Quidnet’s Answer Is Most likely Extra Quick-Lived Sand Mining Than Power Storage – CleanTechnica – TechnoNews

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It’s not usually {that a} novel power storage resolution crosses my display screen. It’s vastly rarer that it doesn’t instantly fail a number of primary sniff assessments. An answer that pumps water beneath excessive strain a number of hundred to a thousand meters underground doesn’t instantly crumble in technical phrases or claims. However there are a few issues with it.

To be clear, it’s a type of gravity storage. And it’s not pumped hydro with reservoirs on the highest of hills and the underside related by a penstock with reversible generators. It doesn’t rely upon the mass of water, however the mass of rock. In contrast to different gravity-storage hacks, it doesn’t attempt to do a lot with the rock besides benefit from its density, which is 2 to 3 occasions that of water.

I’m speaking about Quidnet’s geomechanical power storage. It takes a primary remark from the oil business and exploits it for a gravity-centered mechanical power story.

Let’s step again. Within the early days of the oil business, wildcatters used to drill in hopes of discovering a gusher. That meant drilling into an underground physique of oil in permeable rock held in place by a capstone of some type. Once they discovered a pressurized physique of oil, physics would make the oil rush up the drill gap to the place of decrease strain, turning right into a gusher of oil. This was a standard state of affairs and within the early days of oil usually concerned the gusher unintentionally catching fireplace. Paul “Red” Adair made a profession of extinguishing flaming gushers, touring from flaming gusher to flaming gusher, one thing I examine yonks in the past.

Why did the oil shoot up? From gravity’s strain on the rock above it, the compressibility and deformability of the rock, and the incompressibility of the oil. Sure, oil is like water in that once you put strain on it it doesn’t lose quantity. Rock, however, does lose a bit, and porous rock loses extra.

When a wildcatter hit a gusher, the incompressible oil shot up the opening, whereas the compressible rock began uncompressing a bit and the area the oil occupied shrank. Think about an enormous, simply shaken, can of soda because the reservoir and the drill bore as eradicating the tab that retains its insides inside.

Each Quidnet founders, Howard Schmidt and Joe Zhou, have a while within the oil and fuel business, Saudi Aramco and ExxonMobil respectively, however weren’t drillers or geologists or sub-surface engineers. Schmidt, apparently retired now and sitting on the Board of Quidnet, is {an electrical} and bodily chemistry man who spent quite a lot of time in academia. Zhou is a chemical engineer turned MBA turned McKinsey man. Distinctly white collar, not roughneck. Each had time in different power domains in some capability. Undoubtedly STEM, however not build-stuff guys. Regardless of the chemistry backgrounds, they noticed the strain as a mechanical engineering alternative.

So what was their perception? That simply as incompressible oil got here out of compressible underground reservoirs at a excessive price, water may very well be compelled down into compressible rock reservoirs at excessive strain. Drill holes all the way down to the suitable strata of shale capped by an impermeable higher layer. Put an enormous reversible pump on the prime of the opening, one able to creating 200 atmospheres of strain, equal to 2 kilometers or 1.25 miles beneath the floor of the ocean. Pump water down the pipe. The compressible rock compresses a bit. The areas refill with excessive strain water.

Thus far that is only a less complicated model of fracking and shale oil extraction course of, which use high-pressure pumps to pressure water, chemical compounds, and sand into underground porous rock formations to create ample fissures for oil or fuel to circulate freely and be extracted. Take away the chemical compounds and sand, don’t do it the place there may be quite a lot of fuel or oil, and the water can circulate into the empty pores and create a roughly UFO-shaped disk of water underground on the strain you employ to pump it down there. Within the case of Quidnet’s course of as I perceive it, that’s about 35 to 200 atmospheres. Notice, this doesn’t make a cavern underground, however will increase the porosity of the rock formation.

In fracking and shale oil, the sand stays behind to maintain the fissures sufficiently open for oil and fuel emigrate to the extraction level. In Quidnet’s resolution, they pump a fluid down at excessive strain to fracture the rock. They pump an answer with calcium chloride down, then one other resolution with sodium silicate. They mix, largely, on the edge areas of the underground fracture to kind calcium silicate, which acts like a cement to seal the fracture in order that liquids keep within it extra, as a substitute of migrating to surrounding rock as strain mounts, if I perceive their 2020 patent appropriately.

