Create new ways to store new energy

Posted: 

At The Ohio State University, we’re hardwired to think ambitiously. The Ohio State Alumni Magazine asked a dozen experts across the institution, including Jeff Bielicki, assistant professor of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering, how they would tackle a big problem if they were given unlimited time, money and resources.
 

masterminds_bielicki_illustration.jpg
Sunlight and wind are promising clean, renewable energy options, but they pose challenges. Electricity generation must match demand, and it’s hard for the system to accommodate electricity produced only when the sun shines or the wind blows. For example, the electricity generated from wind blowing in the middle of the night is wasted if most people are asleep and there is little demand for it. That means we need ways to store large quantities of energy for long periods of time.

Batteries tend to be the default approach, but they aren’t feasible for long-term and large-scale energy storage. So, what if we could store excess energy as pressure or heat (or both) in geologic formations deep underground?

The subsurface is an excellent insulated and isolated container. Excess energy could be used to pressurize or heat a fluid that could be stored in a deep formation. Later, when the energy is needed, some of the fluid could be extracted and the pressure or heat converted into electricity in a power plant. Additional energy could be produced from geothermal heat.

There are a lot of potential benefits to subsurface energy storage: In addition to being able to “time-shift” excess energy, the process requires no exotic materials. Plus, aquifers underlie about half of North America, so the resource potential is broad. And we also could make good use of depleted oil and gas fields.

As we address climate change, energy security and water stress, it’s important that we be faithful stewards of the planet by using renewable forms of energy. There is a lot of interest in using the subsurface to store and dispatch energy, and scientists here and elsewhere are now using computer models to develop the technology.


This article originally appeared in the May-June edition of Ohio State Alumni magazine.

Edited from a conversation with writer Erin Peterson. Illustration by Matt Collins.
 

Category: Faculty