energy storage

instead of spending billions on intermittent energy what we need to be investing that money in is finding a way to store that energy, something I have been preaching to deaf ears here for years now. And no, molten salts is not an answer

and interesting guest post over at J Currys site on it going on now on that subject

http://judithcurry.com/2013/06/29/an-energy-model-for-the-future-from-the-12th-century/

 

You use surplus to pump water uphill. When the wind dies down, you let the water flow downhill through a turbine, and have the best of both wind and water generated electrical power. Works for PV as well. Same thing would work for a closed system I suppose, there are plenty of ways to do work to create potential energy which can be converted back to kinetic when it is needed.

 

That has been very successful in many areas, China, Switzerland and Norway among others, however I am thinking that something more along the lines of individual small scale units that can be practical for the homeowner or as vehicular power is what will really be the ticket to severing our petroleum dependence

 

Here is the problem with that idea. If you build that much hydro you have no need for the wind and pump storage. And of course you will still need the fast reacting conventional turbines making up a good share of the generation mix to provide stability. Wind has no real place and is still just a waste of money.

 

Not quite. Normal hydro relies on a water input of at least the same size as that needed to run the turbines. Build two lakes, on what would normally be a water course without the flow to run any turbine. Allow the bottom lake to fill, and then pump it uphill during periods of surplus. Flow it downhill during periods of deficit at what would normally be a far higher rate than the original water course could sustain, generating power when the primary source isn't. All the original water course is doing at this point is making up for evaporation (which could be substantial).

So don't use wind. Use PV, solar towers, prisoners turning a wheel, anything you'd like which has an intermittent nature. The problem is in the storage, not the generation. Until the local nuclear furnace runs short on hydrogen the issue is never going to be lack of energy, just the difficulties of configuring it to do useful work.

 

thing is wind blows more at night when energy demand is lowest, you just pump with the excess to supplement during peak usage. This is not a cure all by any means and only works in select locations of course but it is the best use for wind that I have seen so far

 

In many situations, it is just not economical to store that energy.
In these situations, a typical strategy is to have renewable energy sources used when available, and then have back-up natural gas fired power plants ready when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing.

Another strategy is to combine with a hydroelectric dam. The water builds up behind the dam, and then it is released when needed.

All the street lighting at night uses more energy than you may think. Have you ever looked out from a hill down at a city at night? See all those lights? If you really want to reduce the energy consumption, that is the place to start. Many ignorant people only see how they use electricity in their own homes, and think that's where most of the energy goes. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ironic thing is that local governments are the big energy wasters, building streetlights where no one needs them, leaving parking lot lights on throughout the night.

Another way to save energy in the day is to demand that all new commercial buildings incorporate more natural lighting. This would allow people to utilize natural daylight. Many buildings have poor architectural designs, with windowless rooms (or inadequate window space), vast covered ceilings that need lamps because the architect never bothered to design it with a skylight. This would be better for the workers too, because we all know that natural sunlight is better than crappy artificial fluorescent lighting.

A skylight makes much more sense than a solar panel, if you think about it.

 

Maybe something like this?

http://phys.org/news/2012-09-fueling-fleet-navy-seas.html

energy + seawater = oil

 

You are missing the point. If you build the large scalr hydro and pump you are going to end up in spill, essentally throwung away power. I fully support large scake hydro but the idea of pump storage is just robbing peater to pay paul. Just build yhe hydro you dont need the wind.

 

Actually, they can work well together. With a high power demand, a hydroelectric dam reservoir cannot supply power constantly because it takes time for the water to build up. But the water that has collected can be used any time. So during the times when there is no wind, the water is released to power the dam's turbines.

Geothermal is rather similar to hydroelectric in many ways. If the geothermal well is overexploited, it takes time for heat to build up again.

It is much more practical to use renewables to help supplement electric power needs, rather than rely on renewables exclusively. In most cases, there still needs to be a back-up natural gas power plant for emergencies, but if a good combination of renewables are used, the gas power plant will rarely ever be running. If you do not have that gas power plant, there will be black outs from time to time. Wind and solar are not completely reliable. There are times when it is cloudy and there is no wind.

Many people do not understand how inefficient it is to store electric power. It takes huge very expensive batteries just to store a small amount of electric power, and energy is lost in the conversion process. It is just not as practical.

 

Energy is already 'stored' in the nuclei of atoms in the form of the 'strong force.' We already know how to access it and, in fact, have been doing so for decades now. Even if you add up the few nuclear 'disasters' we have had it doesn't equal the radiation put into the atmosphere 24/7 with the burning of coal.

 

I understand the bulldhit written by people who have never written a daily schedule to generate power. You dont need the wind to help you manage hydro resources. What makes sense in theory, Economicay it makes no sense. Better to use money to build the extra hydro and forget the wind.

Anx wind and hydro do not work together. Hydro does not respond it is base loaded at Max. You know what happens if you try and get hydro to respond to changes in wind generation? Do you know what a water hammer is? The moving mass of water just cant stop and start.

