I like to have a glass of wine with this and call it Engineering with Rosé

@EngineeringwithRosie

4 ай бұрын

😂 🍷

@zen1647

4 ай бұрын

Perfect!

@skydivekrazy76

4 ай бұрын

I lol'd...

One thing this highlights is that we've gotten a bit lazy in our engineering. Just add more energy has been a cheap and easy way to solve problems. Investing a little more time thinking about the true optimization of systems will lead to using the best tech for a given situation. Thanks for all your work doing these videos, Rosie. I, along with many others, really appreciate the effort you put into them.

@terenceiutzi4003

Ай бұрын

They built an electric ark furnace to melt scrap steel to make trane track in Novascotia, and every time they fired it up, all of the lights in North Sidney would dim and when they shut it down it fried everyone's electronics. They ended up running it on Diesel generators.

Wonderful video as always! A few quick notes: 1) it's temperature difference, rather than absolute temperature, which matters to heat pumping coefficient of performance 2) mechanical vapour recompression is a heat pumping strategy particularly relevant to industrial heating, and can achieve temperatures above 200 C (but definitely less than 400!) and 3) Many processes like drying and distillation, are their own source of heat. Virtually ll the heat that goes into a reboiler of a distillation, comes back out in the condenser, and sometimes the temperature differences aren't all that high. MVR can couple the two and solve the waste heat problem while also providing the source of heat- two birds with one stone!

@EngineeringwithRosie

4 ай бұрын

Thanks for adding those details!

@stanislavbandur7355

4 ай бұрын

Technically Heat pumps can reach even higher temperatures - from the beginning of using diesel ICE (internal combustion engines) we use compression to heat up air in cylinder up to 800 degrees, but whilst there is no phase change it is much less efficient and it ads into complexity of a system. Then we have to make decisions which are based on expenses because we cannot sell cement for price of gold.

Love the info density.

@EngineeringwithRosie

4 ай бұрын

I was worried this one was too info dense!

A lot of people seem to also forget, that the temperature doesn’t need to increase to 1500° immediately. We can use a heat pump to raise the original thermal stock to 150 C , and then use it traditional blast furnace to get to 1500c But that still about a 10% savings from the base ambient temperature, another important bet is as the 1500° cools down, we should use that heat to heat up the next batch. If you get only harvest 50% of that energy that would be massive. Fundamentally the problem is how we designed the plant to heat something up and then to let it cool down in the air giving off all the energy we just put into it, Fundamentally we need to pass that energy from the current processed batch to the batch that is about to be processed. Yes, there’s some chemical reactions etc. That also cost energy thats non recoverable, but a huge chunk is. And that doesn’t really need any fancy technologies that just requires smart planning of material, double backing to where it came from , like a seals paw where the blood goes out and passes past that rotating vein to transfer the heat, like an ERV.

@phaoyu1

4 ай бұрын

So for in-line production for example, the hot output line going from left to right can intertwine with the cool input line going from right to left, like the condenser of a fractional distillation set up!

@FreekHoekstra

4 ай бұрын

@@phaoyu1 exactly.

@brianjonker510

4 ай бұрын

@@phaoyu1 Like a preheater

@dakota4766

4 ай бұрын

Good stuff

@israelzg

4 ай бұрын

My thoughts exactly, but as I am no engineer and as it is not made this way almost anywhere, I think maybe there is a reason for it I can't see. It would be a nice tipic for a video!

Heat pumps are being installed more often now in commercial buildings which is nice to see, they make a lot of sense.

@bibihunden

4 ай бұрын

and heatpumps also makes a lot of noise!

@davidmartin3947

4 ай бұрын

@@bibihunden Mine was fine in my last propert in the south of England, providing both heating and cooling at around the same cost as gas heating would have done for just heating. It should be borne in mind that very low temperatures are rare there, but noisy? No way.

One general observation: another way to make the heating split is around steam heat vs. other heat sources. This roughly maps to the low/medium heat options, and most of the processes you are talking about will use steam heat.

@EngineeringwithRosie

4 ай бұрын

Yes that would have been quite a neat way to do it!

@Madopow2110

4 ай бұрын

That is how the chemical industry splits it

As always great video so I'm pleased with what you said at the end. I understand we can expect more videos in the near future, right? I believe having sponsors under your rules (sponsor that is not allowed to interfere with the content) is a win win situation. Thank you, Rosie!

@zen1647

4 ай бұрын

Rosie, you always speak with such authority due to your technical knowledge. Keep it up!

What an Awesome and timely Podcast, ...Thank YOU Rosie Barnes

I really appreciate your sponsorship policy, I think it creates an excellent balance and I hope that you are able to stick with it! I've had to unsubscribe from a few channels that started out educational but devolved into effusive paid ads for their sponsors using language that was clearly crafted by PR departments rather than engineers and failing to bring up obvious concerns with their sponsors that I know any objective educator should cover. I have extremely high levels of trust in your content!

I recently installed a high quality a/c and have used it this winter. It is AWESOME, way better than what I expected in terms of efficiency.

Dissapointed nuclear is only mentioned in a throwaway sentence...undervalued as usual.

@fayebird1808

4 ай бұрын

Slow to start and expensive, they say.

I just found your channel and hands down it’s one of the best channels i have ever seen in this area.

Hi Rosie, Many thanks for this video and the effort you put into giving us high-quality content. I discovered this channel a couple of days ago and am fascinated by the well-investigated yet entertaining explanations. We need more YT channels like yours to show the society that the transition to a greener future is possible! Best regards from an energy-efficiency engineer, Cristian.

