Re: Dispatchable Wind power??? Interesting article from Energy Pulse.

On Mar 30, 8:43 am, Joe Strout <j...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <1175266165.708824.262...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,

dave.walt...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
The turbine is powered by a revolutionary new compressor. When the
wind blows, lift is created on the turbine blades, spinning the
compressor inside the nacelle. The compressor pumps air to over 100
atmospheres of pressure and sends the air down the tower into an
underground network of high-pressure pipes. The high-pressure pipeline
network collects and stores 6-12 hours of energy.

Storing energy from intermittent sources like wind certainly makes
sense... but is compressed air really an efficient way to store it? I'd
expect something like pumped storage to do better -- though I suppose
that requires either a very large water tower, or some sort of natural
variation in elevation. But aren't wind farms often built on ridges
anyway?

Pump storage is limited by geology, basically and many if not most
places have been tapped out already. There is talking of converting
existing reservoirs to pump storage. You see wildly low numbers for
cost on this sort of thing all the time. The best way to do this is to
use wind to directly pump the water instead of wind-to-electric-to-
pump.

In my mind it's all a waste compared to the "simplicity" of nuclear.
Oh well. Just wanted to post this article to give people an idea of
what's being proposed.

David

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