Considering what happened in that post, is it really safe for that sort of use?
Solar Dreams: a history of solar energy (1878 - 2025)
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Considering what happened in that post, is it really safe for that sort of use?
I really felt for Herr Hess here, really thought he would not get out of the problem. Cunning use of his equipment there to stop Sebastiani and his thugs. Hope those kids got out of the mines.
Was Hess able to recover most of his notes, damaged or not before they left.
Liquid Air battery is a very neat idea that should spur all sorts of changes and vehicles.
Nice that Italy got a solar power industry by such an bizarre method.
Was Hess able to recover most of his notes, damaged or not before they left.
Liquid Air battery is a very neat idea that should spur all sorts of changes and vehicles.
Nice that Italy got a solar power industry by such an bizarre method.
NOTE: It doesn't come clear in the story, but Hess was bullshitting to Sebastiani about the potential of liquid air as an energy source. He just knew that it'd burst and probably take out the thugs, but he was mostly replicating Mouchot's work on air liquefaction using Stirling engines and reporting on his research.
Liquid Air isn't a superfuel as described, and its energy density (125 wh/kg in practice) is two orders of magnitude smaller than gasoline (12200 wh/kg), but far surpasses the density of contemporary Lead-Acid batteries (35 wh/kg) and is competitive with current Lithium batteries (200-300 wh/kg).
So, in the context of the late 19th century, when turbines, recirculation and regenerative braking systems are still unknown or unproven, we could cut the recoverable energy in half and still have something that far surpasses known energy storage systems, while having obvious limitations that must be dealt with before reaching the technology's full potential.
Here's a description of the process by a company currently creating these systems
And a video where this technology is discussed.
Here's a link that briefly describes an early Liquid Air powered car, which shows that turn of the century technology was capable of developing these devices in OTL
Solar Energy and the adjacent technologies and advances are still somewhat limited in reach, with Atacama being the outlier for obvious reasons. For now, they are seen as interesting experiments and - paralleling a bit of the "fossil chauvinism" discussed in the paper I shared a few weeks ago - a 'poor man's' energy, used when coal isn't available.
Of course, there are people everywhere taking notice. Abel Pifre in France is certainly taking notes of his former associate making a fortune in South America and working in the background.
Narratively, though, he won't make an appearance until at least 1896, as I have the timeline up until that year written with the actors in place.
In a way, Germany shouldn't deviate much from OTL during this point, since they have a secure energy source in the Rhine coal deposits. Marginal prices of coal will severely limit solar infrastructure development in the region, relegating it to niche applications such as air conditioning and air liquefaction ("We can't be bothered to get coal for that").
However, this will greatly affect colonization, as the marginal prices of coal and renewables will invert in those areas. How will this change the relations between European powers is something that will come off gradually as things develop. I don't want to set the story on a given path just because I want it.
In Sicily, the Florio family wasn't particularly known for their mafia connections. They probably had some, but for the most part they were industrialists. And they don't a monopoly on solar power, just a really good headstart.
Electrification and mechanisation, since liquid air could be used as a working fluid as well as an energy storage system. Given consistent winds (or winds+ Stirling solar), a farmer could become independent of fossil fuels.
And depending on how much winds become an economic factor, this in turn could change how farms are pollinated and the kind of crops grown. I'd have to do a bit of math to figure out the numbers for a more in-depth answer.
It's actually quite feasible to store and transport cryonic fluids with a Dewar flask... so long as you don't hit it with an axe because your moronic boss told you to. Once stored, they can remain cold for weeks with little supervision.
Vehicle development is an interesting topic, as there were many options being considered IOTL which were more or less plausible. Oil powered cars still have their advantage of easy refueling and more power, but cheaper and more abundant electricity or easy to produce liquid air will offer more competition this time around.
Speaking of liquid air: it has economies of scale. This means that a larger storage will incur in less losses than a smaller one (less proportional area to radiate heat). This will have implications for energy generation and vehicle size in the future, if liquid air becomes more popular.
Liquid Air isn't a superfuel as described, and its energy density (125 wh/kg in practice) is two orders of magnitude smaller than gasoline (12200 wh/kg), but far surpasses the density of contemporary Lead-Acid batteries (35 wh/kg) and is competitive with current Lithium batteries (200-300 wh/kg).
