I think the idea here is to bake it into construction that would happen anyway. If you just need energy storage, keep using batteries. But if you’re pouring a foundation already, why not also turn that foundation into a battery?
concrete seems to be used here for its structural properties, just like we do it today. Their solution doesn’t seem to require it:
If more powerful capacitors are required, they can be made with a larger concentration of carbon black, at the expense of some structural strength. This could be useful for applications where the concrete is not playing a structural role or where the full strength potential of concrete is not required. For applications such as a foundation, or structural elements of the base of a wind turbine, the “sweet spot” is around 10 percent carbon black in the mix, the team says.
Carbon black is produced bij burning a hydrocarbon with a limited amount of air. It’s not a byproduct, but uses organic materials. This can be of renewable sources like vegetable oil, but it is made a lot from the heavy fractions in fossil oil.
One of the big catches is how Greenhouse gas intensive concrete production is
I think the idea here is to bake it into construction that would happen anyway. If you just need energy storage, keep using batteries. But if you’re pouring a foundation already, why not also turn that foundation into a battery?
concrete seems to be used here for its structural properties, just like we do it today. Their solution doesn’t seem to require it:
And how greenhouse gas intensive is carbon black production?
If you’re releasing CO2 you’re losing carbon.
If you make it with electricity it’s effectively a carbon sink.
If it’s just a byproduct of other industries, like existing coal power plants, it might be seen as carbon neutral. And lithium batteries also use it.
Carbon black is produced bij burning a hydrocarbon with a limited amount of air. It’s not a byproduct, but uses organic materials. This can be of renewable sources like vegetable oil, but it is made a lot from the heavy fractions in fossil oil.