And for the third time, just because the individual components are used in different applications doesn't mean it's going to be cheap or scalable to use them in energy storage. The cost history of existing cryogenic storage plants indicates that no, it's not effective for energy storage it's 4-5x more expensive.
We build plenty of flywheels. Does that mean energy storage based on giant flywheels is guaranteed to be efficient at scale because we have experience using flywheels in other applications like automobiles?
You're changing the subject now. You were criticizing these for lack of maturity, not for being uneconomical. My point is that your criticism that they aren't mature is misplaced, since the component technologies are all well established. Of course, it could be LN2 or LAir storage doesn't compete.
No, my criticism of the lack of maturity of cryogenic air energy storage is still correct. The fact that it shares some components with air separation does not change the fact that cryogenic air storage is not mature technology.
Similar deal with ammonia energy storage. We've got plenty of experience with synthesizing ammonia for fertilizer production. We've got very little, if any, experience using synthesized ammonia as a form of energy storage.
It was you, not I, that started this tangent about air separation in this comment [1]. I was, from the beginning, talking about energy storage systems.
I.e., you cannot identify any single stage of any of these extremely familiar industrial processes that would make it unsuitable for energy storage or retrieval, so instead invoke ghosts of fear and doubt.
Do you imagine the ammonia knows why it is being synthesized, and would balk at being synthesized and tanked for energy storage or fuel? Do you imagine it will object to being burnt in a combined-cycle turbine?
Why are you all of a suddenly replying to a super-deep thread? Is pfdietz your alt? Regardless if you're asking about the technical shortcomings of ammonia and cryogenic air storage I'm happy the enlighten:
Ammonia storage would first require a source of hydrogen. Currently almost all hydrogen is produced through steam reformation which releases carbon dioxide. So this has to be replaced with electrolysis, which is more energy intensive and has issues with corrosion of electrodes. Then there's the issue of heating up this hydrogen and nitrogen to ~400C and compressing it to fix the nitrogen into ammonia. Currently this is done through combustion of fossil fuels. That too needs to be replaced with an electric source. All these changes drastically increases the cost of producing ammonia over existing processes.
Cryogenic storage is essentially producing liquid nitrogen by refrigerating air, and then hearing the nitrogen to create a pressure gradient to drive a heat engine. Cooling the air is a huge energy sink, and releasing the energy often has to be coupled with a heat source in order transition the liquid nitrogen to a gas. It's actually using the heat gradient of the ambient air and the liquid nitrogen to drive the heat engine, and that ambient air often doesn't have the required energy density to produce more than a few dozen megawatts. Existing prototypes often scavenge waste heat from a fossil fuel power plant. But again, not an option if you plan to eliminate fossil fuels.
We build plenty of flywheels. Does that mean energy storage based on giant flywheels is guaranteed to be efficient at scale because we have experience using flywheels in other applications like automobiles?