Shadowing Practice: How to fix clean energy’s storage problem - Learn English Speaking with Video
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This is the typical demand for electricity on a spring day in California.
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It starts growing around 6 a .m., then rises again around 6 p .m.
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Now, this line shows when wind power feeds the California power grid.
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Wind is variable, but often picks up at night.
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Solar panels, on the other hand, kick into gear around 7 a .m., generate a lot of electricity until the sun sets around 7 p .m.
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On most days, neither comes close to meeting the peak demands of the day.
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So, the power company relies on fossil fuels, like natural gas, to make up for the gap, which widens significantly when people use electricity the most.
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Since the power company can't store the solar and wind energy, it has to use fossil fuels at these times,
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which can be stored in barrels and tanks.
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It's kind of the big gap in our renewable energy system right now.
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If we don't figure out a way to store renewable energy, there's a chance that we're going to be still dependent on fossil fuels.
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So, how do we store some of this solar and wind energy for later?
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Right now you might be thinking, just use a battery.
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And you're not wrong.
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Batteries have improved immensely over the past few years, particularly lithium -ion batteries, which use a chemical reaction to store energy.
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Individual homes that have solar panels often use lithium -ion batteries to store energy.
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But there's a few reasons lithium -ion isn't perfect for the grid.
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This is Neil Dinesha, a founding writer at Heatmap, a climate news site, and he wrote about this for Vox in 2022.
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One is just the scale that's needed.
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We would need a lot at a level that we just don't really have right now.
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That's a challenge because lithium is only found in a few places on earth.
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But more importantly, like we need lithium -ion batteries for other things.
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Lithium -ion battery is really good for stuff that moves because it's relatively light.
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Meaning it's better suited for things like electric cars and portable electronics, not power grids that stay still.
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Luckily, there's another energy storage solution that's actually been around for a long time.
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This is the site for the first pump storage hydroelectric station in Southern Ireland.
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This is a type of energy storage called pump storage hydro.
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They were first built in Europe.
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The U .S built one in 1929.
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And many more were built in the 1970s and 80s as a way to store nuclear power.
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Today, these facilities are all over the world.
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There are 39 of them in the U .S.
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And they store energy in a really fascinating yet simple way.
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When energy demand is low,
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renewable or fossil fuel energy is used to pump water from a reservoir or river up a mountain into a higher reservoir.
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Basically converting this energy into what's called potential energy.
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So potential energy, you might kind of remember from high school physics.
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When a thing is up at a height, it has stored potential energy.
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When it's let go, it turns into kinetic energy.
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When that energy is needed, the water is released down the mountain,
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where it's converted into kinetic energy that spins a turbine and generates electricity for the grid.
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It's a way of combining water, a mountain, and gravity into a battery, and it can be about 90 % efficient,
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meaning only 10 % of this energy is lost in the process.
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Pump storage hydro works really well, but it's difficult to build more.
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Well, for starters, you need a mountain, and you need to haul out a mountain to put pumps inside it,
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and it takes a lot of money, and we don't have mountains everywhere.
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So the ideal way to store renewable energy would be something that's cheaper and smaller than a pump storage hydro plant,
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but works in roughly the same way.
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One company, Energy Vault, is also using gravity to store renewable energy, but without the water or mountain.
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Instead, renewable energy is used to lift heavy blocks of concrete up into the air, where it becomes potential energy.
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Then when it's needed, the blocks are released, spinning a turbine, which converts the potential energy back into electricity.
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Energy Vault calls this gravity energy storage, and while it's still being tested, the company claims it could be more than 80 % efficient.
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A company called QuidNet is working on a different version of the same principle.
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Their geomechanical pump storage unit uses renewable energy to pump water underground into a pressurized hole, where it can be stored as potential energy,
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then released back up to the surface to spin a turbine and generate electricity.
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Both techniques are betting on potential energy as a solution for storing renewable energy for the grid.
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I think this partly because potential energy has shown itself to be pretty efficient.
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Also, realistically, fewer moving parts.
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If all you're doing basically is using gravity to work with you, you have a pretty massive force of nature on your side right there.
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But potential energy isn't the only possible solution.
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Other companies are using renewable energy to superheat salt, insulating it, then releasing that heat to create steam or hot air to drive a turbine.
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Basically storing renewables by converting them to thermal energy.
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Then there's a company that's betting on rusted iron.
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They're called iron air batteries and what they do is they utilize the chemical reaction
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that creates rust to store and discharge energy.
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This thing
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that we all sort of think of as an inconvenience could be really useful is just kind of beautiful to me.
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Right now these ideas are all in various stages of development, but they are attracting investors.