So, in the context of the late 19th century, when turbines, recirculation and regenerative braking systems are still unknown or unproven, we could cut the recoverable energy in half and still have something that far surpasses known energy storage systems, while having obvious limitations that must be dealt with before reaching the technology's full potential.
Here's a description of the process by a company currently creating these systems
And a video where this technology is discussed.
Here's a link that briefly describes an early Liquid Air powered car, which shows that turn of the century technology was capable of developing these devices in OTL
Solar Energy and the adjacent technologies and advances are still somewhat limited in reach, with Atacama being the outlier for obvious reasons. For now, they are seen as interesting experiments and - paralleling a bit of the "fossil chauvinism" discussed in the paper I shared a few weeks ago - a 'poor man's' energy, used when coal isn't available.
Of course, there are people everywhere taking notice. Abel Pifre in France is certainly taking notes of his former associate making a fortune in South America and working in the background.
Narratively, though, he won't make an appearance until at least 1896, as I have the timeline up until that year written with the actors in place.
In a way, Germany shouldn't deviate much from OTL during this point, since they have a secure energy source in the Rhine coal deposits. Marginal prices of coal will severely limit solar infrastructure development in the region, relegating it to niche applications such as air conditioning and air liquefaction ("We can't be bothered to get coal for that").
However, this will greatly affect colonization, as the marginal prices of coal and renewables will invert in those areas. How will this change the relations between European powers is something that will come off gradually as things develop. I don't want to set the story on a given path just because I want it.
In Sicily, the Florio family wasn't particularly known for their mafia connections. They probably had some, but for the most part they were industrialists. And they don't a monopoly on solar power, just a really good headstart.
Electrification and mechanisation, since liquid air could be used as a working fluid as well as an energy storage system. Given consistent winds (or winds+ Stirling solar), a farmer could become independent of fossil fuels.
And depending on how much winds become an economic factor, this in turn could change how farms are pollinated and the kind of crops grown. I'd have to do a bit of math to figure out the numbers for a more in-depth answer.
It's actually quite feasible to store and transport cryonic fluids with a Dewar flask... so long as you don't hit it with an axe because your moronic boss told you to. Once stored, they can remain cold for weeks with little supervision.
Vehicle development is an interesting topic, as there were many options being considered IOTL which were more or less plausible. Oil powered cars still have their advantage of easy refueling and more power, but cheaper and more abundant electricity or easy to produce liquid air will offer more competition this time around.
Speaking of liquid air: it has economies of scale. This means that a larger storage will incur in less losses than a smaller one (less proportional area to radiate heat). This will have implications for energy generation and vehicle size in the future, if liquid air becomes more popular.
This is even worse than I thought...then again the violence shown is definitely tame by Sicilian standards....
An the winds of changes started to blow again....and it finally reaches the United States of America... and oh boy the winds could be strong enough to be classified as a hurricane once American capitalism is involved.
Let's be honest, his experiences living in Sicily is probably affect his feelings when he..umm... knows about the dissapearance of Mr Sebastiani...
I was confused about what @Neoteros said until I reread this part...and we have the second family that is already prominent IOTL (after Isidora's) that will be involved heavily in the solar business...
A chapter that is worthy of a Turtledove I would say...
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Hm. I wonder now about energy storage the opposite way--using the concentrators to massively heat a substance and then insulate the hell out of it for storage. Falling particle systems are under investigation now--getting a material that has both a high heat capacity and a high melting point seems to be a challenge. But I wonder if you couldn't combine it with a liquid air battery to squeeze a bit more efficiency out of the combined system--after all, thermodynamic efficiency is a function of the difference in temperature between the hot and cold ends. Molten salt on one side, liquid air on the other?
(EDIT: another possibility is using solar thermal power to make synthetic fuels, but that's unlikely to be competitive with coal or petrol; specialized systems like this would likely see use in places where the emissions-free nature of liquid air batteries make them preferable. Perhaps you could get Otto and Diesel cycle engines outlawed in city centers, resulting in liquid air getting a niche for inner-city transport)
(EDIT: another possibility is using solar thermal power to make synthetic fuels, but that's unlikely to be competitive with coal or petrol; specialized systems like this would likely see use in places where the emissions-free nature of liquid air batteries make them preferable. Perhaps you could get Otto and Diesel cycle engines outlawed in city centers, resulting in liquid air getting a niche for inner-city transport)
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And with the advances from solar being applied to wind, if you have a river or creek with a watermill on your property you could feasibly store and sell energy to your neighbors. Could even jumpstart interest in Tidal Power.
