Exciting advances in supercapacitors

https://scitechdaily.com/new-breakthrou ... materials/

Using age-old, common and plentiful materials existing all over the planet.

Ceramecrete?

penny wrote:https://scitechdaily.com/new-breakthrough-in-energy-storage-mit-engineers-create-supercapacitor-out-of-ancient-materials/

Using age-old, common and plentiful materials existing all over the planet.

I have to wonder if anyone actually read what they wrote...

TLDR? What household uses 10kWh/day? --> None

These so called "doctorates" are so STUPID they do not know that Concrete is 95% ROCK... not portland cement.

Transportation: ~30-->50 miles/day @ Sedan 0.25kWh/mile = 12.5kWh/day PER vehicle. Most have 2... that is 25KWh/day/household average. Houston we have a problem... and those are Sedan numbers not a SUV/van/truck

Assume HVAC heat pump = Far in excess of 10kWh/day when hot or cold even in exceedingly well insulated homes that never get over 20C/67F. Good Luck on that one with your wife.

Actual Electrical load is well in excess of 10KWh/day if anyone is actually HOME. If all lights are off, no outside lights, no deep freezer, only 1 refrigerator, not running an electric Dryer, No freeze drying your food or canning your food for CHEAP food bills, Hot water is heated via sun/natural gas then yes, ~10kWh is about right. But if you do any of the above or ... get this actually have a family where your BIGGEST bill is well FOOD and HEATING, you will NEVER reach 10kWh/day unless you live by yourself in a VERY cold home which is molding away.

1 load of laundry will be well in excess of 1kWh by itself. On average in our household there is approximately 1 load per day. Single person(and male) we are talking 1 load per week or every 2 weeks probably. But if you are married with children? 1 load a day between bedding, towels, clothes cushion covers etc.

Regarding lights: By themselves with a family, lights are pulling about a 0.5kWh--> 1kWh by themselves for approx 10 hours a day, or over 5kWh all by themselves continuously when people are home. If you are running a Sound system at a decent volume to enertain kids etc this is a kWh by itself per hour. You want to play a Game on a computer or even Xbox etc? That is going to set you back ~0.5kWh -->1kWh depending on your setup. Every hour watching a TV is ~0.5kWh without said sound system running(1kWh if it is running).

10kWh... what an absurd epic joke. If one has ZERO transportation, Zero heating, no kids, extremely good insulation( I mostly do), solar hot water collector(I do)and everyone works 100% of the time can you get under 10kWh/day.

Now throw in not a sunny day and you need MORE than a single days worth of power stored from your solar...

So, in reality you need a "cube" of concrete not 45 cubic meters as claimed, but roughly 10X that 450 cubic meters...

Hrmm, how many Cubic Meters/yards of concrete does an average house with a basement have? Lets go with a 2000sq/ft house 2 story, Full basement. Walls 40x25 in basement is typical. 8 ft deep. Thickness: 8". Slab is 4"

(40 + 40 + 25 + 25)*8*2/3 + 40*25*1/3 = ?
~700 + ~300 = ~1000 cubic ft
1 cubic meter/yard = 27 cubic ft = ~35~ cubic Yards.

No problem, only 10X too little for an average well insulated home... Not to mention you are going have large sections which will NOT be allowed to hit anything conductive such as inside or outside layer + they have to be multisectioned to increase Voltage; so in REALITY this probably half 35 cubic yards/meters of capacitors or here in REAL TOWN... 4kWh of capacitors...

I do not know about you, but even in the LOWEST month, I have never gone under an average of 30kWh/day with a family and that does not count transportation.

Meanwhile, take same amount of carbon, which is NOT free, cheap or anything else, and just buy... Batteries which are ~1/3 Carbon themselves... and guess what you have a Giant REAL battery you can replace, do maintenance on etc....

This has to be one of the dumbest Utopian articles I have read in a long time.

Relax wrote:TLDR? What household uses 10kWh/day? --> None

Almost none in the US at least, but it's not uncommon in Europe, in the UK for example, the average home uses 7.5kWh/day. Most modern homes are very well insulated and the ones built with energy usage in mind barely use any for heating at all since any energy usaed (lights, fridge, tv, computer etc) translates to heat which is recovered from the outgoing ventilation through a passive heat-exchanger.

Where I live the average usage is 6.8kWh/day.

Joat42 wrote:

Relax wrote:TLDR? What household uses 10kWh/day? --> None

Almost none in the US at least, but it's not uncommon in Europe, in the UK for example, the average home uses 7.5kWh/day. Most modern homes are very well insulated and the ones built with energy usage in mind barely use any for heating at all since any energy usaed (lights, fridge, tv, computer etc) translates to heat which is recovered from the outgoing ventilation through a passive heat-exchanger.

Where I live the average usage is 6.8kWh/day.

Well you have a problem with the IEA.org... And these are numbers given to IEA.org by Sweden etc.

USA ~ 30kWh/day ~178m^2 = ~1900square ft.
Sweden ~ 24kWh/day ~122m^2 = ~1300square ft.
UK ~ 10kWh/day ~80m^2 = ~850square ft.

