Fighting Climate Change With Hot Bricks, Factory by Factory
- Rondo Energy uses electricity, bricks to make industrial heat
- ‘Heat Battery’ now cutting emissions at ethanol plant
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The key to decarbonizing heavy industry, John O’Donnell says, could be hot bricks.
His startup, Rondo Energy, makes a “heat battery” that converts renewable electricity into the high temperatures many industrial processes require. Clay bricks inside the battery are superheated using the same kind of electric heating elements found in toasters and hair driers. Air drawn over the bricks reaches temperatures above 1,000C (1,832F). That air can be used on its own in a factory or run through a steam generator.