As a substitute of leaving sand behind to maintain the fractures open, they maintain pressurized fluid within the fractured lens. Notice that this dilutes considerably their declare that they want much less water than pumped hydro, not that there’s precisely a scarcity of water globally. Contemporary water could also be distributed inconsistently, however there are huge quantities of it, particularly whether it is being quietly reused in pumped hydro schemes as a substitute of polluted with fracking effluents. Individuals who fear about pumped hydro and water utilization haven’t carried out the maths.

In the event that they maintain it plugged, the water doesn’t escape, however needs to. That creates mechanical potential power. It doesn’t contain quite a lot of warmth loss as a result of water is incompressible, not like compressing gases. This resolution compresses the rock underground and expands the pores a bit as a substitute of compressing gases in rock caverns underground.

Need the power again? Permit the water to circulate again by means of the reversible turbine. The compressible and porous rock decompresses, pushing the water again out.

What are the claims from Quidnet? They may get 1 to 10 MW of energy for ten or extra hours per nicely. They’re providing particularly an extended length storage resolution, the place every particular person part is fairly small. Lengthy length storage usually is expressed within the lots of of megawatts and gigawatt hours of power storage. In any other case, what’s the purpose?

I noticed a bunch of potential failure situations, and went and located in the event that they have been issues. Most weren’t.

What concerning the primary physics? Seems 200-atmosphere underground compressible rock is sort of a hydro dam or pumped hydro head top of two kilometers. Strain and quantity is actually simply the inverse of mass and top. Quite a bit much less mass could be required on the equal of two kilometers to create the identical energy for a similar variety of hours. Assuming 500 meters of head top for closed loop, off-river pumped hydro, solely 1 / 4 of the water could be required for 200-atmosphere subterranean porous rock formations. Thus far so good.

What concerning the subterranean stuff, geology? That checks out too. There are innumerable pressurized subterranean shale formations that may very well be exploited. Shale with some largely impermeable overburden is all that’s required. The cap over the sedimentary rocks is quite common in oil and fuel areas, as a result of that’s what stored the oil and fuel underground earlier than we drilled all the way down to the reservoir. Shale is way richer in natural matter than different sedimentary rocks like limestone or sandstone, therefore it having quite a lot of oil and fuel deposits.

What concerning the dimension of the pipe? A key threat in pumped hydro is that it normally entails tunneling, which per Professor Bent Flyvbjerg’s 16,000+ knowledge set of megaprojects, isn’t the bottom threat factor we do. Of the 25 classes they’ve segregated the info set into and sorted by probability to go over funds and schedule, tunneling is thirteenth, precisely midway from both finish. It’s not nuclear technology or the Olympics, the most certainly initiatives to go over funds and schedule, however it’s not photo voltaic, wind or transmission, the least doubtless.

The Quidnet resolution makes use of commonplace drilling methods and diameters from the oil and fuel business, with the doubtless diameter being about 30 centimeters (12 inches). That’s decrease threat than tunneling, partly as a result of the shaft is vertical down from the bottom, rather a lot cheaper than a tunnel and if the drillers hit an igneous extrusion, unconsolidated sediments, a high-pressure aquifer, karst topography, or one of many eight or 9 different underground options that make drilling troublesome or unattainable, they’ll simply pull the drill out and check out elsewhere. Tunnels, by definition, go from level A to level B as a result of these factors must be related and so need to attempt to cope with no matter they discover underground. Drilling, not a lot.

What about volumes from this sort of porous rock reservoir? A standard nicely would possibly return 5,000 barrels per day, about 800 cubic meters of water. At 200 atmospheres of strain by means of a 30-centimeter pipe, the orifice equation — sure, that’s what it’s known as — tells us that the circulate price could be 0.0092 cubic meters per second, which isn’t rather a lot. However it’s beneath very excessive strain, the equal once more of a dam two kilometers in top. 

The usual hydroelectric energy technology equation involving turbine effectivity, circulate price, head top, gravity, and water’s density tells us that we may conceivably get about 164 kW of energy and about 14 MWh of power over a day from that type of circulate price. This didn’t look like that a lot.

It seems the biggest volumes of circulate from an oil nicely have been about 100,000 barrels per day. At 200 atmospheres, that means the potential for 3.3 MW of energy, throughout the vary of the Quidnet claims of 1 to 10 MW. That was a perform of the sunshine oil being comparatively low viscosity and capable of transfer by means of the porous rock comparatively rapidly.

