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the 'Stuff That's Just Really Interesting 'thread

I didn't know that compressed air energy storage was a 'thing'. It's surprising because gas compression is horribly inefficient. A few years ago I was involved in the construction management of building a new compressor station for one of the big pipeline players in the country and the noise and heat output of compressing natural gas for transmission, let alone storage was awful. Scaled up it sounds terrible.

Plus every compressed air vessel is basically a pneumatic bomb like Izerous mentions. I've seen a vessel fail during an air test and it's bonkers. I'm not saying pneumatic energy storage is a bad idea (particularly if sourced from renewables) and there's lots of arguments against chemical batteries. I'm just legitimately surprised this is a thing.
 
Hmm doesn't compressing gas generate heat? So if some of the energy used to compress is lost to heat then the stored potential energy is less? Wouldn't gravity storage be more efficient?
 
xentr_thread_starter
the efficiency numbers don't make it clear how good or bad it really is. it sounds like it takes more energy to store what will be returned. the caveat is this is stored energy, so if it's getting unused surplus then maybe the return isn't as bad as it looks
 
Mr. Friendly said:
the efficiency numbers don't make it clear how good or bad it really is. it sounds like it takes more energy to store what will be returned. the caveat is this is stored energy, so if it's getting unused surplus then maybe the return isn't as bad as it looks
Click to expand...

That is kind of the whole point.... just like a water "battery", it's not necessarily super efficient, but the idea is that it can store excess power from green energy sources for use on the grid when those sources aren't producing (night time for solar, low wind, etc... ), or peak demand.

As far as efficiency goes.... the key number is how much more efficient it was when compared to previous models.
 
Why not use the excess energy to extract hydrogen instead rather than just storing the "raw" energy? We could then use it directly to fuel vehicles, heat homes, etc. Feels like our reliance on electricity is becoming too great...
 
xentr_thread_starter
JD said:
Why not use the excess energy to extract hydrogen instead rather than just storing the "raw" energy? We could then use it directly to fuel vehicles, heat homes, etc. Feels like our reliance on electricity is becoming too great...
Click to expand...
propane powered PC like refrigeration? do they hydrogen powered refrigeration?
 
JD said:
Why not use the excess energy to extract hydrogen instead rather than just storing the "raw" energy? We could then use it directly to fuel vehicles, heat homes, etc. Feels like our reliance on electricity is becoming too great...
Click to expand...

It's not so much that our reliance on electricity is becoming too great, it's that our current generating systems work on demand (if you need to supply more power to meet peak demand, just throw some more fuel on the fire, if there's too much supply, take fuel away) while green sources (and/or nuclear depending on if you want to consider that "green") are either cyclical in their generating capacity, or supply a steady state that's too much for non-peak demand without the ability to easily adjust the "fuel".

We need some form of "battery" that allows us to store capacity from those times when production is higher than demand for when demand exceeds production capacity. The Grid needs to be kept in supply/demand balance and it would be better if we didn't have to depend on banks of conventional batteries.
 
moocow said:
Green burial is a great idea, when I get around to writing my will, it would be part of it. I was talking about body to fertilizer juice like The Expanse. Right now, hydro cremation is rare in North America and you don't turn into fertilizer but just regular waste water. The chems they use just melt your body down to the bones and then flush the sauce into the waste water system. Less energy than regular cremation but still not fertilizing other stuff.
Click to expand...
I wanna be thrown on a huge pile of wood and go up in flames. Heh.
 
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