| ▲ | ethan_smith 5 days ago | |
The efficiency concerns here are valid. For comparison, modern lithium power stations are hitting 90%+ round-trip efficiency pretty consistently now. The mechanical complexity is what worries me most - CO2 phase changes, compression/decompression cycles, heat exchangers...that's a lot of potential failure points compared to solid-state lithium cells. When researching portable power stations (I used gearscouts to compare $/Wh across different capacities), even budget lithium units are getting surprisingly cost-effective. We're seeing <$0.30/Wh for some models now. That said, if Energy Dome can achieve reasonable $/kWh at grid scale without the lithium supply chain constraints, the efficiency trade-off might be worth it. The real question is whether the mechanical complexity translates to higher maintenance costs that eat into any capex savings. | ||