Water is a fairly a bit much less viscous than mild oil, and so can transfer by means of porous rock extra rapidly. A little bit of analysis discovered the Darcy-Weisbach equation, which could be tailored to find out the distinction in circulate charges for liquids of various viscosities. Assuming I utilized it appropriately, it means that much less viscous water would circulate simply over 3 times quicker, so a 100,000 barrels of oil would equate to about 320,000 barrels of water.

That 3.3 MW of energy would flip into about 10 MW of energy, in different phrases. This helps Quidnet’s claims that they may get one to 10 MW of energy per nicely.

Having validated the facility fundamentals, another questions sprang to thoughts. One is that pumps aren’t quiet and the upper the strain the pump, all else being equal, the upper the quantity. Positive sufficient, 200-atmosphere fluid pumps are up round 100 decibels, about the place wind generators are. My background entails far an excessive amount of time understanding decibels and wind turbine noise impacts, so I do know that that is nicely above the extent the place you need to be subsequent to it with unprotected ears for greater than a few hours a day and listening to safety is beneficial. However I additionally know that noise, all else being equal, diffuses by the dice of distance and that it’s fairly straightforward to place baffles round one thing on the bottom. The pumps received’t be allowed exterior somebody’s bed room window, however with baffling may very well be 100 meters away. Not a present stopper.

Subsequent I did a little bit of a price work-up, assuming that they have been drilling themselves and never reusing present wells. Larger strain reversible pumps for liquids fail a bit extra usually, in order that was factored into working prices, however the higher variety of pumps vs pumped hydro for a similar energy and power signifies that the general affect on system effectivity was very minimal. With the elevated failure price, the adjusted value per kWh for Quidnet’s geomechanical power storage resolution is estimated to be $0.0109 per kWh on the low finish and $0.0251 per kWh on the excessive finish. That is within the vary to be value aggressive with pumped hydro and grid storage with CATL’s introduced $56 per kWh capability LFP batteries. In order that checked out as nicely, though to make certain my value work up was serviette math, not a totally vetted value work-up — enough for this evaluation.

Subsequent I checked out spacing. These underground UFOs of water can’t overlap with out inflicting system issues, one thing known as a frac-hit. Pointers from geothermal and oil and fuel wells recommend that they must be about 500 meters aside. Would that be an issue when it comes to wiring them into an influence block? No, at 1 to 10 MW per nicely at that spacing, they’re within the vary of recent wind generators, and we area wind generators out and wire them collectively consistently. We’d apply the identical energy electronics we do with wind or photo voltaic farms in a lot the identical manner. That is simply energy engineering.

Nevertheless, for a ten MW system, that 320,000 barrels of water is 20 Olympic swimming swimming pools. The reservoir could be deeper than a pool, nonetheless, so if it have been the scale of an American soccer area, it may very well be seven meters deep and maintain all of the water. Soccer fields fluctuate in allowed sizes, so with an enormous area’s dimensions, it could be 6 meters deep and with a small area, 8 meters deep. Soccer or soccer fields six to eight meters deep each 500 meters is beginning to intrude on the panorama a bit. As a result of manner that they’re sustaining strain underground with water and including extra water as a working portion, the quantity they’d require is a few a number of of this quantity, simply with most of it underground.

That is assuming a 24-hour energy return, nonetheless. At 10 hours and 10 MW, these shrink all the way down to 40% of the scale. They may also be made a bit deeper and have a sealed prime with out notably impacting energy technology. That is in all probability manageable.

Nevertheless, this led me to ask how briskly this water could be transferring. It’s all enjoyable and video games till somebody will get hit within the face by a pressure-washer jet, in any case. At first blush, water flowing by means of a 30-centimeter diameter pipe at a strain of 200 atmospheres with no constraints may very well be seeing 200 meters per second or 720 kilometers per hour. That didn’t look good, which in all probability meant I’d carried out one thing flawed. Going again to the roughly 320,000 barrels of water, the viscosity comparability discovered over 24 hours by means of the identical pipe suggests a way more cheap velocity of about 8 meters per second or 29 kilometers per hour. You continue to wouldn’t need to be standing in entrance of it. It might be like being hit by a automotive driving 15 kilometers per hour, comparatively gradual transferring, however sufficient to interrupt bones, trigger inside harm, and depart you with whiplash.

