A new way of storing renewable energy is providing clean heat through the long Nordic nights.
At the end of a winding, tree-lined country road in western Finland, four young engineers believe they have a possible answer to one of green energy's biggest challenges.
The challenge is how to provide a year-round, steady power supply from renewable energy during changing seasons and variable weather conditions. The answer nestling in Vatajankoski power plant, 270 km (168 miles) north-west of Finland's capital, Helsinki, is remarkably simple, abundant and cheap: sand.
The Vatajankoski power plant is home to the world's first commercial-scale sand battery. Fully enclosed in a 7m (23ft)-high steel container, the battery consists of 100 tonnes of low-grade builders' sand, two district heating pipes and a fan. The sand becomes a battery after it is heated up to 600C using electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels in Finland, brought by Vatajankoski, the owners of the power plant.
The renewable energy powers a resistance heater which heats up the air inside the sand. Inside the battery, this hot air is circulated by a fan around the sand through heat exchange pipes.
Thick insulation surrounds the sand, keeping the temperature inside the battery at 600C (1,112F), even when it is freezing outside. "We don't want to lose any heat; the average winter temperature is below 0C (32F) in Kankanpää," says Ville Kivioja, lead scientist at Polar Night Energy, who monitors the battery's performance online.
The battery stores 8 MWh of thermal energy when full. When energy demand rises, the battery discharges about 200 kW of power through the heat-exchange pipes: that's enough to provide heating and hot water for about 100 homes and a public swimming pool in Kankaanpää, supplementing power from the grid. The battery is charged overnight when the electricity prices are lower.
A new way of storing renewable energy is providing clean heat through the long Nordic nights.
At the end of a winding, tree-lined country road in western Finland, four young engineers believe they have a possible answer to one of green energy's biggest challenges.
The challenge is how to provide a year-round, steady power supply from renewable energy during changing seasons and variable weather conditions. The answer nestling in Vatajankoski power plant, 270 km (168 miles) north-west of Finland's capital, Helsinki, is remarkably simple, abundant and cheap: sand.
The Vatajankoski power plant is home to the world's first commercial-scale sand battery. Fully enclosed in a 7m (23ft)-high steel container, the battery consists of 100 tonnes of low-grade builders' sand, two district heating pipes and a fan. The sand becomes a battery after it is heated up to 600C using electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels in Finland, brought by Vatajankoski, the owners of the power plant.
The renewable energy powers a resistance heater which heats up the air inside the sand. Inside the battery, this hot air is circulated by a fan around the sand through heat exchange pipes.
Thick insulation surrounds the sand, keeping the temperature inside the battery at 600C (1,112F), even when it is freezing outside. "We don't want to lose any heat; the average winter temperature is below 0C (32F) in Kankanpää," says Ville Kivioja, lead scientist at Polar Night Energy, who monitors the battery's performance online.
The battery stores 8 MWh of thermal energy when full. When energy demand rises, the battery discharges about 200 kW of power through the heat-exchange pipes: that's enough to provide heating and hot water for about 100 homes and a public swimming pool in Kankaanpää, supplementing power from the grid. The battery is charged overnight when the electricity prices are lower.
A new way of storing renewable energy is providing clean heat through the long Nordic nights.
At the end of a winding, tree-lined country road in western Finland, four young engineers believe they have a possible answer to one of green energy's biggest challenges.
The challenge is how to provide a year-round, steady power supply from renewable energy during changing seasons and variable weather conditions. The answer nestling in Vatajankoski power plant, 270 km (168 miles) north-west of Finland's capital, Helsinki, is remarkably simple, abundant and cheap: sand.
The Vatajankoski power plant is home to the world's first commercial-scale sand battery. Fully enclosed in a 7m (23ft)-high steel container, the battery consists of 100 tonnes of low-grade builders' sand, two district heating pipes and a fan. The sand becomes a battery after it is heated up to 600C using electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels in Finland, brought by Vatajankoski, the owners of the power plant.
The renewable energy powers a resistance heater which heats up the air inside the sand. Inside the battery, this hot air is circulated by a fan around the sand through heat exchange pipes.
Thick insulation surrounds the sand, keeping the temperature inside the battery at 600C (1,112F), even when it is freezing outside. "We don't want to lose any heat; the average winter temperature is below 0C (32F) in Kankanpää," says Ville Kivioja, lead scientist at Polar Night Energy, who monitors the battery's performance online.
