[Jonty30]

Basically, you can heat it up and cool it off for forever and it never breaks down. If it loses efficiency, it can be replaced and this stuff can be recycled.

Presumably coal ash can be put to work just the same.

[Yossarian]

ASH ALERT!

(Sorry, old habits die hard...)

[Tell It Right]

Don’t trust it. Large scale energy applications like that are still best handled with fossil fuels. Storing power always has too much conversion and storage loss. The only reason to use alternative power sources and storage is at the residential level to provide energy even when the Dims are making energy inaccessible or too expensive to use.

[FreedomPoster]

Sorry, but in general when dealing with thermal storage, if there isn’t a phase change involved, there isn’t enough energy involved to be interesting. This is more Green energy money wasting, most likely.

[jacknhoo]

That’s going to take a mighty big ash.

[trebb]

Yeah - instead of having wind farms, we can have mirror farms directed at huge ash-holes - did I get that right?

[mewzilla]

I think this is the paper...

Evaluation of volcanic ash as a low-cost high-temperature thermal energy storage material for concentrated solar power

Paging Iceland!

[butlerweave]

Being blanketed in volcanic ash also kills

[PIF]

Volcanic ash is rock ash. Not a household powder. Nothing surprising about being able to heat and cool. Earth recycles rock all the time.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Wonder how ash from a coal fired power plant would work.

[vpintheak]

This kind of stuff is basically the only “green” energy I support. Heat it up any way you want, but store it well. Sounds really interesting.

[JimRed]

Presumably coal ash can be put to work just the same.

Yeah, but to get coal ash you have to burn coal. Horrors!

Seriously, is anyone working on technology to clean up coal burning? We could sell it to China and India.