
Though combating carbon dioxide emissions is a key concern in the fight against climate change, one Italian start-up has found a way to turn CO₂ into a weapon against global warming. On Wednesday, Energy Dome launched its first CO₂ battery facility in Sardinia and entered the commercial scaling phase.
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The company has been developing an emission-free storage method that stores power generated from the sun and wind. CO₂ plays a useful role in the process as it has properties that can help to store electricity from renewable energy sources when it is converted from gas to liquid.
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This method of storing energy has never been used before. It uses pressure and heat to store CO₂ gas in a big sealed dome. When energy is fed into the system, the gas is compressed into a liquid. The heat from this compression is captured and stored. When it is time to release the energy, the stored heat is used to evaporate the liquid CO₂. The expansion of the CO₂ as it turns into gas drives a turbine that generates energy.
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Image Credit: Mignogna Andrea
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