So smart to discuss this topic. I do enjoy hearing from you Rosie. Nice video. Thank you goes to you and the TEAM there producing the videos. Thank you all.

@EngineeringwithRosie

4 ай бұрын

I will pass on your thanks to the team! This video owes everything to the editing and b-roll, before we added that I thought I was going to have to scrap it and start again. So I am lucky to have such a great crew 😊

Nice one indeed. A quite succinct summary!

Been wanting to say thank u for the videos u make. You have a strong understanding of the subjects you talk about and I actually learn something when I watch one of your videos.

Interesting , Thank You . A fine example of why there is No 1 solution

Thanks for covering all these subjects that engineering minded people want to know!

Thanks, Rosie. Interesting stuff in there. Industrial heat is a hugely important topic and one not often discussed.

Thanks for another informative video. And all the best to you for 2024. I work in the feedmilling industry here in NZ, and we use natural gas to produce steam for the cooking and sterilisation side of the production of making chicken feed. Many other processes use steam as there heat source, for example milk powder dries, and it would be great to see your analysis of the use of steam for these processes and how industries are either transitioning away from steam or producing steam with electricity.

I worked at the SEGS solar thermal plants for 31 years. Every time we tried larger and hotter temperatures to provide steam conventional steam-electric turbines it got harder and more complicated, PV made that solar electricity so much cheaper and fewer and fewer solar thermal plants were being built. I was always promoting trying to use thermal heat for other things like baking bread, clothes dyeing/washing, green houses, etc. hope one day it will come back in fashion for local heating.

@gordybishop2375

4 ай бұрын

Crap. They are using chemicals to seal the rock. Not sure I like this as much as the chemicals and concentrations are not shared. kzread.info/dash/bejne/nWx9z9yxppanhZM.htmlsi=O8RRdqPm8FHY0QPG

Thank you Rosie. Of all the excuses for not moving to renewables, *this* is the use that I get put forward as "impossible" most often.

Had not thought about heat storage being a key tech. Many thanks !

Thank you Rosie, love the videos, you always give a straightforward explanation without the politics and emotion that the fossil lobby loves! Look forward to the next ones! 💚

One process this doesn't mention is using industrial waste heat. I have been a part of a greenfield sulphuric acid plant, which sent over its heat from sulphur oxidation and sulphur dioxide oxidation to a specialty petrochemical plant nearby. The petrochemical plant was already there, the location of acid plant was chosen specifically for the possible sale of waste heat, otherwise it would have been used to generate electrical power and sold back to the grid, but this deal made a lot of sense and saved a ton of money on generation equipment and electrical stuff.

Just found your channel.. So educational, will follow with interest.

Thanks Rosie! 1414 Degrees (silicon phase change thermal energy storage people) have just announced they're going to work on pyrolysis of methane to make hydrogen. Sounds technically fascinating but in this age of frequent negative electricity prices on sunny days, I can't really see it being competitive with electrolytic hydrogen. So instead it looks more like greenwashing for the fossil fuel industry, which is a great pity. I've read a little on dechlorination of chlorinated hydrocarbons -- fluidised-bed reactors with alumina and carbonates or hydroxides seem to be able to do the trick at relatively low temperatures. I was a bit surprised not to see you elaborate more on efficient ways to heat clinker kilns. Sure, resistance heat from the outside might be an inefficient way to do it, but isn't it potentially a great application for electric arcs, microwaves, or even for resistance heating from *inside*? (And maybe not such a great application for biomass fuel, which was the only alternative you mentioned?)

@axelhallen5802

4 ай бұрын

wouldn't resistance heating from inside a clinker kiln get "clogged" by the material being reacted?

@davestagner

4 ай бұрын

On the subject of cement, I think the right solution is to get rid of the whole Portland cement process. Portland cement is a CO2 problem in two different ways. First, the fossil fuel used to provide the heat. Second, the cement gets its calcium hydrates by breaking down limestone, which releases the CO2 embedded in the calcium carbonates. Sublime Systems (developed by two MIT professors) has a fundamentally better approach. They use electrolysis rather than heat to form the calcium hydrates and reactive silica compounds, so it can be done at room temperature, using renewable energy directly. This means they can use calcium sources other than limestone - basaltic rock, or even recycled concrete. So they don’t need to release CO2 during the chemical process, or apply high heat. What they produce isn’t chemically identical to Portland cement (it’s basically Roman cement), but it works the same - same structural strength, same curing times, etc. It has passed key quality control standards, and that’s what most customers care about. Unlike some alternative cements, it’s fine for road surfaces, building foundations, and other challenging conditions. The hard part with this approach is the capital to build new cement plants, rather than upgrading existing plants, because there’s so much capex involved.

@thamiordragonheart8682

4 ай бұрын

I don't think the clinker absorbs microwaves very well, and neither do most materials you could use for the walls of the kiln. The problem for arc heating is that, while it's great for steel, the chemical reaction that produces clinker in the kiln requires oxygen, and the carbon electrodes would burn before they got hot enough if you have enough oxygen in the kiln. There isn't an alternative to carbon for the electrodes either even if you switch from arc heating to resistive heating. Indium Tin Oxide, which is the highest temperature conductor in an oxidizing atmosphere, can only handle 1250C, and really only 1000C for a long time without losing it's conductivity. Cement clinker requires 1450C. Biomass basically is the only option for cement, for better or worse. One side benefit of biomass is that you can use the ash to replace some of the clinker the same way you can with coal fly ash so you don't need to make as much. if getting clogged is an issue you can always design the biomass system to do pyrolysis outside the kiln (probably with the kiln's waste heat) and use the wood gas inside the kiln.

