How the world's first sand battery stores green power - BBC News 

Yes, of course, that's why those Berber villages are so advanced and have generated heat and/or electricity for themselves and their country, and sold great technology to the rest of the world... Ah, it's not like that...

@@rennyotolinna2863 What the fuck are you talking about?

@@rennyotolinna2863 you discover things everyone else had 2000 years ago and act like you made some brand new technology, what next you are gonna figure out rotating crops on farms? Or that growing rice is better than growing wheat?

"Sahara desert" so it's Desert desert.

@@rennyotolinna2863 Your condescending sarcasm is uncalled for, where the commenter was offering some historical and cultural context, not bragging. Many innovations in technology make use of old methods paired with new insights and designs.

Maybe spin up the sand while you're at it, and make a thermal flywheel hybrid, although that seems wildly dangerous if there is a hull breech.

@@onehitpick9758 Splitting the energy to heat and kinetic seems a bit pointless as you'll need two processes to split the energy and two processes to extract the energy. You'll also have the issue of dealing with heat expansion and moving parts which can be overcome but not with ideal efficiency

@@stevec6427 as we use sand paper to smooth or shape other objects I think the fly wheel idea is a bit overrated as it with quickly DESTROY the moving parts thru abrasion...

@@onehitpick9758 Beam me up, Scotty.

@@stevec6427 The Carnot-antigravity cycle.

oh good. I was wondering.

Yeah. It wouldn't be sand usable for concrete. The thermal mass would be the same for all types of sand

@romeo415 lol different types of sands

Actually, sand has become so scarce in China for construction use that the country dredges huge amounts from ocean floors.

It will be desert sand, the only reason why we dont use it for building is that desert sand is rounded from being blown around all day for years. for the purpose of a salt battery the shape of the particulates doesnt matter...ie desert and beach sand is equal

it is scum and lyes on grate scale

In Hawaii they use daytime solar to pump water up hills and release the water into a trough with micro-turbines at nights. I heard of this many years ago anyway. Usable energy is the problem... storage.

Well done for answering that last question in a constructive way. I was going to be rude and that wouldn't have helped anyone!

Electricity is just a type of energy. There's lots of ways to store that energy to convert it back to electricity on demand. Llanberris power station is a nice example of energy storage

i wonder what other kind of 'low tech' technologys we could be making use of?

Cheap energy encourages waste and laziness.

it is scum and lyes on grate scale

It has been done before, many, many times in the decades before. The heat collector medium was concrete, as in the roof of a building, the heat transfer medium was water flowing through pipes in the concrete and the heat storage dump was a huge tank of water in the basement. The theory was proved. However, the problem was that a "lot" of concrete was required in the building's construction. Ergo it's debatable if this was a truly "green" solution. Some variations had a vast two story "green house" built on the sunny side of the building which also collected heat and stored said heat in the basement water tank. Heat pump did the "heat reclamation" thing. Japan did something similar by covering buildings in earth/soil as the heat store. Buildings included a secondary school. These were amongst the passive heating type buildings. Using mass as a heat collector or shield has been seen in Yemen where there are some ancient multi storey buildings constructed of mud. Using that method of mud can be found in entire communities living in the US where "alternative communities" have built some excellent homes of mud. That method was a modified method used by the indigenous Indians who lived there centuries before. The ultimate is geothermal heat where the heat can be both used as raw heat and generating electricity. This is well known in Iceland. Here in UK we are planning to use old deep coal mines flooded with water to collect and transfer heat from the planet itself. Many, many years ago I was a gold miner for an entire afternoon in a gold mine to the east of Jo'berg. The level at which I worked was only just over a mile deep. The galleries were cooled by very cold air blasted through pipes, On the western side of Jo'berg, in the "Western Deeps" the gold reef was around 12 thousand feet deep and heat from the surrounding rock was much greater. The blast air system coped, just about. The lesson being that the planet itself can supply gigawatts of energy in the form of heat leaking out from the core, quite apart from the energy from the sun. So, the sand idea is a miniscule model of how the planet works. To repeat, the sand idea is just the latest variation of a very, very old idea. To echo others one can only wonder why it was never used before other than in a few projects. I'm old enough and cynical enough to guess it was intense lobbying from the oil and coal industries, but who knows for sure.

