Thanks for your comment. I worked with superconducting magnets and ultra-low temp systems, so yes, you are clearly more in the know about these kinds of sizes and temperatures.
Heat loss for LNG tanks is around 5 watts/sqm, for large tanks this represents a boil-off of around 1/50th of 1% per day
Could it be lowered by a further factor of 8 or so?
What is the thermal conductivity of pearlite powder? Is there something that isn’t a vacuum that is just one order of magnitude more insulating?
What about filling with a mix of aerogel and pearlite?
Seriously, if we can get a boiloff time of > 80 years for a cost of < 20 million we might have a serious chance of this being implemented.
The boil-off can be lowered by increasing the insulation thickness, using better materials etc… the current designs are far from optimised for heat loss, since the gas companies do want to eventually sell the LNG in gaseous state. I think that a factor of 8 is doable with current techniques at abt 2x the overall price (this is a guesstimate not a quotation, OK? ;)
I think that you can do much, much better than this by using a rough vacuum filled with powder or aerogel granules. I actually think that you can make a tank of diameter only 10 meters that would last for centuries. Such a small tank would probably only cost $200,000 or so to build, yes? The main issue would be maintaining the vacuum, but it would only need to be a rough vacuum (1/100 atmospheres).
I’m actually seriously considering pitching this idea to Ben Best when he comes to the UK in 15 days.
Thanks for your comment. I worked with superconducting magnets and ultra-low temp systems, so yes, you are clearly more in the know about these kinds of sizes and temperatures.
Could it be lowered by a further factor of 8 or so?
What is the thermal conductivity of pearlite powder? Is there something that isn’t a vacuum that is just one order of magnitude more insulating?
What about filling with a mix of aerogel and pearlite?
Seriously, if we can get a boiloff time of > 80 years for a cost of < 20 million we might have a serious chance of this being implemented.
The boil-off can be lowered by increasing the insulation thickness, using better materials etc… the current designs are far from optimised for heat loss, since the gas companies do want to eventually sell the LNG in gaseous state. I think that a factor of 8 is doable with current techniques at abt 2x the overall price (this is a guesstimate not a quotation, OK? ;)
See A proposal for a cryogenic grave for cryonics
I think that you can do much, much better than this by using a rough vacuum filled with powder or aerogel granules. I actually think that you can make a tank of diameter only 10 meters that would last for centuries. Such a small tank would probably only cost $200,000 or so to build, yes? The main issue would be maintaining the vacuum, but it would only need to be a rough vacuum (1/100 atmospheres).
I’m actually seriously considering pitching this idea to Ben Best when he comes to the UK in 15 days.
So perlite powder apparently has a thermal conductivity of 0.02W/m-K