In the news last week were two 'T's, Trump in denial over the Paris Climate change Agreement, and Tesla, the Elon Musk giant battery project in South Australia.
Trump is pretending that he can honour his election pledge to the coal miners that he will secure their jobs by continuing to produce their expensive and polluting product, whilst knowing full well that they will be put out of business by home grown shale oil and gas companies in the near future.
Tesla gambling on the wind and sun based energy allowing their battery to iron out the supply difficulties of the Australian energy systems and reduce the price per megawatt.
Back in January 2016 I wrote an article about how energy storage could transform our world, both environmentally and politically. Does it still ring true with the latest developments?
Want a better battery?
Of course you do, think recharging your phone once a week, a
laptop plugged in every month, a car that could drive from London to Manchester
without a two hour wait at Birmingham.
That would explain why companies are investing in ways of
upgrading batteries, but why are Governments around the World pouring hundreds
of millions of pounds into energy storage research? Don’t we need more energy,
not just better ways to hold on to it?
The answer is that a breakthrough in this technology could
be more revolutionary for the World than the invention of the computer or
television. And that could be good for
some governments, and a disaster for others.
Let’s just identify what we mean by energy storage.
Primarily it is any method of collecting electricity, itself generated by any
means, and efficiently converting it into a form that can accessed at will
sometime in the future. Naturally, the cheaper the cost of production the
better, but this is where Renewable fall down as their efficiency is at the
mercy of the weather and, for solar, only during daylight. The cheap and clean potential of Renewables
can only be released by developing
storage solutions.
We are all
consumers
Taking the consumer market view first. The ability to
miniaturise and reduce weight could open the floodgates to new products
presently tethered by cords or hampered by heavyweight batteries. Cordless
drills that lasted all day on a building site, safety torches that could last
two days, communications equipment easily carried in remote places, even a
cordless iron to replace that permanently knotted cable. Electric buses that
ran all day, even lorries with enough power to move heavy loads and true
recoverable energy from ordinary electric cars.
The openings for manufacturers would be on a scale not seen since
electricity itself was discovered.
Imagine a television able to run for a week on batteries
which took only a couple of hours of sunlight to power up. The market for this
throughout Africa alone would be immense, add India, Pakistan and every other
place in the World with sunlight but no hope of infrastructure to bring power
to a community, and the possibilities are immense. Add other products,
computers, cars, X boxes, a myriad of items we take for granted as we plug in
to our many 230 volt sockets at home or work. But, you may ask, how are these
poor communities going to afford to buy these items? The excess stored power
after domestic needs were satisfied would be enough to run businesses,
entertainment and, more likely, sink wells to irrigate the land and produce
crops where none grew before.
Industry & Governments
Using even the
current inefficient methods of storage there are already municipal schemes in
Germany utilising the excess electricity being produced by domestic and
commercial solar and wind generators to feed back into the system during high demand
periods. In contrast, in Scotland some
wind farms have been paid to turn off their output when demand is low. The
situation is inconsistent because current storage methods are still
experimental, the efficiency low and the start up costs high. The major concentration of research is on
heavy duty systems that will allow national power distributors to modulate the
demand spikes that cost so much in extra generator building. This is the area which will bring the most
immediate returns for governments. In the UK the cost of building new nuclear
power stations runs into billions of pounds and with massive questions over
safety and the disposal of waste over centuries to come.
With a 5 to10 fold increase in storage efficiency the
economics change dramatically. Existing wind and solar farms would be able to
work at full capacity feeding the National Grid storage, and both households
and businesses would be able to save enough power inhouse to substantially
reduce demand from the National Grid. Would we then need those expensive
nuclear replacement plants as we fade out the coal fired stations? Would we need to be reliant on Russian gas
imports during the winter?
Green Credentials
The change to clean energy production, even if not for heavy
industry, would complement the dramatic fall in pollution caused by new vehicles,
as long range electric cars climbed out of their niche market and became
mainstream, followed by city buses and local delivery vans. Although most marked for cities in
China and India, here in UK the reduction in cases of respiratory diseases
would be a plus for the NHS.