And how soon until someone weaponizes Liquid Air canisters, it could be a pretty horrifying stuff.
And how soon until someone weaponizes Liquid Air canisters, it could be a pretty horrifying stuff.
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I'm more than a bit rusty with my thermodynamics, so I couldn't opine on how much efficiency of adding a higher temperature differential. Nevertheless, the liquid air engine would work have something very similar to the Carnot Cycle making the whole thing work.
One difference between a system working with liquid air instead of fuel-air mixtures is that you could pump heat into the pistons to keep them warm (for example, injecting ambient air, or doing some forced convection tricks), increasing the temperature differential and thus the energy extracted on each cycle.
And now I'm worried about how much I've forgotten about thermodynamics. Once I was able to make the whole cycle and even give an estimate of how a liquid air engine would work. It's certainly one of the most useful courses I took in uni.
As for the idea of a thermal battery, I don't know if the concept was explored in the last chapter featuring Mouchot. At least in the timeline bible I'm writing, he's spending this time also tackling the problem of intermittency in the context of Atacama: guaranteed clear skies 99.5% of the time which provide the heat needed to operate a copper foundry.
So, he only needs to last a night before solar power can kick in again, which make losses over time less important. I was thinking that silica - in the form of sand - would be the best initial material, as it has a higher melting point than copper and is easy to obtain. Silicon would be even better because of its higher heat of fusion, but I hesitate to do so too early from a narrative standpoint because it leaves open the possibility for earlier semiconductors in a way that feels too close to a wank.
In more normal environments, I think the idea of a thermal energy storage operating at less extreme temperatures could also work, as it is currently being explored as an alternative to electrical batteries IOTL. The only disadvantage I see over liquid air systems is that they can't act the working fluid themselves, which might make them a bit less efficient.
I should see if there are any thermodynamics textbooks to download, I could use the reading.
Fucking sicilian mafia, makes by blood boil so hard....! That was well written, and hard to read. The payoff with the goons getting horribly frozen to death was satisfying though. The liquid air "battery" is a cool thing indeed. It'll take time to mature and reach its full energy density advantage over Lead-Acid batteries, especially given storage time is limited and you need a big engine as well as the actual storage vessel. Big question is, what is the energy efficiency of the initial air liquefaction system?
Interesting. Does this actually increase the risk of semiconductors a lot? Since this application would only use silicon for its thermophysical properties with very little if any concern for the material's purity or general chemical properties, I figure it would be believable if this did not result in significant progress in semiconductors which are pretty sensitive chemistry especially with Silicon itself. If photovoltaic research is not butterflied by solar concentrators being that much more mature, I would be much more worried about THOSE resulting in early transistors.
I don't see the problem. If earlier semiconductors flow logically from how the TL develops, it's fine, I'd guess.
I can't find information of the efficiency of the liquefaction process. The closest I got was a general value of a COP of .05 - .075 for Stirling cryonics, but that number is a vague. This doesn't mesh well with other information, which puts the round trip efficiency of LAES systems at around 50%-60%, which is lower than contemporary Lead Acid batteries (80%), but that efficiency can be significantly improved by recycling the waste heat of the system.
Source
The waste heat of other processes can also be used, which has interesting implications for large scale industries. A foundry could provide enough heat to drive that round trip efficiency to 75%. While my economic sense believes that there wouldn't be a combined foundry-LAES facility, because it'd be inefficient to mix two purposes for the same project, you could see LAES systems incorporated into the foundry as a way to recycle the waste heat and provide cooling where needed, or even provide an auxiliary energy source.
The place where the round trip efficiency is most important appears to be vehicles, as the machine wouldn't have many sources of recyclable heat. This isn't to say it wouldn't be useful as a fuel, because the energy expended would be a sunken cost at that point, and thus unimportant when considering usage.
To not leave the point in the air, liquid air powered vehicles would mix some advantages of fossil fuel vehicles (fast recharging), with some disadvantages of battery-powered vehicles (bulky energy source/fuel). Liquid air could be used in a piston engine, but they seem better suited for turbines. Turbines would be far more efficient, but not as responsive as piston engines, which would make them better suited for farm machinery than cars.