@@johnjames4681 Utter, utter rubbish.

@@t1n4444 Plenty of oil why work? Arabia turns oil into water. Russia is technologically weak. Venezuela is in chaos.

Which sand is the most important question. Because, excess sand excavation damages the ecosystem. Desert sand is suitable but i think there is no desert in that country.

@@maramnikhilreddy424 Only sand that comes from your yard and under your house will be used. I talked with the people from this project, and they all agreed with it.

​@@maramnikhilreddy424 river sand might be the best idea.

Are you talking about mason sand ,which is very fine ?

@@valevisa8429 Yes, it's also known as Plasterer's, or Bricklayer's sand.

hii

it is scum and lyes on grate scale

Sharp sand

Jesus said "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter” (Matthew 7:21).

some say it is immune to the laws of thermodynamics and gets hotter...

Only works if you can get the temperature just right. Not too hot, not too cold.

@@bugsygoo 3 Bears Energy, Ltd are working on it as we speak. Project Goldilocks.

lol. It would be carbon at 500 degrees. Porridge work a bit like napalm, it sticks to you which is why you are scolded. Though a high corn flour slime would be much worse or just caramel.

i was thinking ceramics or something simular aswell... i gues if they allreasy built it .. it must have been brainstormed allready..

But it requires massive grid connections to distribute it back to the city, which is currently lacking, not only in Africa but in many parts in Southeast Asia

What are you going to do with heat in the Sahara desert? You never need it there.

What you need in South Africa is a non-corrupt Leadership. Leftism combined with corrupt elites fuck up South Africa.

Attach info about hot Iceland has the cheapest kw/h. They just use geothermal. Heating sand and using the same geothermal machines will do the job. The solutions are here and well developed. Just combine sand+sun+wind+geothermal and you are done.

Sherri, the applications for this in South Africa, is beyond anyone's imagination at this time. The load shedding situation is mostly a result of the government's VERY poor management of Eskom. Your comment is an excellent example of how this "news" article leaves so many key aspects out that even educated and thoughtful people have no basis for understanding how this can fit in broad scope applications

@ProjectsBlack yo😂😂😂😂😂🤝🤝🤝🤝

It's time for Africa to use its own natural resources!

And how to distribute that heat w/o significant losses to all the homes?

@@ssoffshore5111 Not an expert here, but I would think a district heating setup with well insulated pipes going into individual homes would help reduce heat loss along the way

@@ash_pro_2000 Yes. So you save money by not generating electricity, but you spend money in having to fit district heating systems. Swings and roundabouts. And, of course, you can't run your TV, Fridge, Computer, lights from a district heating system, and you can't charge your car from it. Pros and Cons.

@@simhedgesrex7097 Countries like finland and germany already have systems to distribute heat generated from industry to homes through water pipes. American cities use Steam instead, which is more dangerous.

@@ayoCC Yes. I was talking in a UK context, which has very few such systems (more's the pity).

efficiency is irrelevant, is energy of rich countries that want to waste his money to feel they are green

this doesn't help to storage waste heat; it needs electricity to reach high temperatures. you need really cheap electricity to burn it for heat not to mention storage it all year round.

@@KirbyZhang plenty of wind power in ireland.

Datacenters don't produce high temperatures.

@@KirbyZhang You could still use it for district heating. There are also many large datacenters in Finland, but more often than not they don't integrate their facilities to the district heating systems. Google has the largest facility at about 100MW located not too far away from a city and the could easily pump 60C+ water from it with heatpumps

@@rkan2 they would need a second loop to cool the water in the summer, and maintain the whole thing during both seasons. to reach 60c you'd need direct water units on all the IC's, no easy to maintain air cooling can be used

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9hIXyl-XQ3U.html !

the "Ivanpah Solar Power Facility" in California uses a similar system, except it also creates power from the heat saved in the sand.

This tech has been in use for over 100 years

the Romans did similar

@@tis_phil yes this is being dressed up as new, so the morons have another fake green energy product that will replace oil and gas!!