The battery stores 8 MWh of thermal energy when full. When energy demand rises, the battery discharges about 200 kW of power through the heat-exchange pipes: that's enough to provide heating and hot water for about 100 homes and a public swimming pool in Kankaanpää, supplementing power from the grid. The battery is charged overnight when the electricity prices are lower.
The draft of the National Climate Assessment, the governmentâs premier contribution to climate knowledge, provides the most detailed look yet at the consequences of global warming for the United States, both in the present and in the future. The final report isnât scheduled to be published until late 2023, but the 13 federal agencies and hundreds of scientists who are compiling the assessment issued a 1,695-page draft for public comment on Monday.â
The things Americans value most are at risk,â says the draft report, which could still undergo changes as it goes through the review process. âMore intense extreme events and long-term climate changes make it harder to maintain safe homes and healthy families, reliable public services, a sustainable economy, thriving ecosystems and strong communities.â (...)
Under a law passed by Congress in 1990, the federal government is required to release the National Climate Assessment every four years, with contributions from a range of scientists across federal agencies as well as outside experts. The last assessment, released in 2018, found that unchecked warming could cause significant damage to the U.S. economy.
The Trump administration tried, but largely failed, to halt work on the next report, and its release was pushed back to 2023. (...)
"At the end of last year, overall fossil fuels represented 81% of energy consumption. 10 years ago, they were at 82%," says Jeff Currie. "$3.8 trillion of investment in renewables moved fossil fuels from 82% to 81% of the overall energy consumption."
"At the end of last year, overall fossil fuels represented 81% of energy consumption. 10 years ago, they were at 82%," says Jeff Currie. "$3.8 trillion of investment in renewables moved fossil fuels from 82% to 81% of the overall energy consumption."
âLiterally a third of the country is under water,â Pakistanâs Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman warned this week, after the death toll from the nationâs devastating floods topped 1,100 after record monsoon rains. The torrential downpours come after a series of heat waves, highlighting Pakistanâs vulnerability to climate change.
Since early June, Pakistan has been the victim of flood after flood: from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the Himalayan foothills, to the arid regions of Balochistan and Sindh in the south, riverbanks have burst and destroyed houses, roads and bridges. Thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.
Climate Change Minister Rehman described it as a âcrisis of unimaginable proportionsâ, telling AFP news agency that "it's all one big ocean, there's no dry land to pump the water out".
A
ban on single-use plastic and paper bags in grocery stores had an
unintended effect: Delivery services switched to heavy, reusable sacks â
lots of them.
Nicole
Kramaritsch of Roxbury, N.J., has 46 bags just sitting in her garage.
Brian Otto has 101 of them, so many that heâs considering sewing them
into blackout curtains for his babyâs bedroom. (So far, that idea has
gone nowhere.) Lili Mannuzza in Whippany has 74.
âI donât know what to do with all these bags,â she said.
The mountains of bags are an unintended consequence of New Jerseyâs strict new bag ban
in supermarkets. It went into effect in May and prohibits not only
plastic bags but paper bags as well. The well-intentioned law seeks to
cut down on waste and single-use plastics, but for many people who rely
on grocery delivery and curbside pickup services their orders now come
in heavy-duty reusable shopping bags â lots and lots of them, week after
week.
While nearly a dozen states
nationwide have implemented restrictions on single-use plastic bags, New
Jersey is the only one to ban paper bags because of their environmental impact.
The law also bans polystyrene foam food containers and cups, and
restricts restaurants from handing out plastic straws unless theyâre
requested.
Sign up for the Climate Forward newsletter Your must-read guide to the climate crisis.
Emily
Gonyou, 22, a gig worker in Roselle Park who provides shopping services
for people through Instacart, said she was surprised when she learned
the delivery company had no special plans for accommodating the ban.
âThey pretty much said, âOK, do exactly what youâre doing, but with
reusable bags,ââ she said.
Compared
to single-use plastics, the more durable reusable bags are better for
the environment only if they are actually reused. According to Shelie
Miller, a professor at the University of Michigan School for Environment
and Sustainability, a typical reusable bag, manufactured from
polypropylene, must be used at least 10 times to account for the
additional energy and material required to make it. For cotton totes, that number is much higher.
The
goal of bag bans is to reduce reliance on single-use plastics like the
thin bags that became ubiquitous decades ago and which are manufactured
from fossil fuels and can take many lifetimes to degrade in a landfill.
