I wonder is a scaled up version of this could work for grid-scale medium length storage. Smoothing out weeks of dunkleflaute is the main blocker to going to a primarily renewable grid. Gasoline is a lot easier to store than hydrogen and large scale gasoline generators should get close to the efficiency of natural gas peaker plants.
Sure, but you cant store that electricity as electricity. IMO this is most interesting as a energy storage technology, so the comparison isnt what that gasoline would do in an ICE car compared to an EV, its to what it would cost compared to battery storage (or compressed air or whatever other technology) to store a few weeks of output on the order of months. The big advantage I see here is that unlike those other technologies capacity is dirt cheap to build, its just a metal tank. So whenever a renewable plant would curtail its output it can instead redirect to creating gasoline to burn when the renewables arent producing much electricity.
I wonder is a scaled up version of this could work for grid-scale medium length storage. Smoothing out weeks of dunkleflaute is the main blocker to going to a primarily renewable grid. Gasoline is a lot easier to store than hydrogen and large scale gasoline generators should get close to the efficiency of natural gas peaker plants.
Problem is that the efficiency is on the ground here.
The same energy that might get an EV 200 miles instead produces a single gallon of gasoline, to get a sense for the relative value of the efficiency.
Sure, but you cant store that electricity as electricity. IMO this is most interesting as a energy storage technology, so the comparison isnt what that gasoline would do in an ICE car compared to an EV, its to what it would cost compared to battery storage (or compressed air or whatever other technology) to store a few weeks of output on the order of months. The big advantage I see here is that unlike those other technologies capacity is dirt cheap to build, its just a metal tank. So whenever a renewable plant would curtail its output it can instead redirect to creating gasoline to burn when the renewables arent producing much electricity.