Country Number of households kWh per Household (annual)
Canada 15,618,491 11,305
US 132,736,055 11,156
Sweden 4,776,239 8,914
New Zealand 1,906,474 6,754
Australia 10,220,186 5,919
France 30,217,950 5,344
Hong Kong 2,646,107 4,900
Ireland 1,799,221 4,857
Japan 55,704,949 4,749
Malaysia 7,176,812 4,456
Spain 17,565,288 4,169
UK 29,486,179 3,658
Netherlands 7,874,258 3,130
Germany 40,624,971 3,127
Russia 56,771,478 2,879
Italy 25,020,120 2,646
South Africa 17,733,119 2,614
China 522,689,264 2,180
Indonesia 69,855,344 1,720
Philippines 25,893,157 1,324
India 299,727,860 1,005

So, according to IEA.org, Sweden uses more electrical power per square area of house than the USA does. This makes perfect sense as Sweden is further north and colder. UK has very mild weather and they are packed into their common wall housing like sardines.

France uses ~half as much. This makes sense as their weather is near perfect. Households in Hawaii for instance use ~half that of what the rest of the USA uses just like France. =--> Great weather with no need for Heating and only some cooling needs.

None of these numbers reflect electrifying transportation or placing heating/cooling into electrical categories.

PS: It is not insulation standard differences between countries building standards of residential housing and equivalent power usage. Direct correlation between household size and power usage and their weather... With the caveat of geographical regions with VERY good weather with MILD temperatures.

I'll just point out that the average for a 100-120 m2 house in Sweden being solely heated by electric heaters is 24-25kWh/day. The same house but with no electric heating is 10kWh/day. Guess what numbers you are looking at?

Joat42 wrote:I'll just point out that the average for a 100-120 m2 house in Sweden being solely heated by electric heaters is 24-25kWh/day. The same house but with no electric heating is 10kWh/day. Guess what numbers you are looking at?

... I pointed out household AVERAGE.

I never specified heat source. The number above is AVERAGE in Sweden and ALL other nations listed across ALL household types. Why number of households was listed.

Quite beside the point regarding these so called "capacitor" breakthrough. Even homes with a 100% basement with concrete floor, using the foundation, will not have 1kWh power as the fools who wrote the article did not even know that concrete is made up by necessity for strength:~95% rock/sand/limestone/fiberglass and only 5% which could possibly be used for this capacitor type.

I'm surprised that the authors of the report didn't include the positive impact on climate change that sequestering (because mixing carbon into concrete is almost as interesting as pumping CO2 into deep holes) carbon to reduce global warming. On the other hand, the production of the Portland Cement (and most other kinds) involves a lot of heating- usually with flames involved- to cook it, not to mention the production of Carbon Black.

Anybody wondering how good the sealing (what were they going to use?) is going to be to keep mold out of the battery? Because concrete is somewhat permeable to water.

Power leads? Do you just stick them into the area of the wall/floor area where you have put the battery material or is it more tricky that that. I seem to remember that foundations usually should be "sealed" against moisture or sometimes significant- if only periodic- ground water difficulties caused by high/fast rainwater events or rising of water tables.

Where are you going to mount the inverter and the interface/switching gear to feed that power into your AC wiring? I suppose if you already have something for solar and or wind or water (micro hydro) private systems you could use the same one used by the batteries for those sources if you add the proper boards/connections.

What happens if you have subsidence or a crack develops in the wall containing the battery? Does this type of battery require a housing construction permit and certification and what are the costs (initial and possibly annual inspection) for that?

What happens if you short out the battery? Heck, all sorts of fun stuff happens when you develop a fault in charging or your inverter/switching has "problems" and does something wonky. Will there be a lot of heat involved?


So many questions.......big smile.

Relax wrote:

Joat42 wrote:I'll just point out that the average for a 100-120 m2 house in Sweden being solely heated by electric heaters is 24-25kWh/day. The same house but with no electric heating is 10kWh/day. Guess what numbers you are looking at?

... I pointed out household AVERAGE.

Yes, 8.9kWh. Then I pointed out that the number 24kWh is for houses that uses electric heaters.

Relax wrote:I never specified heat source. The number above is AVERAGE in Sweden and ALL other nations listed across ALL household types. Why number of households was listed.

Which is kind of important when we are talking about electric usage.

Relax wrote:Quite beside the point regarding these so called "capacitor" breakthrough. Even homes with a 100% basement with concrete floor, using the foundation, will not have 1kWh power as the fools who wrote the article did not even know that concrete is made up by necessity for strength:~95% rock/sand/limestone/fiberglass and only 5% which could possibly be used for this capacitor type.

I'm sure the "fools" haven't thought about the points you raise, because why would they have 1) researched different types of concretes that can be used, 2) how much concrete is the best fit for new construction using this technology.

I live in a large house in Australia that has solar power and solar hot water, along with a wood heater.
We live an excellent first world life with huge TVs and such.
Because of our solar I have a record of our power consumption and it is generally about 7kwh, sometimes up to 10kwh.
Comments on here reinforce the world wide perception that the US is energy extravagant.