Interesting Energy Stuff

[jadnashua]

Yeah, that might work...you'll have to wait for them to commercialize the products...they're still experimental.

[jadnashua]

There's been a huge amount of research on battery technology. There's also been a HUGE increase in the costs of lithium in the last even one year, and a much larger increase in the last decade...it's scary how expensive the stuff has gotten. So, the pressure to find some alternatives has been high, as has been progress on mining what is known to be out there. The research has found some new candidates, but each has its various high and low points. A company spun off from an MIT research project is likely to have some products on the market in the next few years that solve some issues in safety, discharge rate, rechargeability, and longevity. There's still lots of possibilities out there, but this one is interesting. https://youtu.be/LFxc-_AeQew

[jadnashua]

https://www.vigtechnologies.com/our-tvig

The better versions of this now can have up to about R-15, which is 3-5x better than even a triple paned window.

It easily meets and exceeds the energy star recommendations for buildings in the northern parts of the US. Now, getting it into the consumer market will happen, but it's making some headway in commercial operations.

This article implies that to get the price down, and promote wider acceptance, will take building factories in the USA as all of the commercially available panels today are overseas. They think it will be 2026 or so when that happens...would be nice if it were sooner. One additional benefit is that they block a huge amount of sound energy as sound needs air or a solid to move across the two panels from outside to inside.
https://www.glassmagazine.com/articl...of-performance

[makethatkerdistick]

Jim, I love you polymathy. However, with the latest graphic you posted, you are being fooled by the manufacturer of that vacuum panel. Center-of-glass is somewhat of a marketing gimmick, in particular if a certain manufacturer cannot complement their IGUs with a high quality frame system to match. That is actually where it gets really, really hard.

Look at actual center-of-glass values of high quality triple and quadruple panes:
https://thinkalpen.com/wp-content/up...2021-03-v5.pdf

A good triple will be at least R8. A good quad pane can get all the way up to R13.5. COG, that is.
What you posted, willfully draws on low quality triple panes or, more likely, confuses center of glass with total unit performance.

Yes, those vacuum panels will be a bit more efficient than quality triple and quad IGUs, but when you look at the entire unit, including frame, the difference is much, much smaller and probably doesn’t warrant the hefty price tag the vacuum panel might carry.

I can see potential drawbacks to either, gas filled and vacuum design. Both have seals that can break. It all depends on field performance and longevity to be a practical investment.

Disclaimer: I own some Alpen Zenith series 6 windows, and they’re pretty awesome in the field (two years in).

[jadnashua]

One of the manufacturers claims a 40-year life on the vacuum seal.

A lot of the overall efficiency depends on thermal break techniques utilized in the frame, plus, the VIG panel will be much thinner, if that's of any interest.

All of the current suppliers are outside of the country, so shipping is a major cost, likely 30-40% that could be reduced by local production.

It's still evolving. A VIG panel will be less susceptible to distortions as pressure changes occur. Light transmission through 3-4 panes of glass will be more of an issue versus two, and at likely a minimum of 1/4" thick with tempered glass, potentially an easy replacement for existing single-pane installations.

Things will continue to evolve, so where this will go is still an open book.

[makethatkerdistick]

Found this review here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lp38Gc8RgzQ

I don’t like the visual appearance of the support columns. I really don’t like the adhesive tape between panes that is supposed to keep the vacuum. I thought those panes were permanently fused together, but they aren’t. If 40 years of seal strength is accurate, though, that would be phenomenal.

If it works long term and is somewhat not too pricey, I would try it for sure. If it is financially competitive, it will take hold. If not, it will save you pennies a year over a high quality conventional triple pane, not offsetting its initial cost.

Yes, you could pop such glass into an existing frame. However, this will be a severe thermal mismatch, unless you have a thermally engineered frame that matches the glass’ performance. If not, the combination of inferior frame and high-end glass is somewhat a waste of money and energy efficiency potential. That is particularly true about operating window frames.

You are right about four panes filtering more light than two, but it isn’t as bad as it seems. What will reduce light much more is the number and level of low-E coatings.

You know the approximate pricing for, say a 3x5 ft IGU, Jim? Just curious.

[jadnashua]

You know the approximate pricing for, say a 3x5 ft IGU, Jim?

Since it's all being imported, and right now prioritizing commercial applications (like reglazing a skyscraper), I haven't looked. The article implied 30-40% cost hit primarily because of the shipping costs from overseas...most efficient for a container full of the stuff. Moving an individual panel would be expensive and risky!

[jadnashua]

A Chinese researcher has discovered a better anode for a lithium ion battery that claims to improve the capacity by an order of magnitude, I.e. 10x. If this proves true and capable of mass production, would be a major breakthrough. The currently used anode material is graphite. The new one is primarily silicon. Both are cheap and readily available. The hassle with all previous attempts use silicon is that it swells when under load from the heat and other factors. Combining it with another material seems to have overcome that issue opening up the improved capacity.

