[ExI] low cost power storage

[spike at rainier66.com]

Neither of these articles are particularly informative, but Generacs are
often duel fuel: natural gas and Diesel.  Amazon just bought eight
beeeeeelllllion dollars worth of them:

 

https://www.semicone.com/article-537.html

 

https://www.wpr.org/news/generac-deal-amazon-supply-generators-data-centers-
waukesha

 

Dang, that's a lotta generators.

 

I have been thinking about the power challenge ever since it became clear
what data centers were going to do.

 

Since the second fire at Moss Landing (the SECOND!  sheesh) I have been
pondering the energy storage problem.  After paddling around on Elkhorn
Slough adjacent to Moss Landing, I became convinced my scheme wouldn't work
very well: setting up batteries on wheeled platforms which could be
separated and dumped into the slough if they suffer a thermal runaway.  I
now think that wouldn't work: the environmentalists would sue our brains
out.

 

OK, consider that corridor I keep obsessing about, south of Vegas along 95.
There isn't much traffic up thru there, not much development.  The Arizona
gambling crowd would be more likely to take 93, and the California harlot
shoppers more likely to take the interstate or just stay home and get it
free.

 

So that means 95 is mostly. ours.

 

When I was estimating costs last time, I realized I missed something
important which would likely reduce the cost of energy storage dramatically:
we can store energy in used EV lithium batteries.  They lose range a long
time before they are really worn out.  Performance car guys will be eager to
change them out.  Result: batteries with half their serviceable life left.
They don't cost much if they are heading to recycle anyway.

 

Part two: I missed a good way to fireproof the facility.  We could take worn
out old pickup trucks and load the beds with worn out EV batteries.  Then if
a pickup truck bed full of lithium batteries goes into thermal runaway, we
let the truck roll down a slope to burn out harmlessly in the desert.  The
truck doesn't need to run, it only needs to roll.  Worn-out scrap metal
pickups don't cost much and gravity never fails, even when we desperately
need it to.

 

Part three: we can reduce the factors that shorten battery life just by
keeping the batteries indoors.  This can be done with low-cost structures
such as steel arch ag buildings:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/287119570744?_skw=20x60+steel+arch+buildings&itmmet
a=01M3AW954N72MAG9B9GVAQ31GR&hash=item42d9a8f738:g:lXEAAeSwx8pqLGx2&itmprp=e
nc%3AAQALAAABAGfYFPkwiKCW4ZNSs2u11xABnZXzH8v6ivnhwCmAD22vBS6ilQf9oMxI0PdwUOE
FROB59F6%2FdUbo1sulqWAhCODgMUnXyLlHlp7Hk25B%2B90Xj8wfE2gDED%2FEmW%2Bak682Q80
qop0j8DexAJz9eugpA8uSfxF9sCUYCe92kMN6fITCeYdngUxSlah3kL16wm%2F2E1fpnCtd8onGH
UGZ%2B78umxRrl4bb10uz5Rz%2B14PFap5Gn%2FuhkqPXbDlqYR3Wana%2FyY74fzsRf5lZnBhDj
MGICi2wB%2FWKV2k0LI%2BCCMjEXXjHk%2B%2BCo8c90pNjFr7CmDk9kf9l6cmtm7%2FrSi4zH6x
IDew%3D%7Ctkp%3ABFBMwtKk3Jpo

 

Those steel arch buildings don't cost much and don't cost much to assemble.
If a prole were to grade and roll a slope, put a row of these arch buildings
shoulder to shoulder for 6 km, that's a thousand buildings.  Each one can
fit six worn out pickup trucks, three across, two deep, each truck with half
a ton of worn out lithium batteries.  That's about six thousand trucks, or
about 3k tons of batteries.  The trucks could be bought from scrappers, and
they don't cost much.  

 

I bet we could set this all up for a about 10 million bucks, and it would be
fireproof.

 

Given sufficient power storage, wind and solar power become important
players in setting up the future battlefield for AI.

 

spike

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