full transcript

From the Ted Talk by John O'Donnell: Can a simple brick be the next great battery?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Iron wire? A hundred years ago, a new alloy for heating elements, from ttasoers to industrial fceurnas, was invented. It is made only of iron with a little chromium and aluminum. Today, that heating element is on your kitchen counter and in itanudirsl furnaces and kilns around the wlord.

Combining brick and wire could be really cost-effective. We would know how to make a lot of it right away, but there are some challenges. If you overheat a brick on one side, if you don't heat it evenly, it can crack. If you ohvreaet just one spot on a wire, the wire may fail. We've finally found the way to do it. The way to combine these was to heat bicrk the way your taeotsr heats bread, the way the sun heats the Earth with radiant heat. It only took us 74 deigsn revisions to find the solution, and hundreds of simulations. But the key insight -- heating brick with radiation. We built a 3D caerrbkecohd of brick and open chambers. The chambers let radiant heat spread the heat evenly so electricity can heat thousands of tons of brick to tadsuonhs of degrees, sleafy and evenly. Once you've done that, now you have setord energy, and delivering clean heat is really simple: push air into the brick sakcts, superheated air comes out that powers your kiln or your furnace, or heats a boiler to make steam for your chemical pnalt or your food-production facility. Presto, you have a heat battery: an industrial blieor that runs all day, all night, all year on the wind or the sun. A cement kiln that burns no fuel, a chocolate fctoary with zero scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. Simple, low-cost and efficient.

Open Cloze


Iron wire? A hundred years ago, a new alloy for heating elements, from ________ to industrial ________, was invented. It is made only of iron with a little chromium and aluminum. Today, that heating element is on your kitchen counter and in __________ furnaces and kilns around the _____.

Combining brick and wire could be really cost-effective. We would know how to make a lot of it right away, but there are some challenges. If you overheat a brick on one side, if you don't heat it evenly, it can crack. If you ________ just one spot on a wire, the wire may fail. We've finally found the way to do it. The way to combine these was to heat _____ the way your _______ heats bread, the way the sun heats the Earth with radiant heat. It only took us 74 ______ revisions to find the solution, and hundreds of simulations. But the key insight -- heating brick with radiation. We built a 3D ____________ of brick and open chambers. The chambers let radiant heat spread the heat evenly so electricity can heat thousands of tons of brick to _________ of degrees, ______ and evenly. Once you've done that, now you have ______ energy, and delivering clean heat is really simple: push air into the brick ______, superheated air comes out that powers your kiln or your furnace, or heats a boiler to make steam for your chemical _____ or your food-production facility. Presto, you have a heat battery: an industrial ______ that runs all day, all night, all year on the wind or the sun. A cement kiln that burns no fuel, a chocolate _______ with zero scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. Simple, low-cost and efficient.

Solution


  1. checkerboard
  2. stacks
  3. thousands
  4. safely
  5. brick
  6. world
  7. stored
  8. furnaces
  9. toaster
  10. design
  11. boiler
  12. factory
  13. toasters
  14. industrial
  15. overheat
  16. plant

Original Text


Iron wire? A hundred years ago, a new alloy for heating elements, from toasters to industrial furnaces, was invented. It is made only of iron with a little chromium and aluminum. Today, that heating element is on your kitchen counter and in industrial furnaces and kilns around the world.

Combining brick and wire could be really cost-effective. We would know how to make a lot of it right away, but there are some challenges. If you overheat a brick on one side, if you don't heat it evenly, it can crack. If you overheat just one spot on a wire, the wire may fail. We've finally found the way to do it. The way to combine these was to heat brick the way your toaster heats bread, the way the sun heats the Earth with radiant heat. It only took us 74 design revisions to find the solution, and hundreds of simulations. But the key insight -- heating brick with radiation. We built a 3D checkerboard of brick and open chambers. The chambers let radiant heat spread the heat evenly so electricity can heat thousands of tons of brick to thousands of degrees, safely and evenly. Once you've done that, now you have stored energy, and delivering clean heat is really simple: push air into the brick stacks, superheated air comes out that powers your kiln or your furnace, or heats a boiler to make steam for your chemical plant or your food-production facility. Presto, you have a heat battery: an industrial boiler that runs all day, all night, all year on the wind or the sun. A cement kiln that burns no fuel, a chocolate factory with zero scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. Simple, low-cost and efficient.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
industrial heat 6
clean heat 3
world carbon 2
store energy 2
storing electricity 2
heat batteries 2
ten times 2
radiant heat 2
decarbonized world 2


Important Words


  1. air
  2. alloy
  3. aluminum
  4. boiler
  5. bread
  6. brick
  7. built
  8. burns
  9. cement
  10. challenges
  11. chambers
  12. checkerboard
  13. chemical
  14. chocolate
  15. chromium
  16. clean
  17. combine
  18. combining
  19. counter
  20. crack
  21. day
  22. degrees
  23. delivering
  24. design
  25. earth
  26. efficient
  27. electricity
  28. element
  29. elements
  30. emissions
  31. energy
  32. evenly
  33. facility
  34. factory
  35. fail
  36. finally
  37. find
  38. fuel
  39. furnace
  40. furnaces
  41. heat
  42. heating
  43. heats
  44. hundreds
  45. industrial
  46. insight
  47. invented
  48. iron
  49. key
  50. kiln
  51. kilns
  52. kitchen
  53. lot
  54. night
  55. open
  56. overheat
  57. plant
  58. powers
  59. presto
  60. push
  61. radiant
  62. radiation
  63. revisions
  64. runs
  65. safely
  66. scope
  67. side
  68. simple
  69. simulations
  70. solution
  71. spot
  72. spread
  73. stacks
  74. steam
  75. stored
  76. sun
  77. superheated
  78. thousands
  79. toaster
  80. toasters
  81. today
  82. tons
  83. wind
  84. wire
  85. world
  86. year
  87. years