So what are the issues with this? Thus far, all assessments point out that it’s cheap, reuses oil and fuel tools, is inside strain requirements for the oil and fuel business, aligns with exterior measures that point out that energy, and power claims are cheap and the like. It’s the type of factor that ought to be apparent to anybody with STEM chops aware of fracking and shale oil applied sciences and contemplating the necessity for power storage. Why isn’t this simply being constructed? And why does it want enterprise capital funding, together with a perennial favourite of mine, Breakthrough Power Ventures?

Let’s begin with this being like electronic mail delivered by means of an online browser, as one thing that’s solely blindingly apparent looking back. When Hotmail arrived on the scene, my response was not “I thought of that years ago!” however “Why didn’t I think of that, it’s so obvious?” Some improvements require individuals working exhausting to mix issues which don’t clearly go collectively in distinctive methods. Given the provenance of the founders, I assume Schmidt was that man.

Given his background in academia, I anticipated to seek out previous papers on this, however the one factor I used to be capable of finding was a 2023 paper from a fracking convention, which was each an odd and not-odd place to current it. Fracking individuals don’t actually care about power storage, however they’re the individuals with the experience to construct this resolution. They’re additionally the individuals to think about the plain — to them — drawbacks.

So what are these drawbacks?

Let’s begin with what’s taking place underground. Fracking deliberately breaks up rock constructions underground with high-pressure water, chemical compounds, and sand. That’s a gradual course of, with the fluid combination transferring at 0.015 to 1.5 meters per second, in keeping with what I used to be capable of finding, significantly slower than the 8-meter per second circulate price of the power storage resolution Quidnet is proposing.

The 100,000 barrels of oil price for the quickest mild oil nicely is a 3rd of the speed Quidnet is aiming for, assuming my evaluation is appropriate. That’s solely about 2.6 meters per second. Gentle oil and water have totally different traits that imply that water erodes supplies quicker than mild oil. There’s a motive water is known as the common solvent.

Keep in mind, it’s fractured shale that’s the goal. Underground shale has a pure porosity of two% to 10%, that’s, the quantity of water it will possibly maintain, whereas fractured shale goes as much as about 20%, much like sandstone or limestone. An 8-meter per second circulate of water by means of these fractured shale would trigger extra fracturing, inflicting shale to grind in opposition to itself, and be erosive because of the mechanical and chemical nature of fast-paced water. Repeating that circulate twice a day, each day charging and discharge, would in all probability flip lots of or hundreds of cubic meters of the underground fractured shale into sand every single day. That sand would in flip enhance the underground erosion due to the grit.

This power storage resolution would quickly flip porous shale into sand. Keep in mind one of many tunneling and drilling challenges, unconsolidated sediments? That’s what sand is in underground pockets, one of many issues that causes underground work to fail. Fracking and shale oil processes run rather more slowly and add sand and chemical compounds to speed up the method, however they solely do it as soon as per quantity of underground area. They break it up, they don’t dissolve it. Pushing 312,000 barrels of water by means of fractured shale pores twice each day would dissolve them pretty rapidly.

When a quantity of fractured shale turns into sand, the power of that quantity to carry water will increase considerably, from about 20% porosity to about 40% porosity.

Which means that the identical quantity of water pumped into the identical underground void full of sand won’t remotely refill the pores. Quidnet must double the quantity of water underground to realize the identical pressures. Strain administration is an enormous deal within the oil and fuel business, the place they work exhausting to keep away from sand manufacturing, compaction, and subsidence, per the SPE Petroleum Engineering Handbook.

That sand received’t simply keep underground both. Because the 29-kilometer per hour jet of water goes again up the pipe, by means of the turbine and into the above floor reservoir, quite a lot of that sand will go along with it.

Because the sand empties out, that underground void turns into unstable. The collapse of a 250,000-cubic-meter cavern 1000 meters beneath the floor would doubtless end in important subsidence and potential sinkhole formation, inflicting harm to constructions and altering groundwater circulate. The seismic occasion induced by such a collapse would doubtless be of small magnitude, estimated round 0.9 to 2.5 utilizing formulation derived from mining-induced seismicity research, relying on the particular situations. Whereas this is able to usually not be a big earthquake, it may nonetheless be felt domestically and trigger minor harm. That’s not going to make the neighbors completely satisfied and is what causes fracking- and shale oil-induced tremors.

