November 21, 2022

DLRmagazine 171 – Awakening the sleeping giant

Test Facility for Thermal Energy Storage in Molten Salt (TESIS)
Credit:
© DLR. All rights reserved

Until now, the energy transition has largely revolved around electricity; sustainable heat has been sidelined for quite some time. However, current uncertainty over energy supply is beginning to change this. For a while now, DLR scientists have been working on this sleeping giant, conducting research into various technologies and concepts for climate-friendly heat using renewable sources, including heat pumps, thermal wind energy, energy systems analyses and the use of lime for heat storage. The cover story of issue 171 of the DLRmagazine gives an overview of the different aspects and potential of heat. We also interview Christian Sattler, Divisional Board Member for Energy and Transport, to understand whether we are facing a ‘heat problem’.

Incidentally, an entirely different issue with heat has been developing in the Arctic, a region that is warming up much faster than the rest of the world. An international research team has travelled to the North Pole to study the phenomenon of Arctic amplification and the effects that this warming could have on the rest of the planet.

It is not just human researchers who are busy at DLR. In the ARCHES project, a team of robots journeyed to one of the most inhospitable areas in Europe – Mount Etna. In this issue, you can read about why they explored the Sicilian volcano and the special skills each individual team member brought to the project.

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