Groundbreaking Rocks: Illuminating Brighter than the Sun and Paving the Path to a Fossil Fuel-Free Future
Discover the revolutionary power of glowing rocks! These extraordinary thermal batteries have the potential to revolutionize the energy industry and pave the way towards a fossil fuel-free future
In the early days of humanity, an intelligent Homo sapien moved a rock from the fire to stay warm, effectively inventing the thermal battery.
Now, over a million years later, as humanity races to move beyond fossil fuels to prevent climate collapse, this simple concept is resurfacing. Hot rocks are more influential than ever, both literally and metaphorically.
Andrew Ponec explained that the rocks in the box are currently at 1,600 degrees Celsius, or nearly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hotter than the melting point of steel. What makes his box of white-hot rocks significant is that they were not heated by burning tons of coal or gas, but by catching sunlight with thousands of photovoltaic solar panels surrounding his prototype west of Fresno.
CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir (left) walks through Antora Energy's solar field with the company's co-founder and CEO, Andrew Ponec.
Julian Quinones/CNN
If Ponec and his start-up Antora Energy succeed, they could revolutionize the multi-trillion-dollar energy storage industry by using solar or wind energy to heat containers of rocks, powering the world's largest factories.
"People sometimes feel like theyre insulting us by saying, Hey, that sounds really simple," Ponec laughed. "And we say, No, thats exactly the point."
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Ponecs' passion for clean energy started when he was a inquisitive student in a public school, experimenting with photovoltaics in his parents' garage. This led him to leave Stanford in order to construct large-scale solar facilities. Upon returning to finish his degree, he realized that while solar and wind energy are useful for recharging batteries in vehicles and homes, there is a more pressing need to transition industrial heat sources to clean energy for the production of various goods. Heavy industry, which often requires energy around the clock, has not yet embraced the decreasing cost of renewable energy.
Ponec mentioned that in California, during most midday hours, electricity on the wholesale market is often free or even goes into negative dollar amounts due to the abundance of solar installations. The same trend is being observed in other states with wind energy. However, the challenge arises from the fact that factories cannot simply shut down when the sun is obscured by clouds or when the wind dies down, and this is the exact problem that they have been addressing.
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Energy storage of the future? 'Hot rocks' in a box
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In 2023, when you hear the word "battery", you probably think of the chemical ones in cars and electronics. However, hot rocks currently hold ten times more energy than lithium ion worldwide, thanks to an invention called Cowper stoves from the 1800s. These large towers of stacked bricks, often seen in smelting plants, absorb the wasted heat from a blast furnace until it reaches almost 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. They then provide over 100 megawatts of heat energy for around 20 minutes.
The process can be repeated up to 24 times a day for 30 years, and Antora is one of the startups conducting experiments with various types of rocks in insulated boxes or molten salt in cylinders to discover the most efficient combination.
"We were very interested in graphite for several reasons," Ponec explained. The inexpensive and widely available carbon found in pencils - also used in the smelting of aluminum and steel - has the ability to retain a great amount of heat, causing it to glow hotter than the sun.
"The crucial difference with those furnaces is the ability to extract the heat," he explained. "We have incorporated some cavities and gaps in the carbon to allow light from deep within the system to shine out, along with insulated doors that can be opened and closed to control the release of that light. In the future, we will utilize this light not only to generate steam, but also to produce much higher temperature heat for industries such as cement and steel."
Ponec holds a carbon block like what's used in Antora's thermal battery.
Julian Quinones/CNN
The box that contains the super-heated carbon blocks, which Ponec said were hotter than the melting point of steel.
Antora has successfully secured $80 million in seed funding from investors, including Bill Gates. However, their main rival is a Bay Area startup called Rondo, which utilizes abundant refractory brick that is cheaper than carbon by weight but less energy dense. Rondo has received even more funding than Antora and has already launched its first battery, generating commercial power for an ethanol plant in California.
"We've made a breakthrough that allows us to heat bricks directly using infrared, invisible light from heating elements," stated Rondo CEO John ODonnell in an interview with CNN. "Initial third-party engineering reports suggest that this technology will have a lifespan of 100 years."
According to Tesla, a carbon-free world will require an impressive 240 terawatt-hours of energy storage - over 340 times the amount of storage that will be created with lithium-ion batteries in 2022. ODonnell anticipates that more than half of this new capacity will be in the form of heat batteries due to the widespread availability of raw materials.
Manufacturers can avoid waiting for grid connections and upgrades by connecting their factories to as many thermal batteries as necessary. With these financial benefits, the old saying "dumb as a box of rocks" may need to be reconsidered for the new industrial revolution.
"Venture capitalists love exciting technologies, but bankers see them as risky. This whole class of technologies may not be flashy, but it's exactly what bankers and infrastructure finance professionals are interested in, which is a good thing," ODonnell explained.
"Both companies specialize in heat and power storage," explained Jesse Jenkins, a professor of engineering at Princeton University. "I believe that, like hydrogen, which also has a versatile role to play, it is these long duration storage technologies that hold the most promise."
Specializing in macro-scale energy systems, Jenkins is a consultant for Rondo and believes that the hot rocks model offers a clear advantage over chemical batteries, which can store power but not heat. According to Jenkins, being able to do both allows for cost efficiency and scaling advantages in larger industrial sectors, giving the hot rocks model an edge over pure-play electrochemical battery companies that are facing a crucial moment.
The rocks are heated by thousands of photovoltaic panels that surround the Antora Energy prototype west of Fresno.
Julian Quinones/CNN
The CEOs of Andora and Rondo both participated in the COP28 climate summit in Dubai where they observed the influence of Middle East petrostates on global efforts to phase out fossil fuels. Despite this, they returned with renewed enthusiasm for their innovative ideas and the numerous advancements in clean energy that were showcased at the summit.
Five or 10 years ago, I would have been uncertain about our ability to decarbonize," Ponec said as he walked through the solar array powering his battery, while a nearby gas-fired power plant sat idle. "Today, we possess the necessary tools. The transition is unavoidable. It will occur. And if you privately speak to most individuals in the fossil fuel industry, they will agree."