There is a huge amount of research going on to develop reliable, high capacity batteries including those at NASA. Could be very useful. To work well, we need reliable, cost effective storage for renewable energy like wind and solar and transportation. Progress is being made.

[jadnashua]

One thing that is needed to become more reliant on green energy, is a way to buffer the power when what's available exceeds the current needs and fill in when it's not. There are various ways to do that storage, and one that is starting to be used is large scale battery storage. Combine that demand with increasing sales of PHEV and BEV vehicles, and there's a huge stress on the supply of lithium. Now, there are various battery tech candidates that may end up viable without the use of lithium, in the short term, lithium is likely to be the method of choice. This means we need to expand our production of that element. The USA has a fair supply both in hard rock, but also brine. There are three plants in operation in the USA. The common method of extraction is with brines, and evaporation ponds. This takes up a lot of surface area, and uses a large amount of water where water is often a precious commodity in itself. Three companies are working on an extraction process that uses various direct extraction methods. A couple of prototype plants are in operation, but full-scale ones will start to come online starting next year and the year after, potentially expanding production by a factor of 10. The good news is that we have at least three places with some significant brine sources, which will make us less susceptible to foreign sources (China is a big player in this market). Lots of big players are backing this which includes GM, BMW, and others. The infrastructure bill passed last year is also funding some development. These newer methods are much cleaner, using far less water and other toxic waste products. Now, if they scale as expected, this can help keep the prices and supply more stable.

[jadnashua]

Back during the first energy crisis, we decided to force gasoline suppliers to add some locally sourced energy to the fuel...ethanol. This produced some nasty startup learning curves while we figured out how to keep the ethanol from eating up seals, and corroding various things. While it is an easier way to boost the octane level, per volume, it costs more than gasoline and has less energy content, meaning that a gallon of E10 has less energy in it than a gallon of pure gasoline. That issue aside, there has also been a lot of discussion about whether that is still a good idea. Here are a few thoughts from a recent Wired magazine article (originally in the Washington Examiner):
Crunching all the numbers, here’s what the scientists found: America dedicates 5% of U.S. farmland in order to reduce national greenhouse gas emissions by about 1%. At the same time, biofuels deplete water supplies at 36 times the rate (depletion per energy produced) of fossil fuels, and they poison water with nitrogen runoff at five times the rate.

Other recent studies have concluded that ethanol doesn’t actually help mitigate climate change because ethanol use “caused enough domestic land use change emissions such that the carbon intensity of corn ethanol produced under the RFS is no less than gasoline and likely at least 24% higher.”

Personally, I have an issue with using all that water, fertilizer, and potential food sources that the world could use for fuel that costs more and is less efficient than pure gasoline. But, corporate farms have huge pull with politicians, so removing that requirement is highly unlikely. They want to increase the percentage so they can make more money.

The USA used to have about 25% of the world's wheat market...it's now down to 13%. A bunch of the land once used for wheat is now being used for corn production for fuel rather than food. Here's an interesting viewpoint on why that's not a great idea for the earth. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...-putin/627053/

[cx]

It was a terrible idea to begin with. It's a worse idea now. For all the reasons you cited and more.

[jadnashua]

Porsche claims they have battery tech that should allow them to get over 800-miles of range on an upcoming EV. And, they expect 80% of their sales by 2030 will be EVs.

There have been a bunch of discoveries that should improve battery life, capacity, and charging rate that will start to show up in the market over the next few years. It takes time to evaluate them and figure out how to produce them in volume reliably.

[jadnashua]

A battery tech company in CA has been working on improving LiON batteries now for about 10-years, and their latest item is going into production, to be installed on a new MB model in about a year. It uses a silicon anode versus a graphite one that is supposed to get improved power density and faster charging rates. They've been trying to overcome a longevity hit and appear to have finally done it compared to LiON.

Lots of evolution going on, to include some additional chemistries that don't rely as much on rare earth metals like sodium that is widely available and fairly inexpensive in comparison.

[jadnashua]

A company in Singapore expects to be providing their new battery technology products next year-a graphene niobium design. The interesting features are the low internal resistance because of the conductivity of the graphene and the relative abundance of the niobium. Plus, they claim a 10,000 recharge cycle retention of at least 80% capacity and triple the potential recharge rate over LiOn existing batteries.

Lots of exciting discoveries on battery technology. Now if any of the prove valid, and mass producible, things will look up for storage and transportation.

[cx]

I Google up that Niobium, Jim, and I find phrases such as "limited supply," and "difficult to extract." And there's the negative environmental impact of mining it, just as there is to other such materials. Not as "green" as the Green Brigade would have us believe.

And while better battery technology could definitely help with the storage issues, it's not gonna do a thing for the transportation problems.

Better electrical storage is going to be a good thing in the longer term, but I'm not at all sure this is one of the major steps in that direction. Storage in the form of fossil fuels is still a far more useful method.