@JonathanMaddox

4 ай бұрын

Thank you for the comprehensive explanation,@@thamiordragonheart8682 . I hadn't been aware that oxygen was needed for clinker reactions -- I thought it was all about calcination, and that heat was all that was needed. I'm reading up in some more detail now.

@davestagner

4 ай бұрын

@@thamiordragonheart8682 You should definitely look into Sublime Systems’ approach to cement! A couple of MIT professors went back to first principles, and completely decarbonized cement. What they get isn’t exactly Portland cement (it’s basically Roman cement), but it’s ASTM C1157-compliant, which means it meets technical/legal specifications and performance for just about any situation where Portland cement is used. There’s no high heat involved at all. The main reason for the heat isn’t to react the calcium, but rather to separate off the pesky CO2 from the limestone. They use non-carbonate calcium rocks (basalt, or even used concrete) as a calcium/silica source. It’s a fascinating progress. I recommend the Volts podcast interview with the CEO (who is an MIT professor and one of the founders), for a deep dive.

Thanks Rosie. Very helpful to understand how important heat is.

I would like to see a sand battery in every town for district heating. Great video. Love the channel

Great video. Thanks.

Thank you for another informative video. Always interesting!

Yes, great job. Good for Rondo! I really want to see their work.

For a long time I have enjoyed your presentations. At times you have mentioned agriculture, but have not really gone into details. Climate change impact food production. To me a major component is the impact of large amounts of meat consumed, particularly by "Western" societies. In my opinion there is a need to adjust said diets to be less dependent upon traditional meat production. In looking over your videos, I notice that you have not mentioned the tremendous advancement made in Cultured Meat. I think that you would be quite surprised by what is going on in this "Field". Thanks for your work. 🌻

Amazinggggg video. Thank you Rosie!

This is a video that I've been wishing someone would make for several years now. Well done! Now let's see one on refactoring some of these industrial processes so that they don't require so much heat. Also curious about the possibilities of co-locating similar industries for more efficient heat sharing, and/or heat recuperation for more efficient use.

Thanks Rosie, this has been very helpful.

Thanks! I learn so much from your videos. Good start to the year, Rosie. 😊

@EngineeringwithRosie

4 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@Pottery4Life

4 ай бұрын

@@EngineeringwithRosie You are very welcome. 🙂

Excellent video. Awesome detail and facts.

Thanks for that summary Rosie! One of the companies developing plasma heating technology is a Swedish company SaltX Technology to electrify the calcination process in lime and cement manufacturing.

@EngineeringwithRosie

4 ай бұрын

Ooh, hot tip 🔥 thanks

This thermo-dimensional video is awesome! You kicked the ass in of my avoiding the topic of heat transfer problem.😄

For Australia, raw materials processing is where we have a competitive advantage with cheap renewable energy. Heat storage is an enabling technology.

Interesting overview, not being in the process industry I had not thought about the need for extremely high temperature. On a personal note we install a minisplit heatpump system in out home several years ago. When we built our house 40+ years ago our primary heat source was cordwood harvested from our own property. Obviously that is not a solution available to everyone. The heatpump works well here in southern New Hampshire. Due to high electricity prices last winter (we are in the Northern Hemisphere) we reverted back to cordwood. Nice having the option to choose the least costly energy source.

Very informative - Looking forward to the Rondo visit

Thanks Rosie.

Hey Rosie, Thanks for another great video. I was thinking, why not have your cake and eat it too. All of these processes that require medium to high heat, will inevitably have copious amounts of waste heat at the end of their processes. That heat could then be redirected into district heating or to thermal business in close proximity that don’t require such high temperatures. Reusing the heat that is produced would surely be beneficial for the environment.

Thanks Rosie

Rosie- always appreciate and learn from your vids. Just to be pedantic (I am an academic, after all... you know how it goes) an arc is also a plasma

Olvondo Technology can reach 200ºC with a sterling engine heat pump. They've delivered heat pumps to the pharmaceutical company Astra Zeneca

Rosie, thanks for another top notch video. Could you do a feature on district heating systems? How they work, what geographical range they camn span, costs, ways of charging for them etc?

Rosie, I enjoy your videos. I would like to point out concern of the blanket statement that conduction is the least efficient form of heat transfer, and radiation is the most. I'm a licensed Mechanical Engineer in the US, and maybe I'm misunderstanding your criteria for most efficient to least efficient. Radiation, in most cases, is the least efficient process of heating up material and conduction is the most. The ability to direct contact transfer heat can not be beaten by the use of emissivity, reflectivity, and temperature difference requirements of radiation. Unless hypothetical, your hear source is a fussion reactor with a plasma temperature too hot for material contact, in which case it's not efficient but practicality driving the transfer mood. I'd appreciate some clarity on your choice of efficiency for describing the transfer mood effectiveness.

I read your sponsorship policy with great interest - well written and comprehensive! You give sponsors the right to complete mute a video if they don’t like the result if they pay a fee - higher than the basic sponsorship fee - does that fee include the potential lost ad revenue from not running the video as well as the costs incurred? I hope so!

I would like to see you do a video on Ambri's liquid metal batteries.

Could you also cover the Sabatier reaction including implementation costs and efficiency? I love you videos, thank you for doing them for many of us un-engineering educated masses.

