Firebrick systems powered by renewable energy could be used for up to 90% of industrial process heat applications, the Stanford study says. Meeting that demand in the U.S. would require firebrick system capacity of 2.6 TWh, with a peak discharge rate of 170 GW.
This seems like a stupid idea at first but it’s actually amazing. They mix high resistance metals into bricks so the bricks can conduct electricity and heat up while doing that. And then they blow air through the holes on the bricks to extract the heat. It leaks about 3% of the heat per day which is absolutely nothing considering it’s cost
I’m gonna drop these papers here. First one is more of a brief intro and the second one is about practicality and logistics of such systems
https://inldigitallibrary.inl.gov/sites/sti/sti/Sort_8882.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261919305082