Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Donnell: Intermittent electricity is the cheapest energy in human history
“The reason why these Resistance heated electric thermal storage things are only emerging now is that it's only in the last few years where intermittent electricity has become the cheapest form of energy that humans have ever known in civilization's history, ri…”
Insight
O'Donnell: No business case for thermal storage beyond 20 hours
“And that says that we don't see a business reason for very, for storage beyond about 20 hours of storage. That if you have about 20 hours of storage, You know, there's going to be about 10 or 12% of annual energy that you're going to get from something else.”
Assertion Partly supported
O'Donnell: Renewable electricity sources are now cheaper than industrial fuels
“Those renewable electricity sources are now cheaper than the fuel being used today.”
Assertion Partly supported
O'Donnell: Electricity-to-heat thermal storage solutions exceed 95% efficiency
“This entire class of solutions, every one of them is above about 95% efficient in capturing electricity and delivering continuous heat.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
O'Donnell: Industrial Decarbonization Over Next 20 Years Will Focus on Existing Sites
“Over time, we're going to see energy intensive industries adapt to where renewables are cheapest, but look, for the next 20 years, it is all about repowering the facilities that we have today”
Assertion Supported
O'Donnell: Oklahoma Saw 2,000 Hours of Negative Wind Prices in 2021
“Oklahoma had 2000 hours last year of negative wind prices.”
Assertion Partly supported
O'Donnell: Oklahoma Wind Faces 10-Year Queue, California Solar Averages 7.5 Years
“There's a 10 year interconnection queue in Oklahoma for new wind projects. The average interconnection time for new utility scale PV projects in California is seven and a half years.”
Disclosure
O'Donnell: Rondo pairs heat batteries directly with off-grid renewable farms
“A great deal of what we're doing is off-grid generation. We've built our particular heat batteries to manage off-grid wind farms, off-grid solar farms.”
Assertion Supported
O'Donnell: Biogas trades at about a 4x price premium to natural gas
“There's a very limited supply of biogas. It's being aggressively taken up and it sort of typically trades at a, about a four times price premium to natural gas.”
Assertion Partly supported
O'Donnell: Hydrogen heat requires 2 units of electricity per unit of heat
“Making it from clean electricity. It's about two units of electricity for one unit of heat. The production equipment, the electrolyzers are expensive today, and they're coming down in cost. That two to one ratio, though, is not something that's going to change…”
Insight
O'Donnell: Direct electrification cannot achieve a 90% emissions reduction without storage
“The upper limit that we typically see in the United States anywhere is anywhere that Maybe you'll get 30% of the hours of the year of clean power. You might get as much as 40% of the hours of the year of low cost power. But so it's a solution that's on the mar…”
Insight
O'Donnell: Containment structures cost much more than aggregate in thermal storage
“What you find when you pull on that thread is the box costs lots more than the rocks.”
Insight
O'Donnell: Do not use lithium-ion for seasonal energy storage
“If you want to move energy from July to January, don't use something that self-discharges over time. Don't use lithium-ion.”
Assertion Supported
O'Donnell: Replacing 2019 industrial heat requires 10,600 gigawatts of renewables
“If we do a units conversion and ask ourselves, we want to repower that with renewables, it's about 10,600 gigawatts of renewables, wind and solar with typical capacity factors, needed to replace that fuel consumption.”
Assertion Contradicted
O'Donnell: Roughly 80% of industrial heat is below 350 degrees Celsius
“Something like 80% of industrial heat is in the low to mid mid range temperatures below about 350 C.”
Assertion Supported
O'Donnell: Most industrial heat up to 600°C is moved as steam
“Up to about 600, the vast majority of heat is moved around as steam.”
Assertion Partly supported
O'Donnell: Smelters and refineries operate continuously with one annual shutdown
“You start up a smelter or a refinery. If you turn it off, it could take you weeks to restart it. So yeah, they operate typically with one annual shutdown for inspection.”
Assertion Partly supported
O'Donnell: 300 GW of brick heat storage currently operates in blast furnaces
“There's 300 gigawatts of heat storage running right now at the blast furnaces around the world. They store heat in brick. They figured it out in 1828.”
Assertion Supported
O'Donnell: Only 22% of Proposed Swedish Wind Projects Were Permitted in 2021
“22% of the wind projects that were proposed in Sweden last year were permitted.”