Excellent video. Thank you so much for the explanations and rationales. Yes, I believe thermal storage will be the Rosetta stone for renewable energy but only if we can rein in infinite consumption and infinite want. On another note I was encouraged my estimates of water heating using induction used less energy than gas or resistance heating for household use. I jury-rigged my own system saving significant money. It seems a manufactuer would have made such a system with a larger vacuum insulated storage tank. Also, why can't cement kilns use induction to heat the inner surface or klinker contents?

Thanks Rosie! Always insightful! What do you think about H2 use in hard-to-abate sectors? Couldn't it be a valuable option? Thank you!

Independence with Rosie ❤

Some of the food processes can be replaced with other non heat based methods, for pasteurization you can use either radiation or pulsed electric field; for canning you can use vacuum sealing in some cases.

hey, your videos rock, keep it up yo

Would love to see the Rosie take on electric fields and the movement (drift) of electrons. Drift velocity is a function of current(Amps)/sq.m of cable - Amps/sq.mm being a more useful metric. Drift velocity is mainly important for DC electricity. Each metal/alloy has a range of drift velocity for which it is economic. It would be interesting to see the range of drift velocities for pure copper and aluminium. For DC, electrons might drift about 1mm/sec, and move back and forth 0.4um. Volts relates to the electric field.

Rosie, thank you for another informative post. But due to the complex nature of the topics, it would be very helpful to establish at the intro, a set of relatively easy to understand guiding principles. Which ironically are somewhat analogous to those for recycling, 'reduce, reuse, recycle. For example a catalyst can 'reduce' the need for heat. Recaptured heat can be directly 'reused' by increasing its temperature. And lastly 'recycle' for other purposes. And I was thinking of this in terms of processing clinker for creating cement. (Which also has a biological option that 'eliminates' the need for heat, but it's not currently scalable.) And at the conclusion of the post, It would be nice if it was highlighted. How well the different alternatives fulfill the principles that are established in the intro. In this case, how to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, energy needs for industrial heating requirements. IMHO it should improve the audience's understanding of the topic and make the comments more relevant to the topic. Thanks again for the post.

@EngineeringwithRosie

4 ай бұрын

Great feedback and I'll think how I can incorporate that in future videos.

@EngineeringWithRosie I was surprised you didn't include glassmaking, in particular float glass, in your list of high temperature industrial processes. This is one of the highest industrial temperature processes, requiring about 1,600⁰C temperatures. Furthermore, it also tops the list for energy supply reliability, requiring an uninterrupted energy supply for in excess of 10 years for the float glass production lines, apparently if they go cold (albeit still extremely hot) it's a complete rebuild of the production line. With regard to cement, you made the assumption that the kilns would be heated externally if using electric heating. I may be wrong but I do not see any fundamental reason why heating elements couldn't be placed within the the kiln in some way with a bit of intelligent redesign. However, the big challenge may be the the rate of heat supply, kW, requirded. With regard to very high temperatures, resistive heating wire is readily available to around 1400⁰C. These heaters may be expensive initially, at least compared to a gas burner nozzle, but if they use renewable energy more efficiently, than bio or synthetic fuels, then running costs could be substantially lower, making the system cheaper overall. If you need to go higher temperatures than 1400⁰C tungsten wire is a possibility, which is usable up to about 2,500⁰C, although it will be significantly more expensive than the lower temperature alloys. Finally, the ultimate heating source is probably microwave. The ITER fusion reactor will use 10 to 20 MW of microwave power to help heat the Plasma to upwards of 100 MILLION degrees Celsius!

While I am disappointed she didn't go into detail about the heat from nuclear reactors, at least she mentioned nuclear for half a second. Nuclear reactors generate plenty of heat. Low-temp and high-temperature steam electrolysis are both more efficient than room-temp electrolysis. To be clear for the people who might not know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about producing hydrogen. Nuclear, as well as waste heat from industrial sources, could be used for low and high-temperature steam electrolysis as well. Lots of things currently need green hydrogen. The steel industry, oil refineries, fertilizer plants, renewable fuels for aviation and shipping, the chemical industry, etc. But aside from the high-temp needed to produce green hydrogen production more efficient, I'm also really interested in domestic hot water heaters and photovoltaic thermal rooftops. How only can they provide hot water, but they can provide heating to backyard swimming pools and community swimming pools. I was surprised to find out that they can also be linked with a ground-source heat pump to 'charge' the ground with heat, improving the SCOP of the heat pump. I used to look down on solar hot water heaters because they don't produce heat during the night, and here in Canada we have long periods of cloudy weather in many parts during the winter. But if you have the money, or live where there's a generous government grant for such a project, get both solar and a ground-source heat pump.

@davestagner

4 ай бұрын

Nuclear reactors generate plenty of heat, but in practice, they are temperature-limited to what their cooling systems can handle. Heat is measured in terms of both total BTU, and temperature - it’s analogous to current vs voltage. So the heat of conventional nuclear reactors is basically in the boiling-water range - not hot enough for most industrial processes, and definitely not hot enough for high-temperature (and high energy) processes like smelting steel. Even advanced molten salt reactors (which are mostly theoretical and not used in current practice) only operate in the “medium heat” range. Operating a reactor hot enough to provide high heat for industrial processes would be extremely dangerous! How do you cool it in case of a shutdown? No, nuclear reactors are really only useful for generating electricity via turbine generators.