Many, of course, donât make it to landfills at all, but get swept away
in the wind and end up stuck and flapping in tree branches, or else they
pollute waterways and oceans. Paper bags are sometimes seen as an
eco-friendly alternative because they are more recyclable and made from
trees, a renewable resource, yet they take significantly more energy to
produce.
The
ban in New Jersey, which applies to grocery stores 2,500 square feet or
bigger, is meant to encourage in-store shoppers to skip single-use
plastic and paper entirely, and instead bring their own reusable bags.
But that, of course, doesnât work for most online orders.
In
the past three years or so, the nation has seen a major uptick in
online grocery shopping. While some of those people have returned to
in-person shopping as pandemic restrictions have eased, others formed a
new habit. About 6 percent of food and beverage sales are online,
according to an executive at Coresight Research, a retail advisory firm.
âThereâs
clearly a hiccup on this,â said Bob Smith, a New Jersey state senator
and co-sponsor of the bill, âand weâre going to solve it.â Mr. Smith
said that the legislature would most likely create an exception by
amending the rule to allow paper bags for online orders.
A
spokeswoman from Instacart said the company was making sure it was
complying with state laws and was choosing the most cost-effective
reusable bag option for their customers...
Or the delivery companies could pick up bags from the customers and, like, reuse them
A
ban on single-use plastic and paper bags in grocery stores had an
unintended effect: Delivery services switched to heavy, reusable sacks â
lots of them.
Nicole
Kramaritsch of Roxbury, N.J., has 46 bags just sitting in her garage.
Brian Otto has 101 of them, so many that heâs considering sewing them
into blackout curtains for his babyâs bedroom. (So far, that idea has
gone nowhere.) Lili Mannuzza in Whippany has 74.
âI donât know what to do with all these bags,â she said.
The mountains of bags are an unintended consequence of New Jerseyâs strict new bag ban
in supermarkets. It went into effect in May and prohibits not only
plastic bags but paper bags as well. The well-intentioned law seeks to
cut down on waste and single-use plastics, but for many people who rely
on grocery delivery and curbside pickup services their orders now come
in heavy-duty reusable shopping bags â lots and lots of them, week after
week.
While nearly a dozen states
nationwide have implemented restrictions on single-use plastic bags, New
Jersey is the only one to ban paper bags because of their environmental impact.
The law also bans polystyrene foam food containers and cups, and
restricts restaurants from handing out plastic straws unless theyâre
requested.
Sign up for the Climate Forward newsletter Your must-read guide to the climate crisis.
Emily
Gonyou, 22, a gig worker in Roselle Park who provides shopping services
for people through Instacart, said she was surprised when she learned
the delivery company had no special plans for accommodating the ban.
âThey pretty much said, âOK, do exactly what youâre doing, but with
reusable bags,ââ she said.
Compared
to single-use plastics, the more durable reusable bags are better for
the environment only if they are actually reused. According to Shelie
Miller, a professor at the University of Michigan School for Environment
and Sustainability, a typical reusable bag, manufactured from
polypropylene, must be used at least 10 times to account for the
additional energy and material required to make it. For cotton totes, that number is much higher.
The
goal of bag bans is to reduce reliance on single-use plastics like the
thin bags that became ubiquitous decades ago and which are manufactured
from fossil fuels and can take many lifetimes to degrade in a landfill.
Many, of course, donât make it to landfills at all, but get swept away
in the wind and end up stuck and flapping in tree branches, or else they
pollute waterways and oceans. Paper bags are sometimes seen as an
eco-friendly alternative because they are more recyclable and made from
trees, a renewable resource, yet they take significantly more energy to
produce.
The
ban in New Jersey, which applies to grocery stores 2,500 square feet or
bigger, is meant to encourage in-store shoppers to skip single-use
plastic and paper entirely, and instead bring their own reusable bags.
But that, of course, doesnât work for most online orders.
In
the past three years or so, the nation has seen a major uptick in
online grocery shopping. While some of those people have returned to
in-person shopping as pandemic restrictions have eased, others formed a
new habit. About 6 percent of food and beverage sales are online,
according to an executive at Coresight Research, a retail advisory firm.
âThereâs
clearly a hiccup on this,â said Bob Smith, a New Jersey state senator
and co-sponsor of the bill, âand weâre going to solve it.â Mr. Smith
said that the legislature would most likely create an exception by
amending the rule to allow paper bags for online orders.
A
spokeswoman from Instacart said the company was making sure it was
complying with state laws and was choosing the most cost-effective
reusable bag option for their customers...