🤣🤣🤣

I still have 'em. Insulated house. Works great. No radiators or water to worry about, no gas standing charge, no risk of gas explosion, no cost of replacing the boiler, no boiler service charge.

In hot countries it's the opposite

@@geeksworkshop Hahahahhah Ikr but statistically speaking he's not wrong, on avg largest cost is heater so...

...and the body for hot showers. And washing clothes.

It's just about whether the heat can be converted back to electricity with an efficiency level that's worthwhile. Not every country has district heating systems.

@@timmurphy5541 It can't be done.

@@Phill0old You know how turbines work right? With steam. This sand is hotter than steam. You could absolutely power a turbine using heat from the sand. But it would probably be terribly inefficient. It can be done.

@@zaatas I meant it couldn't be done sensibly. Of course I could use solar to power a turbine to make water hot and then use that hot water to power a steam turbine to make electricity but I wouldn't. They would need a redesign to make electricity also.

@@zaatas Also he said store not make or generate. The report was garbage.

this is for storing energy, not generating

Man you'd be a great president

sentences could be in k/w instead of years - problem is you'd have criminals that could outrun the police on a bmx once they got out. but yeah, I like the idea.

Please turn your life to Jesus the rapture is about to take place any moment now bible says “no man comes to the farther but by me”we really don’t have a lot of time left so much bible prophecy has came to life it’s only a matter of time they is going to be hell on earth for 7 years if your left behind believe me you don’t want to be may God bless your soul and I hope you read this message with a open mind🙏❤️

@@LondraCalibro9 LOL the prisoners would win the tour de France during their prison break

Sand melts at 1700°C

Blast furnaces are made from steel, even though they have large amounts of molten steel inside. The trick is to use some thermal insulation (that you are going to need anyway if you want to store heat over months).

@EE I've read 10 articles and am failing to find details. Just lots of wild claims like it can hold the heat for MONTHS and I'm trying to figure out if they're using an adiabatic container or any kind of insulation or actually have the sand sitting right up against the metal outer container. You're saying they heat it from the core, can you point me to this information. Thanks.

There's is all ways a trade off with energy production if the Fossil fuel industry gets fazed out to quickly the economy will flounder it is in my opinion something people don't talk about when they talk about green energy it's very complex.

@@maxpower1337 It's nice to hear someone who considers the whole system rather than more "technology" pitches Certainly, petroleum is a huge portion of the global GDP, And, petroleum distillates are still critical in applications like aviation etc, but Shell, and friends have been planning, writing and disseminating media that is carefully written to avoid any reduction in Petroleum consumption and is now embedded in all sides of the climate advocacies. But there is a tremendous necessity, for thermal energy in applications like water desalination, the need for which is expanding daily. It's a whole system, and there's enough for everyone if we can get past the "technology" obsession, and start looking at "What needs can we fill with this type of storage?

It may have been a silo they had and updated, but there's also I think a good benefit from having built a good silo. Made something that works for other places without hold in the ground. Digging is expensive.

saw an interview with the designers a while back, it is insulated with up to a metre thick insulation, then stays like that for months, lots of housing in finland is apartment blocks with shared heating.solar panels on roof could slowly heat up sand in summer and autumn. they said they would excavate a big hole nearby or even under the new buildings to place the sand. could be under car parks, green spaces, etc. cheap, easy to do, clean, its a win win.

@@kevinwillis6707 this is amazing. If it's going to work in cold Finnish winters then it should be fine for warmer countries.

@@TheMajkla for warmer need to store cold from winter months 😊

@@tokach and air conditioning makers will go bankrupt:)

Yeah exactly "we have reinvented a radiator, we hope to patent this technology and have people pay us to use it" they literally stuck a heater in a pile of sand. It's super useful but it isn't original

I think it is very efficient if it is used for direct use of heat and not to do an additional second, third or fourth conversion steps (heat to steam to electricity, and so on). Not all technologies are good for everything. But the point is to think creatively, and these people are doing it, if it were not the case, many countries, African and European, would have made geothermal energy a great advantage, but with some exceptions it has no influence on the energy tables of the world.