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And the hope is that several will work because one might not fit every power grid.
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The grid, renewable energy overall, is going to be a sort of patchwork solution.
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And so the more we try these solutions,
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the closer we get to figuring out exactly what the right mix is for what we need for the greater future.
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Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les
Deze spreekles is gebaseerd op de video “How to fix clean energy’s storage problem”. Deze woorden komen het vaakst terug: energy, renewable, store, potential, pump. Deze video bevat 72 zinnen en 1011 woorden om na te spreken. Het gesproken deel duurt 5:21. De spreker praat snel, ongeveer 189 woorden per minuut, dus reken op verbonden en ingeslikte klanken. Slechts 79% van de woorden hoort bij de 3.000 meest gebruikte Engelse woorden, dus de woordenschat is pittig.
Belangrijke woorden in deze video
15 woorden uit de video die het leren waard zijn, met uitspraak en betekenis:
| Woord | Uitspraak | Betekenis |
|---|---|---|
| renewable bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /ɹɪˈnu.ə.bl̩/ | hernieuwbaar, vernieuwbaar |
| pump zelfstandig naamwoord | /pʌmp/ | pomp |
| grid zelfstandig naamwoord | /ɡɹɪd/ | raster |
| lithium zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈlɪθi.əm/ | lithium |
| fossil zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈfɑsl̩/ | fossiel |
| turbine zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈtɜː.baɪn/ | turbine |
| efficient bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /ɪˈfɪʃənt/ | efficiënt |
| spin werkwoord | /spɪn/ | draaien |
| reservoir zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈɹɛz.ə(ɹ).vwɑɹ/ | reservoir |
| rust zelfstandig naamwoord | /ɹʌst/ | roest, oxidatie |
| technique zelfstandig naamwoord | /tɛkˈniːk/ | techniek |
| concrete bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /ˌkɑnˈkɹit/ | concreet |
| ideal bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /aɪˈdi(ə)l/ | ideaal, optimaal |
| physics zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈfɪz.ɪks/ | natuurkunde, fysica |
| roughly bijwoord | /ˈɹʌf.li/ | grofweg |
Phrasal verbs die je zult horen
| Woord | Betekenis |
|---|---|
| figure out werkwoord | uitvogelen, er achter komen |
Grammatica in deze video
De structuren die de spreker het meest gebruikt, met de exacte woorden uit de video:
| Structuur | In de video |
|---|---|
| Lijdende vorm be + voltooid deelwoord — het gaat om wat er gebeurt, niet om wie het doet | can be stored · is only found · were built |
| Present perfect have/has + voltooid deelwoord — iets uit het verleden dat nu nog telt | have improved · that's actually been · has stored |
Uitspraak om op te letten
De spreker gebruikt 10 samentrekkingen en verkorte vormen, zoals don't, isn't, you're. Spreek ze kort uit, zoals je ze hoort.
- De “th”-klanken: lithium /ˈlɪθi.əm/, thermal /ˈθɜːməl/
- De klanken “sh” en “zh”: efficient /ɪˈfɪʃənt/, pressurize /ˈpɹɛʃəɹaɪz/
- Lange woorden — let op de klemtoon: electricity /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/, electronics /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɑ.nɪks/, importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/, inconvenience /ɪnkənˈvinjəns/, hydroelectric /ˌhʌɪdrəʊɪˈlɛktrɪk/
Klanken die Nederlandstaligen lastig vinden:
- Stemhebbende eindmedeklinker — /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/ niet verscherpen: grid /ɡɹɪd/, underground /ˌʌn.dəɹˈɡɹaʊnd/, discharge /dɪsˈtʃɑɹdʒ/, utilize /ˈjuː.tɪ.laɪz/, pressurize /ˈpɹɛʃəɹaɪz/
- /æ/ — opener dan de Nederlandse “e”: gravity /ˈɡɹævɪti/, attract /əˈtɹækt/, barrel /ˈbæɹəl/, variable [ˈvæɹ.i.ə.bl̩], fascinate /ˈfæsɪneɪt/
- /g/ — een harde plofklank, geen Nederlandse “g”: grid /ɡɹɪd/, gravity /ˈɡɹævɪti/, gear /ɡɪɚ/, underground /ˌʌn.dəɹˈɡɹaʊnd/
Zo oefen je met deze video
- Luister de hele video één keer zonder te spreken en noteer de woorden die je niet kent.
- Begin op 0,75× snelheid, spreek zin voor zin na en ga terug naar normale snelheid zodra het makkelijk gaat.
- Neem jezelf op en vergelijk met het origineel; let daarbij op woorden als renewable, pump, grid.
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