@davidmartin3947

4 ай бұрын

@@davestagner Yeah, they would presumably need two stage boosting. But using nuclear process heat cuts down how much oomph you have to give it for high temperature. And some are optimised to also produce hydrogen, which of course could be used as to help the booster. None of this of course if in any way laid out, but the early PBRs etc are being constructed, and nuclear certainly fits the specs of low or near zero emissions, with China, responsible for so much of steel and cement production, at the fore, so it seems daft not to take serious look at it.

@firefox39693

4 ай бұрын

@@davestagner Low-temperature steam electrolysis is more than manageable for nuclear power plants; they can easily provide the process heat needed to make the electrolysis process more efficient, and that's much of the main focus I keep reading in much of the material I see about gen-4 nuclear reactors. And no, not just producing electricity.

@davestagner

4 ай бұрын

@@davidmartin3947 I don’t see how. Nothing is coming off the reactor any hotter than pressurized steam, which can’t be used for heating things directly anyway, for safety reasons. At best, you can make electricity with it, to heat up some other system (any of those Rosie suggested). And at that point, nuclear is no better than renewables. The heat is simply not available for direct use, because the coolant has to remain tightly confined and is much lower temperature than the intensive industrial processes anyway.

@davidmartin3947

4 ай бұрын

@@davestagner The new HT reactors in China are specifically designed to allow the use of 'waste' heat to produce hydrogen, ie the process heat is in fact able to be used. Unfortunately I can't put in links here to the state of play or the post will be killed by Google spam, but using the process heat is indeed one of the objects of the designs. Of course, at this stage it is impossible to be sure that it will work, but that is what they ar trying to build.

Hello, Thank you fort his content. I was wondering why some fuel or technologies were just briefly mentions compares to other (like biomass or geothermal) ? Is this because they are irrelevant in your opinion or because they are not "new" technologies ? Great video in either case :)

Looking for doorways out of climate doom? Watch Rosie! Happy New Year Rosie and Rosie's community!

You missed glass production... Architectural glass takes a large amount of high temperature heating and some manufactures are looking at alternative heating techniques now as most existing float lines use natural gas.

Happy new year Rosie. I enjoy your work. The grid is a massive topic you will discover. 1million klm $1million per klm $1trillion = national GDP Built over the past 100 years. It is fragile amd lightweight because it is extremely expensive. The grid must not be monopolised by filling it with one central generator. We can only afford this existing national grid. It must be UNLOADED and be the backup to the millions and millions of users, the customers. Please start the conversation. From a previous post by me. Australia's solar duck curve is about to be matched by the new total Big Batteries capacity. And then, soon, the Snowy 2's capacity And then, soon, the EVs with V2G. More rooftop solar PV installations. And More duck curves. Then more renewable electricity to Tasmania. No room for nuclear electricity. Australia's solar duck curve is about to be matched by the new total Big Batteries capacity. And then, soon, the Snowy 2's capacity And then, soon, the EV increasing, with V2G. More rooftop solar PV installations. And More duck curves. Then more renewable electricity to Tasmania. No room for nuclear electricity

Looking forward to the Rondo tour. Next year (2025) is a long way away however, I hope you made the video in 2023 and the tour will occur in 2024?

@EngineeringwithRosie

4 ай бұрын

That is indeed what happened! 😂 would you believe that I started writing this script in 2022?! I am usually slow, but this is a record for me.

@BenMitro

4 ай бұрын

@@EngineeringwithRosie You are fantastic Rosie! No amount of self deprecation will convince me otherwise.

The efficient use of heat would be even more paramount when using relatively expensive sources of heat. Every GJ counts. One way that strikes me as interesting is biomass oxy-combustion. Heat loss is a function of the exhaust gas temperature but also its mass. The mass of the effluent can be greatly reduced by removing the nitrogen before combustion. A reduced mass and volume of effluent should also make it easier to recover heat as it would require smaller heat exchangers. At large scale, cryogenic distillation is how you get pure oxygen by turning it into a liquid (higher boiling point versus argon and nitrogen). The BIG question is if cryogenic distillation is a process that can cycle up and down with the ebb and flow of renewable energy output. If so, it means that excess LOX can be stored for later use. Basically, use solar electricity to make LOX, any LOX that is immediately needed is used and the excess is stored in large, insulated tanks. Then, after the sun goes down, the LOX storage is tapped to keep the oxy-combustion going. As for the liquid nitrogen and argon, those could be used for process cooling or perhaps for generating electricity through the use of an organic Rankine cycle. There's also the possibility for carbon capture, if just to sell it as a commercial or industrial product (like for making carbonated water or as a feedstock for the production of chemicals and fuels).

Thank you. I follow your video channel primarily for your insights on renewable energy and I notice that the question of viability for renewable wind and solar, which is maximised in areas where there is predictable wind or sunshine or both. The question for both industrial and domestic use of these resources in areas where intermittency is greater and the value of return for the investment is reduced is clearly a problem for the switch to renewables. In my own case, to replace tank gas in my isolated location with ground source heat pump is becoming more attractive but in older buildings (listed historical), the low temperature / high insulation value model is impractical. In discussion with a heating engineer and consulting locally and nationally (UK), there appears to be considerable shortfall in expertise and those with any or all of the required knowledge are cherry picking simple installations, exclusively air source pumps, to maximise profit. Furthermore, the benefits of air source heat pumps are being heavily oversold, failing to give a true idea of potential in particular during prolonged cold weather, this leads to disappointment and damage to the already fragile incentives to make change.

Awesome video. How are you? Hope your doing ok Rosie. Heat pump make a lot of sense for homes, the food industry and more. :) 👍

@EngineeringwithRosie

4 ай бұрын

I'm doing well thanks, how about you?

