On Thu, 3 Apr 2025 22:59:12 +0100, Timothy Collinson wrote:

>Back in the same issue of Ingenia (#102) mentioned on Tuesday
>https://www.ingenia.org.uk/issues
>an article (pp.20-24) on thermal energy storage was interesting in offering
>alternatives to the more standard battery storage for electricity.  In a
>universe of fusion power, this is hardly likely to be widespread I'd have
>thought,  but may be useful for niche applications, lower tech worlds or to
>give a more alien feel.
>
>The article mentions there are three options:

{\begin gearhead mode}

A fourth option - which may or may not be subsumed by the 'thermochemical'
idea - might be a generalized reversible reaction, where the reaction in
one direction is endothermic and in the other is exothermic, without it
necessarily being a 'just add/remove water' reaction. To store heat/energy,
you use the endothermic reaction; when you need energy, the exothermic.

The ultimate problem with any energy _storage_ mechanism is that it's not
going to be 100% efficient - there's always going to be some loss (as in it
costs more energy in some way to store the energy than you will get out of
it later). That's OK for energy _storage_ (which allows you to have the
energy convenient when and where you need to use it), but you'll need
primary energy _production_ somewhere along the line (which allows you to
have the energy to store in the first place).

{\end gearhead mode}

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