On the Future of Energy

Coincidence? The other day, Red Baron read an article about a new kind of energy storage.

You know that the critical path for transforming our society to renewable energy is its storage, i.e., bridging the times when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.

The same day, a friend from Madison emailed me an article on Cold Fusion. But first things first.


A new energy-storage facility using carbon dioxide, the arch-culprit of climate change, is on its way toward becoming a reality in Wisconsin. The facility will use CO₂ as the medium to store sustainable power.

The Energy Dome

Energy Dome, as both the company and technology are called, is essentially a large domed storage facility used to house carbon dioxide. Its technology is based on a closed thermodynamic transformation of CO₂ between its gaseous and liquid states. It is withdrawn from the Dome, an atmospheric gasholder, and compressed. The heat generated from the compression is stored in a thermal energy storage system. The withdrawn CO₂ is liquefied and stored in vessels under pressure at ambient temperature with zero atmospheric emission.

When energy is needed, the CO₂ is heated, evaporated, and sent into an expander before it flows back into the Dome. The expander drives a turbine coupled to a generator, feeding climate-neutral electricity into the grid.

A pilot Energy Dome facility, rated at 20 MW, was built in Sardinia, Italy. It will be scaled up to 200 megawatts for the Wisconsin-based facility, called the Columbia Energy Storage Project, consisting of ten 20-megawatt units. They will boost grid stability and deliver enough electricity to power around 18,000 homes with a single charge.

If regulators approve the application, it will be North America's first zero-pollution Energy Dome facility. Construction should begin in 2026, and it is planned to be online by 2027.

The Energy Dome Company claims that the CO₂ Battery™ should be able to function without degradation of capacity or performance for over 30 years. By comparison, lithium-ion battery storage has a high degradation rate and only lasts around 12 years.

Using carbon dioxide to store energy is a unique solution to the overabundance of this planet-warming gas. It can be used alongside other storage mediums to support a balanced grid powered by sustainable solar and wind energy, further reducing the reliance on fossil fuel sources.

The Energy Dome Company said its patented technology is a zero-pollution storage source operating only on water, steel, and CO₂. Off-the-shelf equipment, standard components, modularity, and scalability make the CO₂ Battery™ more accessible than other typical battery facilities.

Energy storage is good, but having a cheap and reliable energy source would be much better.

Since I was an active physicist, colleagues have tried to reproduce the sun's conditions for generating energy on Earth by fusing atomic nuclei using increasingly sophisticated systems.

For example, in 2022, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory issued a press release, which Red Baron reported on. Small advances in nuclear fusion are always celebrated, but it will be decades before a working "hot fusion" reactor is achieved, if ever.

In 2011, Italian inventor Andrea Rossi made a name for himself by presenting a reactor based on Cold Fusion. However, he could not obtain a patent for it, as experts argue that Rossi's cold reactor contradicts the generally accepted laws of physics.

Red Baron wrote a blog at the time. Then, things went quiet for Andreas Rossi.

However, in December 2021, he surprisingly announced his E-Cat SKLep power generator. This generator is designed to supply a constant 100 watts of electricity used to charge batteries and operate motors.

Photo of the E-Cat and the E-Cat control unit from the left-hand side of a Renault Twizy

The practical presentation took place on September 27, 2024. Watch for yourself here. 

What should I make of it? An energy generation from the zero. energy field? 

Here is Rossi's scientific publication is here. 

Will industry now pounce on the aggregate and make Rossi a billionaire?

We'll see.

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