this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2026
88 points (96.8% liked)

Technology

86682 readers
4658 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
88
Finland’s radical answer to renewable energy’s biggest headache: The world’s largest sand battery (www.cnbc.com)
submitted 2 days ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to c/technology@lemmy.world
11 comments fedilink hide all child comments
top 11 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 17 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It's interesting piece of technology, but it's not 'radical'. The company behind the storage has done their homework and they seem to be well engineered, but the "technology" itself is pretty much as old as bonfires, people have used hot rocks to heat up tents for 'a while'.

But sand has pretty good thermal properties and size of these new iterations of old tech makes them pretty decent solution for energy storage with renewables. I've been following various 'sand battery' products for our own house, but the main problem with all of them tends to be the size required. In practise for our own house we'd need a sand battery roughly the size of 6m storage container (with heat pumps and all the other hardware) and that'd be so expensive that the investment wouldn't pay itself back in my lifetime.

[–] decapitae@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The main material could be smashed/pulverized glass. The stoage of direct renewable electricity to heat makes the cost (Overall, including climate responsibilities) more appealing when considered along the same lines as Solar panels, or concentrated solar - using a FPS converter that can utilized that direct heat to generate heat back into electricity makes the project a bit of a challenge, but overall a pragmatic solution for long term use cases. Build up in tight spaces and consider alternate uses like wind sheilds and parking spaces when it comes to space conformance. 🤔 I hear aircrete is an insulation thats already prevalent in europe is this true?

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago

The main material could be smashed/pulverized glass.

As in sand. Glass is recyclable material, it makes no sense to use that for this kind of application since sand is already everywhere. Also at least some flavours of glass can melt on temperatures used on these which I'd imagine could cause problems.

I hear aircrete is an insulation thats already prevalent in europe is this true?

At least here in Finland it is not. It could be, but it's not really widely available right now. Maybe in the future, but that would need at least some changes on how things are built.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My parents were planning to build a cabin around a Russian stove (massive stone chimney with beds and a ton of thermal mass) for overnight heat, but ended up in an RV instead when their retirement coincided with the housing collapse.

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago

That style stoves are pretty common around here on older buildings. We have one and it really helps during winter and cuts down the electricity bill, at least as long as we have enough firewood to keep that thing going.

[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago

versant-owned website. boo

[–] Flower@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You need district heating for this to work. Not every place has that, so it's costly to install in places. You could use it to generate electricity, but then there are losses in the conversion.

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

For Finland, 46% of heating is done with district heating, with it being as high as 90% in the bigger cities.

[–] Flower@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Germany: ~15%

France: ~6–8%

Netherlands: ~5–7%

USA: <1%

[–] variaatio@nord.pub 2 points 1 day ago

yeah, well usually district heating is a thing in places where heating is major energy consumer. Russia, Nordic countries, Canada and so on.

More temperate places don't have district heating, since the heating need isn't intense enough to warrant it.

The network is expensive to build, but the vast economies of scale make the actual on going heating more efficient and cheaper. Whatever the heating source might be. Be it fuel burning boiler or industrial scale heat pumps.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'd wager most places in Finland have district heating. Certainly true of Estonia and Finland is even further north.

Now individual homes here in Estonia usually aren't connected to district heating, and not all apartment buildings are, but most are and more are joining because it turns out maintaining your own heating system is a burden most buildings don't want to deal with (nobody usually even wants to head the association)