Comments by "Tony L" (@tlangdon12) on "Building Blocks for Energy Storage: MGA Thermal tour" video.

  1. There might be more environmental concerns with boring holes. Even with a geological survey, you can't be sure what you will hit on the way down, and what you might do to the ground water in the area.
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  2. I think you have misunderstand that the BIG advantage of the technology is that you have to reach 700C because you get a much great heat storage capcity at this temperature, not just because 700C is really hot, but also because it causes the aluminium to melt.
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  3. Home heating might only be required for a fraction of the year in Aus. but in the UK and northern Europe we have millions of homes that need heating for nearly half a year, and personally I'm spending about 5000 AUD a year to do so at the new energy prices, so anything that might cut is of interest.
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  4. There are some Foam Glasses available that have very significant compressive strengths and very high thermal insulation values if heat loss through foundations is a concern. (Look up FoamGlas Perinsul HF)
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  5.  @kentonian  Efficiency isn't the name of the game here. What is needed is clean energy, and storing renewables is cleaner than buring gas, providing care is taken during the production process.
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  6. Sand doesn't go through a phase change so it can't absorb as much heat. This means that the specific heat capacity (the measure of how much heat a material can store) of the blocks is about twice as high as sand.
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  7.  @rklauco  It does make a lot of sense for distributed heat storage in cities.
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  8. Really interesting video and comments. I think this technology could have an application in relatively small scale residential set-ups. The ability to change the rate of heat extraction using simple modulation of the pump that is pumping the inert gas around the heat store is very useful as it allows for the production of low levels of heat for heating efficient buildings, that might only need flow temperatures of 27C even on the coldest winter days, and producting lots of hot water on demand at 50C+, something that Heat Pumps struggle with. In communal installations, it could be used just for hot water production, with space heating being done via heat pumps.Clearly large scale installations can be more efficient due to the greater relative surface area of a small cube of material.
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