Thoughts ? Renewable energy that goes to waste overnight....

[mnymgr1]

still think this company is a possibility, southern illinois based.
I applied for cfo position a long while ago before they were bought out by an Indian firm i believe.
Haven't kept up with them though.
Would think that their foam technology, coupled with a washed lithium design that I read about earlier today, would yield some startling acreage numbers for a regular sized battery. Hope they've thought all that through.

This company was owned by Caterpillar when it was started up.

http://fireflyenergy.com/

[Rik Bitter]

still think this company is a possibility, southern illinois based.
I applied for cfo position a long while ago before they were bought out by an Indian firm i believe.
Haven't kept up with them though.
Would think that their foam technology, coupled with a washed lithium design that I read about earlier today, would yield some startling acreage numbers for a regular sized battery. Hope they've thought all that through.

This company was owned by Caterpillar when it was started up.

http://fireflyenergy.com/

Lead Acid batteries are cheap and reliable with a centuries old track record. You're going to have a tough time selling vaporware like this to someone when they need to keep their forklifts operating 3 shifts a day or reliable start their Cat D10 on a cold winter morning. It looks like it may have some applications where weight is at a huge premium but is there a weight/performance advantage over Lithium Ion which also has a proven track record?

[wjruth]

Hydroelectric pumping stations seem like a good match for taking on extra energy and then releasing it during need.

https://thinkprogress.org/the-inside-st ... 84e81283c/

[everything]

A few companies are doing this now, Amazon and Walmart are on board, primarily forklifts so far. I think for them it's the productivity of the energy source as batteries do slow down the lift when depleting, question is when do you swap a battery pack, if you do it earlier the battery gets a memory and your swapping battery packs, more often, etc. Here is just one company. Their is always a pro and con to all technologies, it's about leveraging technology, developing it properly, using it properly, etc.
http://www.plugpower.com/products/gendrive/


Lead Acid batteries are cheap and reliable with a centuries old track record. You're going to have a tough time selling vaporware like this to someone when they need to keep their forklifts operating 3 shifts a day or reliable start their Cat D10 on a cold winter morning. It looks like it may have some applications where weight is at a huge premium but is there a weight/performance advantage over Lithium Ion which also has a proven track record?[/quote]

[everything]

I to have thought about a grid running from east to west as the sun is always shining somewhere. Japan scientists are like .. we will cover the moon with solar panels, ahh, ok. Storing energy in thermal units is pretty common in some places. It's more or less a big hot water heater with heat coil packs installed that connect to hopefully, your hybrid power generating system, wind, solar, hydro, this then heats your home overnight, and you use batteries for power. During the day when your making a ton of power, that's when you try to run your laundry, do some extra cooking, etc. It's not ideal for people who are used to 24/7 constant electricity.

The sun gives off an incredible amount of power, but how to harness it in a stationary way that provides enough to get through the night is another thing. How to harness enough to turn off the carbon factories.

Fusion cannot get here fast enough, all our current wind, solar farms, etc. are just temporary, they are not bring enough power to the masses, they supplement. They have a life cycle, an estimate life, it's all going to have to be torn down, junked some day, by then better solutions will have come along too. Germany did have a day or two of carbon neutral last year, that's still not much. The government had to subsidize that system, only one or two small countries are able to declare carbon neutral.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/16/fu ... ntarctica/

[BotanicusRex]

When you recharge battery cells with energy generated by oil/gas/nuclear plants, can you really consider that 'renewable'?

Solar/wind/wave/tide/hydro/thermal renewables are definitely the future, but surely we can get smarter when using up our carbon fuels.

Example... When you see those night time satellite images of the U.S. with all the bright dots where the cities are located, one of the brightest dots is not a city. It is the Williston ND area where thousands of wells are flaring off natural gas in the huge Bakken field. This is gas that is 'uneconomical' to capture according to the O&G companies. Perhaps if we cut back on some of the ridiculously extensive and expensive permitting requirements to extract crude, we could require that this wasted NG energy be piped and collected as a condition of licensing to drill.

[Brick's]

My question is Hygen worth the risk of a small stake? How's the business plan? Maybe if Hygen was based out of The 'Cuse, NY I might do it on the just to "support local business" principle.

But hydrogen pumps at every 40th corner? We just got our first natural gas pump for the wall mart trucks in the area just down the street from my house though it looks like we may have something close to a dozen natural gas stations or less in the greater 'Cuse area.

I would expect to see more a lot more coal to gasoline and gas to gasoline refineries to take up the decline in gasoline production from crude, prior to hydrogen taking off. I may be wrong, but I only see this as a small niche for some time and not profitable for even longer. A feel good investment at best unless it gets mandated like gasohol. Then anything is possible.

I got in on Startengine's recent crowd fund for their self, so that is my comparison. My thought was why not get a piece of the action of the company that gets a piece of the action from every dollar they crowd fund for companies like Hygen?