I assume that they are going to be aiming the generators to be round 60 revolutions per minute to match grid frequency, so that they’ll be larger than the 30-centimeter diameter pipe. The water will circulate into a much bigger diameter enclosure on the prime earlier than going by means of the turbine, slowing down a bit. The sand will construct up on this chamber fairly rapidly. There are answers for this, however it does imply in all probability each day elimination of sand and subsequent disposal of it. This isn’t sufficient sand of excessive sufficient high quality that it will likely be a salable useful resource.

Shale sand is mostly unsuitable to be used as a proppant in fracking because of its lack of energy and sturdiness, because it tends to interrupt down beneath excessive strain. Moreover, proppants require a excessive diploma of dimension and form uniformity to take care of constant permeability in fractures, which shale sand usually lacks. Standard proppants like silica sand, ceramic, or resin-coated sand are most well-liked as a result of they’re extra sturdy and have the mandatory uniformity to be efficient in hydraulic fracturing operations.

Shale sand is often not appropriate for seashore use because of its softer composition, which makes it liable to breaking down, and its angular, much less uniform grain dimension. Moreover, shale sand is commonly grey, brown, or black, influenced by natural materials and iron oxides, which will not be as aesthetically pleasing because the extra uniform and sturdy quartz sand generally discovered on seashores.

Count on huge piles of grey, ugly, and dusty shale sand to build up.

The generators received’t like this both. Accelerated degradation of hydro generators with sand is a nicely understood drawback in hydroelectric options. The angular and abrasive nature of shale particles would trigger important put on and tear on turbine parts, together with blades and bearings. With the very huge generators in very huge dams, the general erosive affect received’t be practically as dangerous as with the a lot smaller generators within the Quidnet resolution. Generators in all probability wouldn’t final greater than a 12 months or two earlier than they noticed important degradation of efficiency and require substitute. Is there an answer for this? Sure, a much bigger void behind the turbine on the finish of the pipe in order that extra sand can precipitate out earlier than water goes by means of the turbine. Extra expense, extra work to take away sand from a sealed, excessive strain chamber. Even then, plenty of the finer grit shall be flowing by means of the generators.

After which there’s the floor reservoir, that massive pool of water. Effectively, it could flip into an enormous pool of sand fairly rapidly. Even when the storage potential didn’t disappear, the reservoir’s capability to carry water could be diminished each day, so power storage would disappear too. A number of dredging required to empty the sand out, however keep in mind, it’s in all probability coated, so you possibly can’t drive a backhoe in and empty it out. That in all probability means one other system for sluicing water by means of the reservoir when it’s largely empty to get the sand out. Simpler than getting sand out of the seal, high-pressure chamber on the prime of the pipe, however nonetheless.

Not precisely the identical as transport containers of batteries that simply sit there, or an enormous pumped hydro resolution with out all the sand.

Quidnet seems to say that considered one of their amenities would final 40 years in operation. This jogs my memory of the large drawback within the USA’s shale oil and fracking business. The claimed lifetimes of fracking fuel and shale oil wells initially projected by many corporations have been usually round 20 to 40 years. These projections have been based mostly on optimistic fashions of nicely productiveness and decline charges. Nevertheless, precise expertise has proven that the productiveness of those wells tends to say no a lot quicker than initially anticipated. In observe, many fracking wells expertise important declines in manufacturing throughout the first few years. Some business stories and research point out that shale oil wells, for instance, can see a decline price of about 70-90% within the first three years.

I don’t imagine Quidnet’s 40-year lifespan projection, in different phrases. The tools shall be challenged by grit and the underground fracture zone will get an increasing number of fractured, turning into sand, and all the system will cease working. My projection of the fee per kWh assumed excessive sturdiness of the reversible pumps with out large quantities of grit, so was flawed. My projection assumed a 20-year amortization. With turbine blade replacements each 2 years and a 10-year lifespan, the fee per kWh shoots as much as $0.13 to $0.15 per kWh, far out of competitiveness with alternate options.

This led me to ask one other apparent query: will we, by any probability, mine underground rocks deposits for sand utilizing high-pressure water? Sure, everywhere in the world. In states like Wisconsin and Minnesota, hydraulic mining is used to extract silica sand from sandstone deposits, which is then used within the fracking course of. In Russia, hydraulic mining is used within the extraction of sure minerals, together with gold and diamonds, from sandy formations in distant areas. It’s an previous know-how, utilized in California throughout the Gold Rush.

