#Orca on Austin Vernon’s #Standard-Thermal. “The first time we heat it up past 600ºC, the soil transforms—almost manufacturing brick from clay right underground. With an unexpectedly cheap resistor material, ultra simplified electronics, on-site photovoltaics, and a thermal leak rate under 1% per month, we’re looking at sub $0.10/kWhthermal and $50/kWthermal. (...) To give you a sense of the scale: heat travels about a meter through dirt in a month (δ ~ √(α t)), so a system designed for months-long discharge would involve hundreds of meters of pipe and resistor spaced about 2m apart. In that configuration, the system stores about 2MWhr thermal per meter of pipe+resistor. That’s fundamentally favorable—30 times the storage of a Tesla car battery for the cost of a meter of wire and pipe.” Much more detail on #pricing than Austin’s own posts. Also, on who the customer is: first process heat, then high-latitude customers that want renewable power on-site, and as a “world-conquering dream” to provide steam at stranded conventional power plants.
on 02025-12-12discussion of #Standard-Thermal #energy-storage where pfdietz corrected my misconception that a 600° sensible thermal store can only deliver useful amounts of power at much lower temperatures than 600°, and also most #USA electrical #energy generation is not using supercritical steam
on 02025-11-11Austin Vernon’s pitch for #Standard-Thermal #hot-dirt #energy-storage. #energy-storage
on 02025-08-27The #Standard-Thermal white paper on #hot-dirt #energy-storage. #energy
on 02025-08-27