The Kyoto Protocol in 1992, the Treaty in 1997, the Doha 2nd
Commitment in 2012 and the Paris summit last year, all looked at ways of
spreading the pain of reducing carbon emissions. Unless the last one is any
different each of the previous ones have seen all the gains of the many
countries wiped out by the increases in carbon smoked out by the USA and China.
A dramatic change to Renewables on a
world wide scale, led by consumer demand and economic self interest has the
potential to make such pain sharing unnecessary.
So, we can see that there would be many obvious advantages
to increasing ‘battery storage’, in all its diverse forms, from personal
entertainment to national cost saving.
The dictatorship
of oil
But the explosive effect of such a breakthrough would be in
its geo political consequences. Consider the African continent with its huge
mineral resources, currently a target of the Chinese industry. To avoid
building massive infrastructure to generate power the raw materials are
currently shipped to other parts of the world for refining and conversion into
manufactured products. If some of that work could be retained around the source
of the minerals it would generate opportunities for jobs that would require the
advances in educational opportunities in the area. And the irrigation of land affected by
regular devastating droughts would also raise the bar for international
emergency relief and open the possibilities to move from a subsistence culture
to realising the potential of millions of human beings. Among them could be the
doctor, engineer, mathematician, entrepreneur or scientist, who could provide
one of those great leaps of thought which characterise our advancement of
knowledge. At the very least we could see the elimination of poverty caused by
foreseeable natural events.
Then there are those countries for which the discovery of
power storage on a grand scale would spell potential economic disaster. The oil
rich kingdoms like Saudi Arabia, with a hitherto untouchable feudal regime
based on the same Wahhabism that is the bedrock of Isis beliefs. They have
invested Sovereign funds in many different industries across the globe knowing
that their massive income can buy influence as well as future profits. Breaking
the stranglehold of one of the World’s most troublesome areas, the Middle East,
would transform the balance of power throughout region. Between them, Saudi,
Iran and the United Arab Republics have a ransom 20% of World oil production,
together with some of the worst human rights records, and religious conflicts
that affect all countries. Draining that power by creating alternative energy
sources would see a major political realignment which could encourage change
without armed conflict.
Another big loser would be Russia, currently producing about
13% of the World’s oil, but also a major player in supplying gas to former
Eastern Bloc countries and able to influence their policies by withdrawing
supplies or putting up the price substantially. Russia’s loss of influence in the region could
be of more consequence than the revenue if their ‘customers’ could generate, or
buy surplus electricity from other European states. But, there is great danger
here of the Russian reaction if Nato is seen to be prowling on their doorstep.
There could also be serious consequences for the economies
of smaller countries reliant on oil revenue, such as Nigeria and Venezuela.
There would be a financial downside for the UK, tax revenue
from North Sea Oil, defence industry orders scrapped by the Saudi’s leading to possible unemployment rises.
Conclusion
How much increase in storage capacity would be needed to enable the changes
described? In crude terms, a 5 times increase would mean your mobile would need
charging every five days. An electric car averaged 70 to 80 miles on a full
charge in 2015, not enough to get from London to Birmingham, with a five fold
increase it still wouldn’t quite get you to Edinburgh. A ten fold increase would
get you to Berlin, Geneva or Bordeaux.
When might a breakthrough of this magnitude be made? With
the finance and breadth of primary research being carried out worldwide, a ten
year lead time would not seem out of the question, with another ten to twenty
years to develop the technology on a commercial scale. The World could look a very different place
in our children’s lifetime.
But, have the Saudi’s or the major oil companies invested in
research into power storage with a view to applying patents that could delay
the implementation of any breakthrough’s in the technology?
Whatever the advantages of making the World a cleaner, more
energy equal place, there is no claim it would make it any safer from Man’s
greed, envy, or thirst for power.
Colin Payn
25 January 2016
