I found this item in the AGU newsroom today, I don’t quite know what to make of it.
by Margaret Donelick
BiMBy Power Company, LLC will present a poster at the AGU Meeting on December 15 in San Francisco’s Moscone Center that describes an innovative device designed to provide grid-scale, renewable energy storage capacity and constructed using overburden from strip coal mines or waste rock from open-pit metal mines.
Called a Big Mass Battery or BiMBy, the device lowers the carbon footprint of burned coal by repurposing the overburden moved during mining to enable construction of an on-demand renewable energy power plant. A carbon footprint for coal similar to that of natural gas may be achieved by using the BiMBy to store compressed air. A carbon footprint for coal much lower than that for natural gas may be achieved by using the BiMBy to store compressed hydrogen, potentially making coal the go-to fossil fuel as fossil fuels are replaced by renewable energy sources.
Up to 30% of the volume of a typical pile of mine overburden/waste rock is pore space filled with air and/or water. Encapsulating the pore space deep within the pile to form a pressure vessel allows compressed gas to be stored within that pore space at a pressure determined by the load of mine overburden/waste rock overlying the encapsulated pore space. In the US, 3-4 giga-tonnes of mine overburden associated with coal mining and 1-2 giga-tonnes associated with metals mining are moved annually.
The worldwide totals are perhaps 5-10 times the US amounts. Widescale repurposing of mine overburden/waste rock for several decades in the US would provide enough energy storage capacity to replace a significant fraction of the fossil fuels currently burned to generate electricity; 10-20% replaced for BiMBys storing compressed air, and 100% replaced with capacity to spare for BiMBys storing hydrogen.
Using mine overburden/waste rock to build renewable energy storage creates the notions of ‘green coal’ and ‘clean gold’. The BiMBy concept offers skilled power plant jobs at active mine sites and a new strategy for converting inactive mine brown-field sites into on-grid or off-grid renewable energy power plants, as per EPA’s RE Powering America.
At a currently operating coal mine, a predictable BiMBy construction timeline can be the basis for a predictable longterm plan to operate and ultimately shutdown the mine. At an inactive and polluting metal mine, the BiMBy pressure vessel at such a polluting site is encapsulated and operated dry and with a positive air pressure, offering a potentially transformative way to satisfy environmental regulatory compliance at the site.
The 50 mega-tonnes of overburden moved annually as the Rosebud Mine near Colstrip, MT could be used to build compressed-air-based renewable energy storage capacity sufficient to convert 10,000 or more US homes to 100% renewable energy, or 200,000 or more homes over 20 years of mining. The 300 mega-tonnes of waste rock at the inactive Anaconda Mine near Yerington, NV could be used to convert 200,000 US homes to 100% renewable energy.
I suspect that the primary mining activity in this case is subsidy mining. Maybe if they get enough they can hire a competent engineer to explain to them why this won’t work.
So perhaps they could come back and tell us about it once they have a working, cost effective pilot plant of reasonable scale?
I get so annoyed by those people blithely talking about carbon sequestration. The carbon was already sequestered in the form of coal. Once you burn it, it stops being carbon and becomes CO2. In other words two atoms of oxygen for every atom of coal. If it was a product in a grocery store, you would have to name it after the largest ingredient.
In other words, they are proposing oxygen sequestration. Which creates a problem for me, since I breathe oxygen.
I believe there is a spelling error in the article. BiMBy should be spelled NIMBY
I do not know what drugs these guys use to come up with these hare-brained schemes, but I sure would like to get my hands on some for the coming festive season.
BimBY
Buggered in my Back Yard?
For gods sake Anthony delete this thread before the greentards see it !
To late….. Griff has.
Assuming no increase in power demand, with the overburden producing power, less coal would need to be mined to produce power, meaning less overburden??
I don’t know if this makes sense other than as a small offset to continued mining: it isn’t a world wide/large scale solution.
Might as well put solar panels on the waste tips?
I note Queensland is using two old open cast mines for pumped storage (don’t recall if coal mines or other)
Too late .
A possible use for mine over burden. Yawn.
Wait! If we can say it could be used for the latest pop science craze, we might generate some interest. How ’bout we say it is a “device designed to provide grid-scale, renewable energy storage capacity?”
A technology looking for an application. Desperately seeking an application.
Batteries, batteries, batteries….Our Tesla wannabes sure always fall back on bloody batteries.
I like it better when these Californian subsidy hogs talk about going to Mars. It’s more fun, plus there’s the eco-tourism angle.
Hey, maybe they could use mine overburden to practise their Mars walking. That’d count as a green job, right?
So, the plan is to pump hydrogen at very high compression ratios into porous rocks with non-negligible organic matter (coal dust) with no built in cooling. So if there is a single hot spot what happens? Or if when taking a gas and compressing it a hot spot develops what is going to happen?
Depends on whether oxygen is also present.
This is embarrassing. Is this the kind of stuff that they are presenting? Did they get grant money for this? Much better off pumping water uphill to a lake with hydro capabilities.
If you want to take advantage of temp differences to enhance pressure…, probably short storage times. Any long term storage is wortheless because of leakage . Actually this is lke a water tank for air but with the warm fuzzy of beautifying ugly coal waste/overburden. Energy in = e. out. this is only about 50% efficient and that is with a piston / flywheel/ and awesome transmission gearing. I know!
Oh, My. Sorry Anthony, you should have seen these comments coming.
From all I read, solutions to cut energy consumption is a multi-tiered problem. I’d proposition that social-media cuts CO2 emissions. After all, those teenagers are sitting on their couches, instead of driving cars and hanging at the mall.
I do have a question, where are we with Superconductivity power lines? Not heard anything for a decade or so.