Issue link: http://resourceworld.uberflip.com/i/1174544
O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 9 www.resourceworld.com 67 describing their findings, titled Energy Conversion via Metal Nanolayers, appears in the July 29, 2019 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. TESLA ANNOUNCES A NEW, UTILITY-SCALE ENERGY STORAGE PRODUCT Tesla, Inc. [TSLA-NASDAQ] head- quartered in Palo Alto, California, has announced a utility-scale energy storage solution, to be called Megapack. Modeled after the giant battery system it built as part of the Hornsdale wind farm in South Australia, it can directly connect to renewable energy sources, providing a constant power source when the sun sets or the wind stops. This system, called Powerpack, stores power generated by the wind farm and then delivers the electricity to the grid during peak hours. The facility saved nearly $40 million in its first year. Tesla claims it can deploy a one gigawatt- hour plant over three acres in under three months, which is about four times faster than a comparable fossil fuel plant. This will be the third and largest energy storage system offered by Tesla. It also offers a res- idential-scale system called Powerwall, and the commercial-scale version Powerpack. Tesla claims that Megapack will offer 60% greater energy density compared to its Powerpack system. This is the latest effort by the company to retool and grow its energy storage business, which is a smaller revenue driver than its electric vehicle sales. Of the $6.4 billion in total revenue posted in the second quarter, just $368 million was from Tesla's solar and energy storage product business. Powerwalls are now installed at more than 50,000 sites and according to the company's second-quarter earnings report, it deployed a record 415 megawatt-hours of energy storage products in Q2, an 81% increase from the previous quarter, an occurrence that is more com- mon as temperatures and populations rise. Tesla's Megapack will provide 182.5 MW of the upcoming 567 MW Moss Landing energy storage project in California. Instead of using a natural gas peaker plant (gas turbines that burn natu- ral gas), utilities could use the Megapack to store excess solar or wind energy to sup- port the grid's peak loads. STORING CARBON DIOXIDE IN ROCKS Rocks in British Columbia could naturally capture the greenhouse gas, carbon diox- ide (CO 2 ), thanks to new mineral research led by the UBC Bradshaw Research Initiative for Minerals and Mining and Mineral Deposit Research Unit. Project leader Dr. Greg Dipple said, "With this generous funding from Geoscience BC we will, for the first time in the world, map out the carbon storage potential of ser- pentinite rocks across an entire mountain chain. Serpentinite can be highly reactive to carbon dioxide in air and occurs sporad- ically through much of British Columbia. The results will assist in the planning of future carbon capture and storage projects across the province." "Geoscience BC is excited about fund- ing collaborative research to advance science and innovative technologies," said Geoscience BC Vice President, Minerals Christa Pellett. "This project will allow us to better understand natural ways to manage greenhouse gases. Our contribu- tion to this minerals research will result in a Carbon Mineralization Potential Index for rocks in British Columbia, which will help to take this promising applied geo- science to the next level." Identifying the distribution, abundances, geometries and quality of these ultramafic rocks is a first step towards quantifying capturing green- house gases. n Project leader, UBC's Dr. Greg Dipple. Photo courtesy Geoscience BC. The Tesla Powerwall 2 is a clean alternative to a generator and backs up critical loads in a power outage. It can be used in conjunction with solar panels. Photo courtesy Tesla, Inc.