Are the underground issues nicely understood within the fracking business and thoroughly averted? Sure, in reviewing a examine out of China on fracking, quite a lot of time is spent attempting to keep away from disturbing shale that’s been fracked, as a result of it slips straightforward and crimps pipes. Fracking engineers spend quite a lot of effort and time not doing what Quidnet proposes to do each day.

It raises one other query. Why didn’t their earlier, smaller check websites discover this drawback? They’d a number of, apparently, presumably on the 100 kW scale or some small a number of. All of their larger pilots are nonetheless in growth, it appears, and never in operations. One of many truisms of bodily world prototyping is that it’s important to get to quarter-scale earlier than the bodily realities are uncovered. That’s quarter-scale in all dimensions. My assumption is that their smaller pilots proved the facility and mechanics, weren’t large enough to grind the subterranean shale formations collectively, weren’t large enough to re-fracture the rocks, weren’t excessive strain sufficient, didn’t have excessive velocity water flows and didn’t run lengthy sufficient for the erosion cascade to begin. Extra power, extra rock displacement, extra grinding, extra velocity, and extra erosion would have been picked up in quarter-scale assessments. I assume that the larger pilots that they’re present process, if cycled each day for a number of months or a 12 months, will expose this drawback. Maybe they know it and have carried out the engineering assessments to low cost it. We’ll discover out. Or not. They might sink quietly and with out fanfare.

This all raises a number of extra questions. Didn’t anybody ask a fracking geologist their opinion on repeated strain modifications and excessive charges of water circulate by means of underground shale formations at any level throughout the 11 years since Quidnet’s basis? Didn’t anybody speak to subterranean sand miners about what was going to occur? Didn’t the enterprise capitalists within the enterprise spherical and Sequence B spherical get any technical due diligence carried out on their behalf for his or her roughly $18 million? Didn’t ARPA-E ask any of their geologists to evaluate the thought for his or her $10 million grant? Didn’t anybody ask what was going to occur to the generators? Apparently the reply to all of these questions is not any, or at the very least the founders spun an excellent story if requested.

One of many challenges with enterprise capitalists is that they usually put money into the crew greater than within the know-how. That is for a small handful of causes. Enterprise capitalists hardly ever have STEM abilities and much more hardly ever have STEM abilities which might be deep within the fields that they put money into. They do contemplate themselves glorious judges of individuals and enterprise fashions, and so will have a tendency to guage the factor that they’ll see and perceive, not the factor that they don’t perceive.

That is Kahneman and Tversky’s substitution heuristic. This bias happens when people are confronted with a posh drawback or query and, as a substitute of tackling the advanced situation instantly, they substitute it with a less complicated, associated drawback that they’ll resolve extra simply. Can’t perceive the science or don’t have time? No drawback, do the crew appear competent, pushed, and versatile? Do I just like the income projections?

That’s a elementary part of Oren Klaff’s strategy to pitching something: make it straightforward for the potential investor to love issues that they perceive a few proposal, and maintain all of the exhausting stuff in a single field that’s minimized. I’m imagining Klaff’s pitch in my head.

It’s similar to fracking, which we do on a regular basis! We’ll put these fracking engineers to work on inexperienced stuff! Have a look at this crew! Have a look at these income alternatives!

Betting on groups and income projections works much more in software program startups than in exhausting tech startups. Software program startups can get to minimal viable product simply and pivot simply, because of the malleability of code. Laborious tech can’t do both, which is why it’s extra dangerous and extra technical due diligence ought to be carried out.

It’s much less clear why ARPA-E gave them $10 million, however ARPA-E is the governmental equal of a enterprise capitalist, spending cash on issues with low likelihoods of viability and a hope that troublesome technical issues could be resolved. And it’s governmental cash, so topic to quite a lot of different challenges. The $504 million, low-interest mortgage to a gaggle that’s pretending that they’re going to be changing a coal plant in Utah with a hydrogen electrical technology facility leveraged a set of these challenges.

It’s very clear why Quidnet has been welcomed with open arms in Texas and Alberta. They’re determined to have an answer which they’ve all of the experience to execute on and determined to have one thing that guarantees to reuse present wells which might be cluttering up the panorama. All these drilling assets who’re standing idle as a result of quite a lot of exploration has ended could be put to work with nearly no retraining. Fracking and shale oil can solely sop up so lots of these roughnecks.

