Sand Batteries

[lupine52]

Hiding underneath all the ugly news articles today about Highland park and the horrific act that marred the USA on its celebratory birthdate today was a very cool article about Finland and the use of sand batteries to heat their homes.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/climate-change-sand-battery-could-001211091.htmlApparently a battery could be made by

Comments

[schnee]

That's pretty neat. I wonder how they insulate that silo - but however they do it, it must be pretty darn good!

[sabotlours]

I used to think that solar furnaces only super-heated water to produce steam. I talked with an engineer once who was working on solar furnace technology. He said the new thing was to use the sun's heat to essentially make pools of salt lava. The "lava" would hopefully hold the temperature for hours (or days) so you'd be able to generate electricity on a more predictable basis.

[lupine52]

The salt lava certainly is an interesting idea however I would have to wonder if the solution would have a propensity to corrode whatever barrier was used to hold the pool of superheated goo.

I also have to wonder what sort of coating would be used to prevent the superheated sand from attacking the sidewalls of the silo