Green Energy Storage Systems with Dr. Imre Gyuk: The Tech Between Us, Season 3 Episode 1, Part 3

Transcript:

Introduction:
Welcome to a special bonus episode of The Tech Between Us. Hear questions that didn't make it into our regular podcast episodes as host Raymond Yin and guest, Dr. Imre Gyuk discuss green energy storage systems.

Raymond Yin:
When do you see the world being carbon neutral?

Imre Gyuk:
I would not expect to become totally carbon neutral because there are always things that are going to produce carbon. But it's not necessary because if we can reach 80 to 90%, we will not be putting much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and we will reverse the effects of carbon dioxide.

Raymond Yin:
Right. And the earth could begin to heal itself.

Imre Gyuk:
Exactly. And I would expect that to happen by 2050 or so.

Raymond Yin:
Okay. So, so probably another 20 to 30 years.

Imre Gyuk:
Yeah. There are a lot of people who are really committed to the 2050 date including legislation on reaching carbon neutral or having renewable electricity. And the administration is fully behind that date.

Raymond Yin:
All right. So in your amazing career, you've worked in both academia, universities, teaching as well as the government, obviously for the last 23 years. Where do you see the strengths of each?

Imre Gyuk:
Okay. I love them both. University, university work. There is the beauty of abstract science. I come from theoretical physics. You make beautiful structures, but also working with the students, working with young people.

Raymond Yin:
Yes, it’s fantastic. Absolutely.

Imre Gyuk:
On the other hand, working with government means you can change the world.

Raymond Yin:
Interesting.

Imre Gyuk:
Because with storage, for example, I've had the chance to be there in the front seat doing, supporting, pioneering research and working with a big team of scientists and engineers devoted to changing the world for the better.

Raymond Yin:
Awesome. Are there any technologies that we should retire or actually just stop pursuing altogether?

Imre Gyuk:
I can't think of any.

Raymond Yin:
Okay. So, everything has viability?

Imre Gyuk:
At the moment. We've got to push all of the technologies.

Raymond Yin:
Okay. So we're not ready to sunset anything yet?

Imre Gyuk:
No.

Raymond Yin:
Okay. What has been your most rewarding energy project to date?

Imre Gyuk:
Well, again, all of them.

Raymond Yin:
Not playing favorites?

Imre Gyuk:
No, for example, working with Picuris Pueblo in New Mexico - having a group of people who are pushing to become energy independent and helping them get there, it’s a fantastic experience. Plus it's a somewhat new environment. Or, if you want, traveling through Australia from end to end preaching storage. At that time, Australia had not yet decided to pursue any kind of program in storage, and they enabled me to go around, as I said, end to end from Sydney to Perth and lecture around storage and tell them about the advantages, the potential advantages of storage. And then a year later it's happened and the government put in a storage program. Or another one, funding a hydropower project in an Alaskan village. Very remote, you have to fly in or go by boat. But seeing that the hydropower now works better because we have coupled it with storage, or I mentioned the high school in Albuquerque, cutting the ribbon there with mariachi music playing, it's a great experience. So, they all offer something.

Raymond Yin:
I totally get that. You and your teams have won 13 R&D 100 awards. And for our listeners, these are the, the equivalents of the Oscars for technology. So this is going to be a test. How many can you name in chronological order?

Imre Gyuk:
Well, since I'm not allowed to pull out the chart, let me talk about the first one.

Raymond Yin:
Okay, great.

Imre Gyuk:
Actually, it was the first two. It had to do with measuring magnetic fields on transmission wires without actually doing it. But it was actually two projects which won R&D 100 awards, and we had two tables there, and I switched from one table to the other throughout the evening.

Raymond Yin:
So this was at the same, this was in the same year?

Imre Gyuk:
In the same year we got two awards. Yeah.

Raymond Yin:
That's amazing - 13 is an impressive number, congratulations! What new technology do you see advancing to prototype or rapid deployment? It could be in your field or any other field.