Quidnet has tended to make quite a lot of statements about their resolution being higher than conventional pumped hydro. One of many remarks, quite common to storage entrepreneurs attempting to distinguish their resolution from pumped hydro, is that there isn’t sufficient useful resource availability of excellent websites for it. Above is a screenshot from the ANU’s greenfield pumped hydro atlas of North America annotated with all the areas the place two reservoirs may very well be relocated shut to at least one one other with 400 or extra meters of head top which might be near transmission, off of protected land and off of waterways. Their examine exhibits that there’s 200 occasions the useful resource capability because the United State’s total requirement for all energy and power storage. One pair of one-kilometer-square reservoirs with a gigaliter of water at 500 meters would supply a GWh of storage. Need extra? Make the reservoirs a bit larger and deeper, which is simple. And for those who say “But what about the Great Plains?” I ask the straightforward query about whether or not they’ve ever heard of transmission.

One of many issues I love to do is ask, “What is China succeeding at doing at scale for decarbonization?” I’ve carried out that yearly or two about power, discovering China is constructing vastly extra renewables than nuclear. I’ve carried out that for floor transportation, discovering that China has about 1.2 million electrical vans and buses, and maybe 10,000 gasoline cell automobiles. And for grid storage, China has 19 GW of energy capability in manufacturing, have an additional 89 GW of energy capability beneath development and one other 276 GW deliberate. That’s in all probability double-digit TWh of power storage, most anticipated to be began earlier than 2030.

I’m presently engaged in two totally different pumped hydro offers, helping one developer to evaluate the potential for a brownfield website and helping an funding fund contemplating buying a stake in an present website. Each are GW-scale, 100 occasions the largest potential Quidnet nicely, and have lifespans of over a century with comparatively little upkeep. Pumped hydro amenities are run in lights-out mode everywhere in the world and are a part of black begin amenities for the grid.  I spend quite a lot of time taking a look at batteries as nicely, and one of many efforts is assessing whether or not pumped hydro will nonetheless have worth with radical battery worth reductions. That’s an excellent query to reply. Lithium-ion grid storage already lasts 15 years with twice a day cycles, and as famous, Quidnet’s amenities are unlikely to final 10. Quidnet doesn’t actually compete, for my part.

One final query. Why don’t the Quidnet principals understand this? In any case, they’ve been working on this for 11 years. There are a number of doable solutions. The primary is that they fully do and don’t care, which I don’t suppose is the case. The second is that they do and suppose it’s manageable with engineering compromises. The apparent one is to radically broaden the underground fracking zone in order that there was an unlimited quantity of water underground and a really restricted quantity injected and resurfaced. This might, if an excessive sufficient ratio was maintained, severely mitigate the considerations. It might in all probability require multiples of the quantity of water required for regular pumped hydro, so that they in all probability wouldn’t need to discuss it. And it could in all probability change spacing necessities to keep away from frac-hit to at least one to 2 kilometers and destroy the economics. Mainly, the compromises prone to make this lengthy lasting would make it non-viable economically, and the agency’s founders have invested quite a lot of mental, emotional, and standing capital in it being viable. It’s exhausting to provide that up. And, in fact, there may be the likelihood that they’ve investigated this pretty apparent — to power sorts with at the very least one-night stand intimacy with fracking or shale oil — problem totally and suppose that they’ve mitigated it. They could even be proper. Perhaps it’s simply me.

Keep in mind at the start of this after I stated that it was uncommon {that a} novel power storage resolution crossed my display screen and even rarer when a fast look wouldn’t spotlight the challenges? It took me about an hour to get to repeated strain modifications and transferring water inflicting an increasing number of fracturing and erosion of the subterranean cavity. It took me one other two or three hours to do the serviette math, appropriate a few of my errors, and arrive at a conclusion. However the primary drawback was fairly apparent, and could be much more apparent to anybody that did fracking or shale oil.

I feel Quidnet simply isn’t going to ship on its guarantees. I may very well be flawed in fact, and if that’s the case, I’ll fortunately admit it. Identical to Quidnet’s founders, I’m not a geologist, fracking engineer, or sand miner. However for now, I received’t be recommending their resolution to storage builders or funding funds that ask me about storage usually or Quidnet in particular. And after I replace my grid storage projection by means of 2060, doubtless later this 12 months, Quidnet received’t be talked about, however shall be within the also-ran class, competing for the skinny slice that isn’t coated by pumped hydro, redox circulate batteries, and cell-based batteries.