I have a video surgestion. It would be interesting with an interview with either Danish aseteks or Canadian ovhcloud

Thanks to a wonderfully inappropriate pair of adverts wedged into this excellent video (in England) I have the answer to low-carbon heating of large industrial spaces. A big candle beneath a giant inverted flower pot or tin can should do the job nicely.

@EngineeringwithRosie

4 ай бұрын

Lololol

@brianjonker510

4 ай бұрын

I get that ad dozens of times a day here in NY state. The massive dumb makes me irrationally angry.

Tried to upgrade to a heat pump last fall. Could not afford the $25k price tag. Had to do with a natural gas furnace for $6k.

9:57 rybnitsa cement plant, lol. I worked here 🙂

Thermal storage is the key. Just by increasing the temperature of the storage material, the storage capacity increases without any further direct cost. Whereas to increase the capacity of battery storage, there is a need to install more batteries which has a direct cost. Thermal energy storage is the best option for long term storage.

So excited about your rondo trip Question about heat storage could you store heat as heat and make electricity with it and then using the "wasted" heat for industrial application?

@JonathanMaddox

4 ай бұрын

Absolutely possible, but a Carnot engine needs a substantial heat differential if it's to be efficient, meaning you need high temperatures on the hot side, and if you can store *cold* as well that's a bonus, as a really cold heat sink beats atmospheric cooling -- some energy storage proposals (see eg. Newcastle University Swan Centre, also Highview Power, both in the UK) have involved reversible heat pumps, where the same equipment is used both to push hot and cold heat transfer media into heat stores, *and* to recover the heat differential as mechanical energy for electricity generation afterwards.

@tami6867

4 ай бұрын

There are also liquid air batterys. They use Heatpumps to seperate energy heating up a hot side, and cooling air to liquid state as cold side. To make electricity again they just bring both back together, making the air expand radically in voulme and turn a gasturbine from it. There is a pilot facility in UK Pilsworth with 15 MWh capacity. Round trip efficiency is 60%, and it loses 0,5% stored energy per day.

@jimurrata6785

4 ай бұрын

How about the other way around. Using waste heat from from electricity generation for industrial purposes? I've seen this in a localized setting where methane fuel cells cogenerate heat for plant processes. So, while still using fossil fuels, rather than burning it for heat _and_ needing electricity to run the plant they use the gas in a stack to provide power and harness the heat for the processing. This is pharmaceutical/chemical where the temps aren't as extreme as something like cement or steel, but it must be more cost effective (and control varying electric rates) or they couldn't justify the upfront costs. Ultimately, it's also a perfect match for CCS if that ever gets traction. Far cleaner stream than actual combustion from a gas turbine power plant

@tami6867

4 ай бұрын

@@jimurrata6785 that is already done where its suitable

@davestagner

4 ай бұрын

Antora Energy (a competitor to Rondo) has a very interesting approach to generating electricity from thermal storage. They use custom photovoltaic panels (like solar panels), tuned to the radiating frequencies of their heat source - white-hot graphite. I don’t know how efficient this is relative to just using the heat to drive an engine to drive a generator, but it has the benefit of simplicity.

I think green hydrogen can be a reasonable choice for iron from ore (as it also acts as reducing agent there) and for cement kilns. If the hydrogen is produced on site with high temperature electrolysis thermally coupled to the process, higher efficiencies of around 70% might be possible. Using Biomass in these applications might at first be more convenient, but lacks scalability, if just using waste and comes with even more problems if not. Of course, for almost anything else, I agree: electrify.

I have Rooftop Solar at home. 6000 kWh Every Year for 12 Years Now. A High Temperature Heatpump 60 degrees. A Watercooker 100 degrees Degrees. And an Airfryer 200 degrees. No Problem. Microwave, Inductioncooking, bathroom Boiler, close in Boiler in the kitchen. The rest is Electric. Washing machine, Dryer, TV, Desktop, laptop tablet Cellphone vacuum Cleaner toaster, radio, ledlamps. Everything. Rooftop Solar for yr Own electricity. The rest all Electric. No Gas Coal Needed. Works for 12 Years Now.

Re Transport emissions. As far as I understand this does not include refining fuel for the transport industry. This is a big heat and distribution budget, and it would be really useful to know the total for transpor.

Is it possible to invert the comment clinker kiln and place the tub inside a solar parabolic mirror?

Are the problems asociated with Hydrogen also transfer to other related "green" fuels such as Ammonia or synthetic fuels?

When talking about heat batteries, I'm curious about the infrastructure needed for the distribution, and how already exists. In northen countries there'd be already established networks, as you mentioned in the video, but most of them come from geothermal, which doesn't have the daily restrictions thermosolar has. On the other hand, countries with a lot of sun won't have those infrastructures developed as they are warmer.

@EngineeringwithRosie

4 ай бұрын

I think it will be mostly individual facilities with their own heat battery. It's hard to get district heating for industrial heat to work for the reasons I mentioned in the video.

No, hydrogen was not conspicuously missing because it's pretty theoretical. The Haber-Bosch process is not. It's one of the worlds most common industrial reactions. Making ammonia with low carbon energy is what is missing from the video.

Why can't we use Tungsten for high-temp direct-electric elements? That doesn't melt until 3400C. Is it too conducive to make a good resistive heater or something? It worts in lightbulbs, so it seems like it could be useful for other applications...

