more greenwashing from the fossil fuels industry
this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2025
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Sure wish they mentioned the effeciency.
Could be very high, even the waste heat from the compression could be used to achieve more compression and turbines get to above 90%, that all depends on the scales they're building this at. 70% overall doesn't seem unrealistic as an educated guess.
On their website (energydome.com) they claim “75%+” round trip efficiency, so not a bad guess!
That’s a hell of a lot better than most other systems. If true, and if scalable, this is a huge innovation.
compressors, turbines (like steam turbines), piping, some of which heat-resistant (500C), container for liquid carbon dioxide, lots of plastic for the bubble, something for thermal storage, dry and clean carbon dioxide, these aren't unusual or restricted resources, don't depend on critical raw materials or anything like that
Compressed air without heat recovery is more like 30%, so this is huge
Carbon dioxide can be liquefied relatively easily which is what i guess makes this efficient
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We had these things called Gasometers in the UK for a long time. They expanded with the amount of gas stored in them, and they kept the pressure of the local gas supply up. A local gas reservoir, or "gas battery" if you like.
These bubbles are basically the same idea but at higher pressure.
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I wonder how resilient they are to big winds.
Also from the article:
If the worst happens and the dome is punctured, 2,000 tonnes of CO2 will enter the atmosphere. That’s equivalent to the emissions of about 15 round-trip flights between New York and London on a Boeing 777. “It’s negligible compared to the emissions of a coal plant,” Spadacini says. People will also need to stay back 70 meters or more until the air clears, he says.
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160km/hr as per TFA.
Guilty, I only skimmed it. Thanks.
And if there is a known high wind coming, the plant can forcefully go through the compression cycle to remove the bubble.
That's really not that big of a wind. One bad storm and we have it burst
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The article also mentions that they can deflate it in around 10 hours
Sounds pretty good
Wonder how small you can scale these and retain efficiency, at twice the footprint (but I'm guessing a lot more volume) of a lithium grid battery, will we see these replacing home batteries down the line?
They are talking hectares in this and it looks like the power density is below that of batteries, but its also cheaper per MWh.
I home long term battery makes a lot of sense, I have thought for a while something that goes from water and the air into methane or even liquid fuel would be highly beneficial as it could run from a generators through the winter and act for long term storage without requiring a turbine.
The tanks might go underground mitigating (perhaps) the pressure explosion risk as opposed to lithium fire risk, but the honking great tent is an issue. Should have a longer life than Li Ion and be repairable vs somewhat recyclable. At scaled production it could certainly be cheaper, but some of the newer immobile battery chemistries might beat it. Synthesized fuel also makes a lot of sense. We shall see. What certainly makes sense is microgrids and power self-sufficiency.