Exploring how LAES would compete with fossil fuels will be interesting. More energy density vs on-site availability wherever there is an exploitable source of power.
The theoretical framework for semiconductors is still unknown, because electrons haven't been discovered yet. And the electronic structure of elements is still several years away (even accounting for butterflies), so it isn't very plausible that the P-N junction could be developed or even accidentally discovered. The most I can see is a better understanding of the electric properties of silicon when a chemist inevitably starts studying how much they can purify it.
Then there's Fritts' photovoltaic cell, which is a working and reproducible device working on the Photovoltaic Effect, and is an early semiconductor. While the device can't be fully explained without a satisfactory model of the atom, it could serve as a hint of what semiconductors can do once the science catches up with the technology.
And having parsed that thought, it's also plausible that semiconductors could come earlier, but it's also plausible that the P-N junction won't be discovered or developed in Chile, as the Franco-Chilena will be focused on other areas instead of a dead end* curiousity . I dislike this idea because I've already gave Chile a boost over OTL, and having my country come up with the electronic revolution after it caused an industrial revolution would be too wankish.
*: The Selenium-Gold panel developed by Fritts is thought to be inferior to Silicon-based photovoltaic panels, even the very early ones. Cove's cells did manage to reach the 5% efficiency of early Silicon-based photovoltaics, but little is known about it.
More on Cove's cell
The best point of comparison would seem to be to be fireless locomotives, which work on fairly similar principles (a reservoir of steam/compressed air from an outside source powering an otherwise fairly conventional locomotive). They saw pretty limited use, mainly in applications where there was either a ready source of steam for other reasons or where a conventional fuel-burning locomotive would have presented issues for safety or health reasons (such as working in confined spaces or with flammable atmospheres or materials around). I expect a liquid air system would, for transport use, have similarly limited applications. There's just too much disadvantage in the weight and bulk of the energy storage at this point in time.
I am not sure how relevant this is but Karl Ferdinand Braun invented and demonstrated semiconductor diodes in 1874, using point contacts and crystals of metal sulfides for his first diodes.
Other place where it may be used are some industrial, narrow-gauge, or metro railways
-bulkyness: its easier to put large reservoir and turbine into ral engine than into automobile
-turbine being less responsive than piston engine also would have less negative effect when driving on tracks than for example city streets
Also LAES have advantage over "fossil heatng steam" everywhere where fire hazard or air quality would be problem, mostly in enclosed spaces, like mentioned metro or mine railways.
You can also use fireless locomotives there, which was popular IOTL for industrial railways and briefly for city railways (before being replaced by cable cars and electric trains). The relative balance will probably depend on how rapidly liquid air systems spread for industrial applications, because part of the appeal of fireless locomotives was that industrial sites typically had boilers for various industrial purposes already, so it was comparatively easy to make them a bit larger to provide steam for the locomotives as well. If liquid air systems proliferate, something similar might be the case.
One issue I see is with the turbine, though. Turbines generally proved to be infeasible for use on terrestrial vehicles, instead being confined to marine and aerial applications. I don't think the advent of liquid air will change this much. So I think that liquid air energy storage will mainly be limited to fixed applications--which is hardly nothing, in fact it is a great deal of something. But I don't think it will make much difference for transport.
One would like to hope that Mr Tesla will do much better ITTL than he did OTL.
That's a cat's whisker, yeah. They were using those in radiotelegraphy for decades before anyone had enough understanding of the quantum effects at work to take the next step.
Personally, I'm more partial to Oleg Losev if you're looking for earlier solid state electronics--not early transistors, but he did make a negative resistance diode that could be used for an amplifier. First LED too.
Visual Document IV: The Aeromotor Generator in the US (ca. 1910 - 1940)
Farmer family reunion, with a Liquid Air Aeromotor in the background, circa 1915. Location unknown
Foreclosured farm with an Aerogenerator in disrepair, at the height of the Hygroscopic Crisis, ca. 1922. Somewhere in Arkansas.
Heavy duty Aerogenerator next to an oil-burning truck, circa 1932. Oil Burners were rare during the rebound after the Hygroscopic Crisis, but they had a niche as long-range heavy haulers, and militaries invested heavily in the research and development of these vehicles.
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