When Biomass is mentioned it should be mentioned that CO2 is slowly absorbed and quickly released. With E-fuels they are less efficient than H2 as H2 has to be made first to produce them.

@davestagner

4 ай бұрын

E-fuels don’t necessarily require initial H2 electrolysis. The Prometheus Fuels process uses a catalyst to synthesize ethanol from carbonic acid (carbonated water). The ethanol is then separated from the water using a proprietary nanotube filter (basically reverse osmosis) rather than distillation, avoiding a heat process. Finally, the ethanol can be converted into hydrocarbon chains (gasoline, jet fuel, diesel) using zeolite catalysts that have been around a long time - basically, they just squeeze H2O molecules out of the alcohols. So there, e-fuels with no H2 needed. Of course, Prometheus has been long on promises and short on delivery for a few years now, but their principle is excellent.

What about converting hydrogen to ammonia? Isn't Ammonia flammable? Easier to transport and store? better energy conversion rates?

👍

Mostly correct but 2 things to note. First, hydrogen efficiency when using as heat is not 50%. It is 50% if you want to get power back. This is because power to hydrogen conversion is 90% and hydrogen to power conversion efficiency is ~60% giving overall power to power efficency of 50%. For industrial processes the heat efficiency is 90%. I agree though about engineering challenges. Second, a crucial technology omitted here is nuclear. High temperature gas cooled reactors operate at 800 degrees and have use in China to provide process heat for many industrial applications. This is by far the best source of cheap and clean heat source. Far better than anything mentioned here. Cheers

About heat pumps, those temperatures seems to be about versions of "conventional" heat pump technology, and not the fundamental concept of a heat pump. While quite true that heat pumps loose efficiency with increased temperature difference created, which is about as fundamental as the "theoretically" possible efficiency of heat engines is limited to the relative temperature difference, as described by Carnot's theorem. With a heat pump you get the heat from the energy used, and the heat pumped. If heat pumps could create very high increase in temperature with a high COP, perpetual motion machines would be possible. Anyhow, for low to medium grade heat you could just compress air, use the compression heat, and then use the compressed air to extract some power from, and use for cooling. Not easy or super efficient, but you would get to use "both sides". Personally I think heat storage, when heat is the form of energy wanted, is vastly underappreciated. An aspect I haven't seen getting much attention is fact the more cost adjusted demand we get, the less "too low" to negative prices on power we get, and that can help making solar and wind much more reliably profitable, which in turn is good for both producers and consumers and the transition. Of course heat storage will have losses, especially high grade heat, and/or small scale, and long term. But that doesn't matter much if cost of energy varies between practically free and too expensive to use. Large thermal batteries that can store heat up to 1500 °C could be useful to produce power from, again, not thermodynamically super efficient way to store power, but, as long as power prices fluctuates between negative and hundreds of euros per MWh, you don't need super high thermodynamic efficiency to make it viable. About hydrogen, personally not a fan of hydrogen for energy storage, but I thought commercial production with efficiencies of over 70% was the common, obviously assuming when the system is at temperature and pressure, which requires long periods of operation. Are those 20%+ missing due to intermittent generation assumed in that case and or heat lost to heat up the air used as oxygen source? That brings me to my next question, is the exhaust from combustion used to preheat the air, or is it typically just wasted in industrial processes, unless used to scavenge some energy from for other purposes?

@JonathanMaddox

4 ай бұрын

While thermodynamics do get in the way of generating power from a heat differential created by a heat pump, and overunity is obviously impossible, it's absolutely possible to create large temperature differentials with heat pumps, to store that temperature differential (with both hot and cold insulated reservoirs, one well above and one well below ambient temperature) and to recover a large fraction of the input energy later: reversible heat pump energy storage has been developed for some years now, though apparently still not ready for mass commercialisation. Look at the work of the Sir Joseph Swan Centre at Newcastle University (the early edition Newcastle in the UK, not the Australian reprint), and of Highview Power (also in the UK). Adding links blocks the comment so use a search engine of your choice.

Nuclear was briefly mentioned at around 14 minutes, but perhaps deserves more attention as SMRs can, at least potentially, do the job with excellent electrical plus thermal efficiency right where it is needed. Of course in the West there are considerable political as well as cost hurdles, but China is also a leader in the field.

@benoithudson7235

4 ай бұрын

The main difficulty is that nuclear plants tend to be pretty isolated from everything, for security reasons. So you'd need to pipe low-temperature heat quite a ways before getting to the plant that wants to use it. At that point, it's a lot of bother for not all that much benefit. Hence, nuclear plants almost universally find other ways to get rid of their waste heat. Now when it comes to coal, gas, and diesel we're totally happy with huffing their fumes, no safety issue there (just don't think about it too hard). So those are much more commonly used in combined heat and power plants. You still need to get the incentives to line up to figure out who pays for the steam pipes; Europe has generally been better at that than North America.

@davidmartin3947

4 ай бұрын

@@benoithudson7235 The safety considerations for advanced SMRs are very different to conventional nuclear reactors. The precise details vary with the technology, of which there are a number of variants. But basically they should be able to be slap bang on top of where they are needed, at a reasonable size for the use, not the 1GW plus monsters of present construction. So if they work cheaply enough, as pebble bed reacgtors, thorium reactors, NuScale or whatever, they should be able to be sited right where needed. As I said, the comment gets killed by Google if I post links, but IF they work safely and economically, then they should be OK for siting.

@benoithudson7235

4 ай бұрын

@@davidmartin3947 : it's asking for a lot of things to happen to get to a point where we have nuclear fission reactors on a site with minimal perimeter security and no background checks in the middle of a rough part of town. Which is where you'd site that meat processing plant or whatever that needs low-temperature heat.