Imre Gyuk:
Well, I'll stick to my field.

Raymond Yin:
Okay.

Imre Gyuk:
The nice thing is that we have big, solid solicitations by the California Energy Commission and even bigger by the Department of Energy. And we should see some really good non lithium technologies deployed soon because that's what the solicitations are for. So I expect a number of good projects. Previous ones, the technologies weren't quite ready, but we are going to get flow batteries involving vanadium, zinc air, thermal batteries, gravity batteries, and many others.

Raymond Yin:
How will storage systems help communities who experience energy insecurities? And you talked a little bit about that earlier but is there anything else that you wanted to expand on that?

Imre Gyuk:
Yeah, it's only now becoming clearer just how serious this situation is, that there is such a thing as social equity, and we are really seeing an electricity divide. Up until about a decade ago, the cost of electricity, were pretty much tracking the consumer index.

Raymond Yin:
Okay.

Imre Gyuk:
But in the last 10 years, electricity has shot up much more than the consumer index.

Raymond Yin:
Interesting. I didn't realize that.

Imre Gyuk:
And if you are working on marginal budgets that really cuts into what you have available. And whereas for most of us, electricity is a fairly small budget item. For underserved communities, it's a much more serious budget item. And any changes in it reflect strongly on their abilities. And as I mentioned, outages last longer in underserved communities and they're more likely.

Raymond Yin:
More likely, meaning occur more often?

Imre Gyuk:
Exactly.

Raymond Yin:
Got it.

Imre Gyuk:
And they may, and this is not just a small percentage, they may be three times or five times more frequent. I mean, there's a big problem there.

Raymond Yin:
Right. So you like you said, there's a large divide happening in energy.

Imre Gyuk:
Yeah. And people live in areas where the coalfire power plants are still there and there are respiratory diseases. And then of course there are remote rural and tribal communities. Particularly tribal communities where you don't even have electricity as such. It's not really cost effective to run a transmission line or distribution line to somebody who is living in his little house in a beautiful landscape sometimes, but it's remote.

Raymond Yin:
Right, I mean, hundreds of miles from a generation station or a substation.

Imre Gyuk:
So we would like to serve these people with photovoltaics and storage.

Raymond Yin:
Perfect. How would you convince others to move towards renewable energy and energy storage?

Imre Gyuk:
Well, we are surrounded by catastrophic events, floods and droughts. Tornadoes and blizzards.

Raymond Yin:
Becoming more often nowadays.

Imre Gyuk:
Becoming more and more often. But there is also sea level rise, reduced crop fertility, increased pest level. All of these things are caused by carbon dioxide, which we ourselves have put into the atmosphere. It's that carbon dioxide layer, which is now double of anything we have seen in the last 80 million years. So we don't need to convince thoughtful, responsible people anymore. It's obvious. Decarbonization is here, it's obvious and it's just a given. But of course, how to get there is less obvious.

Raymond Yin:
Okay. Who is a leader to watch in green energy storage systems? And we're not looking for a stock tip, but are there true leaders out there that that you see really advancing the technology?

Imre Gyuk:
I would say utilities are beginning to be the leaders in pushing towards green energy and green energy storage in maybe a dozen states. Utilities have seen that they cannot have business as usual, and they have embraced all of the technologies of the future and are driving them ahead. And the work that DOE can do is to help them reach that goal.

Raymond Yin:
Okay. So the utilities really are the new heroes of energy storage and renewable energy systems.

Imre Gyuk:
After being a bit reluctant for a while.

Raymond Yin:
They saw the light!

Imre Gyuk:
Yeah, they really have.

Raymond Yin:
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Tech Between Us. This podcast is included in Mouser’s in-depth look at Green Energy Storage Systems. To learn more, explore our empowering innovation together content series and access videos, articles, infographics, and more at mouser.com/empowering-innovation.

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