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In the spectrum of the simplest solutions (turning lights off) and the most complex (fusion), you've categorised this solution at the right end of the spectrum

Two strong potential candidates for the Next Big Thing in cleantech venture capital are nuclear and carbon capture and storage. I've spoken with numerous VCs recently who are looking for innovative ways to play in nuclear power. Bets have already been made by VCs in small-scale nukes, hot fusion, and technologies related to big-scale nukes. The hope is to find a low-cost solution that is practically zero carbon emissions and also provides reliable "base load" power. So in other words, the hope is for a lower-carbon replacement for coal power. The challenges are also significant, however, not least of which being time to market for any new innovations, as this interesting article illustrates. With the recent news that the DOE will be putting $2.4B into carbon capture and storage, and its inclusion in emerging climate legislation, it's also clear that CCS will be leaned upon as a hoped-for way of making our existing coal-fired generation infrastructure less impactful on the atmosphere, while still preserving its value as low-cost baseload power. So in other words, the hope is for a lower-carbon "fix" for coal power.

The source of endless energy for all humankind resides just off Government Street in Burnaby, British Columbia, up the little spit of blacktop on Bonneville Place and across the parking lot from Shade-O-Matic blind manufacturers and wholesalers. The future is there, in that mostly empty office with the vomit-green walls -- and inside the brain of Michel Laberge, 47, bearded and French-Canadian. According to a diagram, printed on a single sheet of white paper and affixed with tape to a dusty slab of office drywall, his vision looks like a medieval torture device: a metal ball surrounded on all sides by metal rods and bisected by two long cylinders. It's big but not immense -- maybe 10 times as tall as the little robot man in the lower right corner of the page who's there to indicate scale.

A new international research project which could one day lead to a new source of safe, abundant clean energy for Earth was launched today by scientists, engineers and Ministers from across Europe, at a special event and press conference at the Science Museum in London. Today's launch event marks the start of a three year planning and preparatory phase of the European High Power Energy Research Facility ( HiPER ) project. This is the first step towards HiPER's long term goal, which is to facilitate the technological and scientific advances necessary to make nuclear fusion, which powers the sun, a possible source of energy in the future.

The important point, missed in this page and the comments on it, is that the energy is stored as latent heat of fusion. The mass is effectively a constant temperature heat sink/source over a wide range. There is nothing new in the world of course - this approach was extensively studied at BICC Research in the early 70's for peak lopping/load shifting for heating systems. The materials studied then had melting points in the 30 - 40 C range, but I don't remember the latent heat values. At that time it was rejected as too large and heavy - then the oil crisis passed. How does it compare with flow cells?