@davidmartin3947

4 ай бұрын

@@benoithudson7235 Dunno 'the rough part of town' is really an issue in China where the deployment has started: ' Assembly of the core module of the world's first commercial small modular reactor (SMR), Linglong One, was completed on Thursday, according to its developer, the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC)' (Aug 10th 2023) Again, I can't make proper links as I normally would, or Google will kill the comment, but you can readily verify. It might be 'only China' when the normal focus in what we see on the internet in the West is on the US or the rest of the world, but one heck of a lot of manufacturing and hence process heat happens in China

@SocialDownclimber

4 ай бұрын

In high latitudes, SMRs might end up being the core of an industrial district, with some devoted to producing heat and others electricity. I can't see it happening in mid latitudes due to the cost issue though.

I've wondered for the last 30 years why we can't harvest waste heat. I firmly believe Nikola Tesla (yes, I know. Hear me out.) saw the world through energy flow the way dogs see the world through scent. I see unused energy around me every day. If only we could figure out how to harvest it. Sadly the only two things I've been able to come up with are more efficient thermocouplers and micro turbines. And that would probably require some Unobtanium...

Everybody likes an idea of a "cleaner" world (air). Besides the heat pumps (which are slowly advancing in efficiency and at a (relatively) lower costs) , the rest of it is so expensive , that it couldn't be done , without heavy subsidizing . Which means , ordinary citizens have to pay for some rich people (owners of the industries) to become green (or greener) and avoid paying carbon taxes. I'm all for it , as long as it costs me and my fellow citizens nothing. Of course , it doesn't offset acquiring and transport of raw materials for industry production. As long as there is a cheaper option (mostly conventional - fossil fuels , or bio mass) - people will use it , unless something equally cheap , abundant and reliable and accessible to everyone emerges. But , that is more political , than technological subject.

I know many factories that heat iron and steel in order to deform them. This requires 1000 to 1300 °C, i.e. 2300F. This heat is generated by burning natural gas. Now many people are smart enough to burn hydrogen instead of natural gas. That sounds good. But where should the large amounts of hydrogen come from? Generate hydrogen from natural gas to save natural gas and to burn hydrogen? Or burn hard coal to generate electricity to produce hydrogen to burn hydrogen? Everyone talks about electricity and hydrogen being clean energy carriers, but it is always converted energy.

@SocialDownclimber

4 ай бұрын

Hydrogen can be made from electrolysis of water, using renewable electricity from wind, hydro or solar.

How can cardboard recyclers use the increasing amount of contaminants as fuel? Surely it can be incinerated at a similar CO² emission as hog fuel.

It's interesting that 20 years ago, we had to shut down our electric annealing furnaces and buy new gas fired furnaces because the grid couldn't support the electric ones?

Please include the Fahrenheit scale.

@fayebird1808

4 ай бұрын

Join the rest of the world, Yank.💌

@Preciouspink

4 ай бұрын

@@fayebird1808 what are you talking about about we drink Coke a Cola in 2 liter bottles . I always include both standard and metric units in dialogue when dealing with foreign individuals. It is easier for the presenter to have those units available when the reason for conversation is conveying understanding. Wait stop the video or lecture,so I can google a definition. In 1976 I had the highest score on a test on the metric system, read,fully embraced. But hearing a Celsius or centigrade measurement I notice how un intuitive it is to quickly understand the speaker. Pedestrian conversation regarding global temperature both units should be given. Everyone in this country knows what The National Aeronautical Space Administration is, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration too,but anytime these two departments are discussed the short hand terms of NASA and NOAH is used. Certainly,if you greenie types are making the case of climate intervention,You should speak to those in the majority, even less initiated than myself. I notice you speak non American English your countries are in demographic decline without sufficient military defense or navies able to adequate protect international trade interests.Guess what The boomers and millennials in the U.S. had kids and have a viable economy in the future along with navigable rivers energy coming out of our as and a third world of hands and eyes to our South that would be Mexico.This hemisphere is now building the factories exporting our shale deposit sweet crude buying and refining the cheap tar sand oil cleaning and steaming and refining it at a profit for domestic use.Our natural gas and oil supply is unlimited as a cheap resource if we need it. Using natural gas alone we power our energy grid and create most of all the needed lighter hydrocarbons for chemical and consumable simply by cracking natural gas. we will have clean alternatives in abundance.Coast lines for wind power and inextinguishable amount of geo thermal. If we get thirst we also have Alaska run out to replenish our agricultural aquifers and do the irrigation for our agriculture-voltaic (agrivoltaic) farms. Currently we are to be building factories to produce the high end chips to run our AI. Don’t worry though,we always bail the rest of the world instead of lifting our mid lower economical demographics.Good luck maintaining a cultural identity when the top baby names in your anglophone nations are not even Christians. I wish you luck.

466#good start if asia and america slow down on production nobady needs it aod jobs addiction

There is *no technical reason* why gas turbine technology cannot be modified slightly to produce heatpumps with *output temperatures around 1650°C (3000°F).* Turbines already handle gases which are that hot. Nor do they have to be inefficient, because the input heat can come from cooling off the hot product, which has to be cooled anyway. Just take the cooling air and compress it, making it hotter, which also adds the energy used to power the compressor. Temperature can be boosted the desired amount (for heating the input material) by adjusting the number of stages of compression.

You're forgetting all the hot air generated in the US Congress.