Posted on 05/11/2021 9:47:12 AM PDT by Red Badger
Solar, wind, batteries, nuclear, tidal power, among others, provide carbon-free electricity. But their generation is usually immediately absorbed into the power grid for use or stored in lithium-ion batteries.
Large-scale energy hoarding is expensive, and quite frankly, with base metal prices skyrocketing, maybe unattainable unless the Biden administration allocates billions of dollars to upgrade the grid.
Toronto-based Hydrostor has found a solution to storing power on the grid that doesn’t involve batteries but instead stores energy in the form of compressed air in underground chambers.
California is becoming the new site for two new compressed-air energy storage plants that “will soon rival the world’s largest non-hydroelectric facilities and hold up to 10 gigawatt-hours of energy,” said Popular Mechanics.
Compressed air is part of a growing type of energy storage to stabilize the grid. Here’s how Hydrostor’s: A-CAES technology works:
A-CAES uses surplus electricity from the grid or renewable sources to run an air compressor. The compressed air is then stored in a big underground tank until energy is needed, at which point it’s released through a turbine to generate electricity that’s fed back into the grid.
Rather than vent the heat generated as the air is compressed, Hydrostor’s system captures that heat and stores it in a separate thermal storage tank, then uses it to reheat the air as it’s fed in to the turbine stage, which increases the efficiency of the system. This could prove to be key; compressed air storage systems have typically offered round-trip efficiencies between 40-52 percent, and Quartz is reporting more like 60 percent for this system.
Hydrostor’s A-CAES also makes use of a closed-loop reservoir to maintain the system at a constant pressure during operation. The storage cavern is partially filled with water and as the compressed air is piped in, the water is forced into a separate compensation reservoir. Later, when the air is needed, the water is pumped back into the air storage cavern, pushing the air out towards the turbine. – New Atlas
Hydrostor provides a three-minute of how the technology works.
VIDEO AT LINK...........................
Hydrostor has two major projects in active development – one in southern Kern County and one in Central California, creating a more practical way to store energy on the grid than costly batteries.
“Hydrostor’s patented and commercially proven A-CAES technology provides 8-12+ hours of energy storage, versus the 1-4 hours that current battery technologies can feasibly provide,” Hydrostor said.
When it comes to longevity, a compressed air energy storage plant has a lifespan of more than 50 years, far outpacing battery farms, like Elon Musk’s Tesla Powerpacks.
… and to be clear – all this talk about net-zero carbon emissions talk in the next couple of decades is just a guess by policymakers.
I produce a high volume of heated compressed air. I must be valuable.
A magnetic levitation device in vacuum can store electrical input as a mass in motion. The linear drive motor to set the mass in motion doubles as a generator in deceleration mode. The losses to magnetic drag from induced eddy currents is minimized with application of actively-controlled attractive levitation. The engineering calculations suggest one-percent loss per week in stand-by. Energy input and extraction for large storage systems should exhibit 99% efficiency.
To build a case for “renewables” the energy-related big tech mob promoted a companion need for very complex grid systems as required to make the grid “stable” and what the whole really does is make the grid less stable. But hey, the big tech outfits got to sell a lot of big technology for their schemes that have never fulfilled the sales job put out for them.
Rather than vent the heat generated as the air is compressed, Hydrostor’s system captures that heat and stores it in a separate thermal storage tank, then uses it to reheat the air as it’s fed in to the turbine stage, which increases the efficiency of the system.
Back in the 70s when I worked on earthmovers, I visited Bath County Virginia where they were building a pumped storage project. Apparently it’s still active:
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/energy/bathpumped.html
You are describing flywheel energy storage.
We worked on that for hybrid vehicle energy storage.
Vacuum seals that last for years on rotating shafts is a tough one to do economically.
Battery electric seems to be the winner right now.
I had a team that worked on flywheel energy storage. Those were tough problems. I think the best we ever did was make compact units the could go underground (for safety) to power traffic lights through occasional power outages. I’ve been out of that business for a bit over 20 years now.
If demand exceeds supply you don't loose electricity, some sectors go without, i.e rolling blackouts/brownouts, just like in third world countries or California. If supply exceeds demand, you can "store"the excess in pumped storage hydro, compressed air storage in rock formations or chemically in batteries. Pumped storage hydro is the most developed and is inuse in some parts of the country, it is relatively efficient but requires the ability to have a pumped storage reservoir near grid connections. Compressed air storage has some of the same limitations as pumped storage hydro, requiring large hollow rock formations to store the compressed air. Also compressing air will always be less efficient than pumping water. Battery storage units can be placed anywhere, can be quite efficient, but require toxic and expensive materials to manufacture and must be disposed of as toxic waste at the end of (a short) useful life.
In California especially, surplus electric is becoming a thing of the past. In short, compressed air storage has some utility (no pun intended) but will not be the panacea envisioned by the article.
Pfff..... I proposed that project to a mining company 30 years ago. They had an abandoned deep mine in hard rock not that far away from where they were currently mining and were looking to take advantage of cheaper nighttime rates and load levelling during the day. In the end as is often the case, it just became too hard a sell to upper management...too bad, it would have worked quite well. As for the economics….we never got to completing the feasibility study stage.
Pumped storage hydro is the most developed and is inuse in some parts of the country, it is relatively efficient but requires the ability to have a pumped storage reservoir near grid connections.
There is a YouTube titled something like the “largest battery in Britain” that shows pretty much how it works. Pump the water up the hill at night when demand is low and generate electricity during the day when demand is up. I would imagine environmentalists would be dead set against it...
It’s still a double-conversion, which means it’s inherently inefficient. It doesn’t matter whether it’s electricity or compressed air, they’re still converting energy into a storeable form, and then converting it again into something that can be used to produce force.
But in the case of fossil fuels, nature already has done the converting and storing for us. Sunshine was converted into stable petrochemical energy. You can put it in your pocket and take it wherever you need to use it. Then light a match to it to release the energy. None of these crazy schemes can or will come close to that kind of low cost and efficiency.
There are a couple of hydro pumped storage setups here in GA. They’ve been in place a long time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_Hydroelectric_Plant
One company I have invested in, and have been working with for the past 3 years has a green process of extracting Lithium from Brine or Clay. It doesn’t require heat, and all reagents are recycled and reused in a circular manner
We can process lithium rich Brine and extract the Lithium in under 4 hours instead of the 18-24 months the competition requires. The processed Brine is then pumped back into the shallow end of the Brine reservoir.
The present plan is to launch the company with the intent of reclaiming all valuable minerals from spent Lithium batteries, by reverse assembly and extraction of each element in a unique process. Again, no heat and all reagents are continuously reused.
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