risks. As such, nuclear is not considered further here.” Advocates for nuclear energy will probably be distressed by Jacobson’s evaluation, however who would wish to pay 3 to 14 instances extra for one thing than needed? From a strictly financial standpoint, it’s exhausting to make a enterprise case for nuclear.

The Takeaway

Just lately we’ve got reported on a number of firms which are searching for to commercialize fireplace bricks for warmth storage. One is Electrified Thermal Solutionsan MIT spinoff that has discovered a option to make fireplace bricks that take the place of wires to conduct electrical energy and generate warmth. One other is Rondo Energywhich has begun putting in its fireplace brick thermal storage models in a number of areas world wide to supply course of warmth. What’s attention-grabbing right here is how expertise that helped people harness warmth to create the Bronze Age is as soon as once more getting used to additional the clear power revolution. Every little thing previous is new once more, it appears. And never a second too quickly.