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The 'Saudi Arabia of wind'
Compressed-air energy storage is promising, but Magee said General Compression itself faces a number of challenges.
The company has a substantial engineering task ahead of it, and it has to prove that the resulting equipment will be financially interesting to wind farm investors, he said.
Also, finding appropriate sites for General Compression's turbines would be even more complex than typical wind farms because some sort of geological formation, such as depleted gas fields or mines, would be required for storage in many cases.
Executives at General Compression, however, see a number of applications where on-site storage makes sense.
Its planned customers are utilities or energy-intensive industries, such as aluminum or fertilizer makers. The compressed air also can be used for carbon dioxide sequestration or to make hydrocarbon fuels like methane or methanol, Marcus said. U.S. government agencies have expressed interest in wind-powered military bases that would not be dependent on the electric grid.
In the case where there isn't a geologic formation available, underground pipelines--now used for natural gas--could store between 6 and 12 hours of a wind farm's power generation.
Marcus and his brother David, who is company CEO, have been working in the wind industry for about four five years. In trips to the Dakotas, Marcus said he feels he's standing in the "Saudi Arabia of wind power," although no one has yet to put a drill in the ground.
He predicts that if deployed widely, wind could make up over half of the U.S. power generation--a far cry from today. The total amount of power generated by wind turbines is growing rapidly worldwide, but it represents a tiny fraction of total electricity generation in the U.S., according to the Department of Energy.
"You're never going to change the fact that wind is intermittent, but there's so much energy there to be grabbed," Marcus said. "The equipment doesn't need to get better. The price for the energy needs to change."
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To quote Orwell Today
http://www.orwelltoday.com/windmillstalinism.shtml
"The German wind power industry has already received tax breaks worth an estimated 1.1 billion euros just to erect its turbines. On top of that, the "windustry" is guaranteed a price of 8.8 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with the average market price of 3.5 cents. Yet the German grid is now plagued by the unpredictability of wind power generation. In one region, the wind was strong enough to utilise more than half the available capacity on only 36 days of the year - less than one day in 10. Not only are all these costs now being passed on to ordinary Germans in the form of rising electricity and tax bills, but an even bigger price is also being paid by home owners next to wind farm sites, where property values have collapsed. The only beneficiaries have been the super-rich Germans who have invested in wind farms because of the huge tax breaks - not to mention the politicians in the industry's pocket."
or go as fast as a horse drawn carriage! The first planes couldn't
go much faster than the cars of their day. The first computers
spent most of their time down because of burned fuses, and
even when functioning they had far less capability than most of
today's calculators.
Any new technology needs to be developed before it can be
profitable. Unfortunately, that means that government
intervention is often required, since for-profit businesses often
lack the vision to see beyond the next fiscal quarter.
Seems like Mechanical / Mechanical / Mechanical / Electrical converstion would lose far more energy than Mechanical/Electrical with some loss for storage. Probably take less space, and use existing engineered solutions....
Just seems very lossy... not sure though.
hold a charge. Compressed air will remain compressed until it is
released.
Batteries also take up more space. Since this system takes
advantage of caves, all of the energy is stored underground. No
building is needed to store hazardous batteries.Because there is
no hazardous waste, with only hoses, compressors, and
electrical generators to be replaced, compressed air has the
potential to be much cheaper to operate.
one thing seems different and that is that the air, which is the
storage medium, probably won't wear out like the batteries will.
The compressors will, and maybe the piping, what there is of it. So
would that cost more than replacing batteries periodically?
Anybody know?
that not a good thing?
good.
Just joking :)
The only application I could think is individuals or houses off the grid, that wish to store electricity, but a system like that seems expensive.
It actually seems that this may be better for solar than wind... you use your wind power throughout the day that get's boosted from solar when needed via compressed air, instead of batteries...
I still think hydrogen storage/fuelcells will win out though...
That means that power from peak production times must be stored
for use at peak demand times.
really dumb choice to make electricity. Also it
should be noted that simply storing a day or two's worth of wind energy doesn't mean that a windfarm can qualfy as a guaranteed producer. The
wind often doesn't blow, or blow enough , for days or even weeks on end. Sorry folks. And that build cost of 15 to 30 times that of nuclear makes me wonder why anybody not mentally challenged would ever opt for wind. It's a totally insane choice, just on the basis of economics without refgard to the enormous tracts of land that are ruined for the next two decades
by the errection of these 200 ton monstrosities,
at $2.5 to $3.5 million apiece, that can't generate more than a paltry 500 kilowatts. $1 miillion worth of nuclear can pump out 1 megawatt, all year long, every hour for three times the lifespan of that windmill.
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by MerrittLP
August 8, 2008 3:08 PM PDT
- Merritt Lp of Danbury Connecticut has developed a wind power storage process that does not use compressed air or batteries. It is in the patent process at the persent time and will be announced later this year.
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