@@rennyotolinna2863 I suppose the issue is that it is very inefficient to distribute heat (as opposed to distributing electricity). If these heat storage units were broadly distributed (e.g. one per building or one per neighborhood) then yes, a series of pipes similar to geothermal systems could use this stored heat and distribute it to users, but that is a very limited type of storage system and is only useful in the winter months. This would be a lot of investment for an energy storage system that a) cannot be used for grid storage and b) can only really be used for heating buildings.

I very much doubt it would need high grade silica. I wonder if mining tailings could be pulverized and used instead? the vessel containing the sand and the heating element are likely the only things that would deplete. very unlikely to be carbon neutral to build but I imagine this could be built underground for better efficiency. at the end of the day you really just need a big insulated pit filled with sand with a long lasting heating element and some water pipes running through that can handle the temperature.

There no shortage of sand except those used in construction

@@alcubz2622 Apart from shortage, my question is more related to the environmental cost of extraction of any kind of sand needed.

@@ivan_t9n cant you just get normal sand, from the beach.. its not that hard really.

maybe just don't use the sand that people use for building

Through a district heating system which countries like Finland have and cheapskates like us in the UK mostly don't.

as above - through a district heating system.

@@timmurphy5541 But what does that actually mean? Like ducts which blow hot air?

@@user-uj8og9cm9d there are pipes that transfer hot water between buildings and the heat source. The buildings then use heat exchangers and radiators to get the heat indoors.

@@user-uj8og9cm9d District heating is usually around 100 celisus. That goes true a heat exchanger in the house. That heats a closed circuit a for water warming the house to around 30 celsisus and that runs either true the floor or wall mounted radiators. Then there is a separate circuit that's used for warm water (usually set at 57c) This setup can be found true most cities in Finland, Sweden and Norway. The thing is today usually the heat is produced with burning waste. So to be able to store energy in the summer and use it in the winter is a no brainer. Problem has been how to get that free energy when needed. Since the globe has hours in the day where we are producing more electricity than needed the best and to be able to store that energy for a cold day is a no brainer. Just follow the spot prices for electricity to se those hours. Outside the cities the most popular option for the last 20? (maybe more) years is geothermal heating. Mostly with a hole drilled down in the ground...

I read in the comments that the silos are lined with one metre thick insulation.

"without loss... potentially for months" if it's without loss, the storage time doesn't matter. You're not supposed to think about the statements made, that's the trick :D

I was just thinking that

If you had a brain cell you would know that people watching TV needs things presented in simple terms to make everyone "understand". To your question: Yes, this can solve certain problems related to energy storage.

@@wildonemeister not necessarily, sometimes they'll show something just because it has wow factor to it. Could've just as easily got an expert to comment on the efficiency and sustainability.

@@wildonemeister so. Are you simple as well? And people poo poo ideas without even serious investigation!

Have a look at Tom Scott's video called Are we running out of sand? He explains exactly what you mentioned.

@@TheMajkla, thanks. I’ll check it out.

@@bucketofbarnacles no problem, Tom's videos are entertaining and always interesting.

They are not saying heat has to come from those 2 medium only! Isn't it obvious to you that they are using the 2 green mediums which is easily available to them.

I think the innovation is the tank that can withhold 500 degrees and the solar and wind

it is scum and lyes on grate scale

@@rayleeaustralia Hehe na they will sell you the special sand you need as well for a good price :P

Why not store excess green electricity as hydrogen? it would last forever , which is much longer than months.

Please turn your life to Jesus the rapture is about to take place any moment now bible says “no man comes to the farther but by me”we really don’t have a lot of time left so much bible prophecy has came to life it’s only a matter of time they is going to be hell on earth for 7 years if your left behind believe me you don’t want to be may God bless your soul and I hope you read this message with a open mind🙏❤️

@@jesusisgod3014 People have been saying that for 2,000yrs...

No because you need more than just sand. You need the infrastructure to charge the sand (solar, wind, etc.), and you need infrastructure to exploit the heat such as TEG chips, a low-powered forced-air system to move it around, etc.

