We definitely need energy storage for the energy transition and the TU Darmstadt has come up with a pretty crazy idea. They have the idea of converting all coal-fired power plants here in Germany into energy storage facilities and want to use iron for storage. This is because you can store quite a lot of energy in iron through chemical processes and then release it again at different locations and times. The whole thing is also supposed to be environmentally friendly.

This video was created by my editorial team. Responsible from the editorial team: Carlotta Mevert, Johannes Polotzek, Jacob Beautemps; Editing: Aron Kamenz, Sören Rensch, Neo Sanjuan Thiele

Chapter
00:00 The iron storage idea
00:44 Clean Circles
01:40 How the technology works
04:29 Why the technology is so exciting
05:37 Round-trip efficiency
07:10 However…
08:33 Conclusion on the iron storage idea

Sources
(1) https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/schwerpunkte/klimaschutz/faq-energiewende-2067498
(2) https://www.tu-darmstadt.de/clean-circles/about_cc/research_summary_cc/index.de.jsp
(3) https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/alles-wissen/strom-in-eisen-speichern/hr-fernsehen/MjVkNjM2OWMtZWQ4ZS00OGFhLTllZWYtMWUzYWEzNGVlMzAx
(4) https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/ZWNkOTQzMGYtZjQ1Yy00Zjk0LWFmMDYtMTgxYjI4MWZjZGE3
(5) https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/briefing/good-news-batterie-rost-zdfheute-update-100.html
(6) https://www.tu-darmstadt.de/media-einrichtungen/cleancircles/transfer_outreach/Heisses_Eisen_fuer_das_Klima_FAZ_2022-11-29.pdf
(7) https://hessenbox.tu-darmstadt.de/getlink/fiCDv8z7Dhw4N6YNezyqaAnd/2311_CleanCircles_V1.1_DE.pdf
(8) Talk with Dr. Marius Schmidt https://www.rsm.tu-darmstadt.de/home_rsm/members_rsm/members_details_130306.de.jsp
(9) https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/presse-und-medien/presseinformationen/2022/fraunhofer-ise-kurzstudie-batteriegrossspeicher-an-ehemaligen-kraftwerksstandorten-sinnvoll.html
(10) https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/DE/Downloads/S-T/stromspeicherstrategie-231208.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2
(11) https://www.tu-darmstadt.de/clean-circles/about_cc/areas_cc/reduction_cc/index.de.jsp
(12) https://www.tu-darmstadt.de/clean-circles/about_cc/areas_cc/oxidation_cc/index.de.jsp
(13) https://www.est.tu-darmstadt.de/forschung_est/projekte_est/aktuell/clean_circles.de.jsp

11 Comments

  1. may ‚the major catch‘ as an alternative translation for das große aber? keine ahnung, bin deutscher and my english is not the yellow from the egg 😂

  2. I doubt that a roundtrip efficiency of just 30 % is good enough for large scale application of this technology. I think we will see other storage solutions like thermal batteries or redux-flow batteries before we will see a lot of iron cyclers.

  3. Ein paar weitere Vorschläge:

    – The critical/substantial/significant obstacle
    – The key hurdle
    – The significant caveat

    Aber "the big but" hätte natürlich auch was, dazu noch Nicki Minaj eingeblendet…

  4. I really think you should do some sort of professional coaching on your pronunciation. It's okay to have an accent, but your emphasis and rhythm sometimes make it hard to understand what you say.

  5. The obvious problem with this is efficiency. Whenever you use electricity for creating chemical energy and do not use a fuel cell for creating electricity but heat and a turbine then you have already lost.

    The main advantages seem to be the lower constructions costs if you have a plant including a turbine and a big connection to the electricity grid (the storage containers for liquid hydrogen may be expensive, too). The video mentioned the easier transport but I don't see why you would want to transport the iron.

    Combined heat and power sounds interesting but it seems that very few coal power plants in Germany do this. Probably those are the newer ones which would probably be shutdown last. How expensive the connection to the district heating grid would be probably differs a lot from location to location.

    I am not very familiar with chemistry. It would be interesting whether it could be possible (and economically feasible) to create a kind of fuel cell for iron. I guess if that was an obvious option then those two institutes of technology would have mentioned it, though.

  6. GER
    Hi Jakob, nur 2 kurze Ideen:
    Ich finde das "in germany we say: los geht's" irgendwie unpassend, weil es ja eigentlich nur um deinen "Slogan" / deine Starting Line geht und "in germany we say" ist in meinem Wortgefühl einfach zu generallisiert. Du könntest doch einfach "los geht's" mit "let's go" als Untertitel sagen.
    Beim großen ABER ist mir eingefallen, dass im Englischen gerne die Pro's und Con's aufgelistet werden. Evtl wäre eine Option für dich, dass du sagst "lets have a look at the con's / the down side" , oder sogar das große ABER auf Deutsch aber mit dem entsprechenden englischen Untertitel.

    ENG
    Hi Jakob, just 2 quick ideas:
    I think "in Germany we say: let's go" is somehow inappropriate because it's actually just about your "slogan" / your starting line and "in Germany we say" is just too generalized in my opinion. You could just say "let's go" with "let's go" as a subtitle.
    When I said the big BUT, I remembered that in English the pros and cons are often listed. Perhaps an option for you would be to say "let's have a look at the con's / the down side" or even the big BUT in German but with the corresponding English subtitle.

    Beste Grüße 😀

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