I see what you did there

This system doesn't convert energy to anything, its a direct electricity transfer to heat which is again used as heat. Hydro power storage water is transferred first by pumps to higher altitude and then again transferred using generators to electricity. Every transfer causes big losses, first, mechanical pump efficiency is low, pipes causes losses and finally hydro electric generators are very low in efficiency. All in all hydro storage is poor system.

Multiple Gravity storage system is an option

Pumped hydro is not suitable for seasonal storage.

@@w0ttheh3ll The dams are only full in early summer. And then its not that much wind here.

@@la7dfa So if they are full in summer are you going to leave them sitting full, unused all year to get one or two weeks of extra electricity in december?

100tons of sand in +500 Celsius, you do the match. Heat holding efficiency is actually irrelevant since the re heating gaps can be maximum of few days.

On television? In a country in which poor people voted for Boris Johnson because he was "just like them"? KISS.

@@DrJohnnyJ You id.... Boris Johnson and Finland? WTF? What did you find in common in this coverage? Borisske and Finland and heat recovery and energy reuse.

What kind of sand do you use ?

@@TrickOrRetreat I used sandbox sand because mine is alot smaller and it's easier to source but you can use pretty much anything. Large scale I think desert sand will be the best choice cause of its abundance but you could even use small rocks if needed, anything with a high melting point and a high thermal mass will do the trick. This is a breakthrough in infrastructure doing it large scale. Not a breakthrough in technology

How long did your heat keep then, Hawks? Furthermore, was your sandbox automated? Could you hook your sandbox up to a solar panel or wind turbine?

@@hawks9142 yes I know some german castles used this technology for over 200 years. It's a special stone called something like feltspat, can't spell it properly. But the heat these rooms for 14-20 days every wooden fire they burn. And it keeps a temperature at almost 30celcius.

@@hawks9142 also know that some places in Finland have 15 tons ovens placed centrally in some old buildings. Also heated up every 14 day.

thousands..

Mhm sure they did bucko, any proof of that? What exactly did they power? Sure, they used sand to cook and heat things, but not specifically an energy storing mechanism.

@@jesusisgod3014 shut up. please, for the love of everything holy in this world, shut the fuck up

@@nick_0 sand batteries has always been used for storing heat, not energy. The electricity from renewable sources is converted to heat. Ancient Egyptians have done the same thing but with the use of lightning rods.

@@Maxtime123 Proof of lightning rods?

Well, it is very simple and cheap, and can be scaled to suit almost any size. With a bit of imagination house builders with developments of several hundred homes could install the sand storage and pipework, and market the homes as having cheap renewable heating available on subscription.

Planetary battery's.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9hIXyl-XQ3U.html !

In cold countries more than half of all energy used is heat not electricty. They are not claiming it will solve all storage needs because we need to store electricty as well, but it could make a huge dent in the seasonal balancing.

@romeo415 lol 🙄

They literally stuck a heater in sand... this is a common thing. They just made it bigger 😄

@romeo415 lol different type of sand. This can use desert sand which we have alot of

dumbest comment of the day. congrats!

So you want to tap into the earth's very own nuclear reactor? I worked in a mine where the temp. always stayed a constant 57 degrees Fahrenheit. You don't need to go down in the ground right now where I'm at, it is 106 Fahrenheit outside right now. But you could use the ground to cool your house.

Negligible loss.

@@Apjooz He said no loss, and of course who decides what is negligible?

Why not store excess green electricity as hydrogen? it would last forever , which is much longer than months.

well spotted.

Exactly so

Yeah, around five times 👍. 4182 J/KG°C is the specific heat capacity of water and of sand is 835 J/KG°C . 😂😂

Go take your Ivermectin, you non-mask wearer.

I'm sure the sovereign state of Finland will listen to the wise words of GoofyCams

In this case is not about how much energy it holds,but for how long.Water will cool down much faster than sand.

@@valevisa8429 why?

I am too, how can society be so advance we are using similar techniques as ancient people living around the Nile River---to store energy.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-26_D55h6qO8.html here is another story.. it's just a matter of time before you'll see problems in the UK as well. Until then, enjoy the high energy prices next winter!

This is for storing the heat for months though, off peak boiler heating etc is nothing new.