 

Not every region was big rivers. And even in regions that do, the available hydroelectric power may not be sufficient. In other cases, damming may create large reservoirs and significantly change the landscape, displacing people. If you look at a map of the Aswan dam, it's construction flooded a huge area in Egypt. The huge reservoir is visible from space:
http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/57000/57923/Nasser.A2002067.0830.250m.jpg

 

Build the hydro. But if you don't have the water rate to sustain turbine operation it won't work. So you use it for storage by pumping it uphill with surplus, and letting it flow when intermittency issues crop up. The bigger the reservoir, the more energy storage you have. And it works without enough water for normal hydro power.

Sounds pretty win-win to be honest.

 

No its not win wun because the money that webt to the windfarm would be better spent on extra hydro capacity.

There us no justification for the wind. Its just being added to the mix to make environmentalists feel better.

 

No justification? You mean besides being just another method to do useful work? Hey, you want to claim that the 149 tera-watt hours between April 2012 and April 2013 doesn't justify the existence of the things, fine. Me, I think 149 tera-watt hours is just another 149 tera-watt hours the country doesn't have to round up somewhere else.

Plus I love the impression this picture gives, providing good old American fuel which doesn't require we support various foreign despots and the people who are eager to kill us or alternately take our money to give to other people to kill us. To hell with envirofacists, I'll just be happy if we stop funding folks who want to kill us!

 

Interesting, but wrong. No amount of renewable-plus-storage can ever eliminate the need for the grid. How is a guy in a basement apartment in Manhattan going to get energy in any way other than the grid? Does anyone really think there are enough renewable resources within a city to power that city? Not possible. The truth of the matter is that renewables are so low in energy density that wide adoption of renewables requires more grid, not less.

 

A watt is a watt is a watt. But a non-firm intermittent watt us worth a whole lot less and a lot less useful than a firm dispatchable watt.

The capacity factor of wind is only 1/3. The 150 terra watts of non-firm generation would have been 450 firm generation had the money been spent on better generation with capacity factors in the high 90s. You lost 300TW.

You need to learn where we get our fuel from. It is profoundly ignorant to think think that our electricity is generated from mideast oil. We dont even get our oil from the mideast much less generate electricity from it.

 

All of us know about how you can take a simple magnifying glass in the sunlight and concentrate its beam on a piece of paper or something and start a fire. (Well, I don't know if people today know about it, but back in the day we kids knew about it.)

I've always wondered why huge magnifying glasses, that follow the sun (much more sophisticated of course) can't be built that would focus and concentrate their sunlight beams on some type of boilers which would produce steam and turn turbines to generate electricity.

Yeah, I know this is a super, over-simplified example ... but you nerds get the idea.

I've mentioned this notion to many people in the past including some engineers. They just wistfully shrug and say they don't know why it wouldn't work.

Whaddaya say nerds?

No jokes please. Don't be cute!

 

I believe a Dyson Sphere would be the closest thing to what you are getting at. Nice in theory but not very practical.

 

Yes. I know. Which is why you hook the surplus watts to n energy storage device. Like...say...a dam. That your intermittent watts which may or may not be used when created can be stored someplace. Hence the title of the thread.

Admittedly, my experience is all oil and gas based (smattering of coal and uranium from the geologic side), which means I know more about where a majority of our fuel comes from than most. And you need to stop pretending that 149 tera-watts as no value because it required a generative capacity higher than that...it doesn't matter to the people who utilized the 149 tera-watts any more than it does to the PV folks who are bummed that they only have access to 1000 watts/m^2/hour when the sun pumped out 65,000,000 watts /m^2/second. IT DOESN'T MATTER TO THE PEOPLE UTILIZING IT FOR WORK, they just want the work done.

 

Even us non-electrical nerds know the answer to this one. Apparently windigo has his nose so deeply buried in books claiming things are impossible if you don't LIKE them that he missed exactly this happening already. Oops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power

How about solar towers of a different type? Love these things too!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower

OH NOES!! IMPOSSIBLE!! MAKES MORE SENSE TO HARNESS A HURRICANE!

Windigo, you need to get out more buddy.

 

No!!! You dont!!! You use the money to build more firm dipatchable power.

In the end the question is what are we going to spend our available money to build.

The primary resource in power generation isn't fuel. Its money.

It does when they get their bill. It does when they suffer a black out because the wind generation can't handle events like hydro and gas aero derivatives can.

 

I'll say the same thing I always say. Any (*)(*)(*)(*)ing moron can come up with a 100 different ways to spin a conductor in an electromagnetic field that doesn't make any of them a good idea. If you are able to package your (*)(*)(*)(*)ty idea and get grant money from the government still doesn't make it a good idea.

 

You do it your way, the world is certainly not limiting itself to just your idea, and better yet, energy storage is the topic, not pet favorites power generation ideas.

Yes, and the government, the market, and individuals, are already doing just that. Some like windmills, I am happy with PVs on the garage roof, some like natural gas (another fav of mine), others like hydro and coal and biomass and passive solar for hot water and the list goes on. So, you don't like windmills? Fine. Don't build any in your backyard, and when someone representing you at the government level votes for any form of subsidy or guarantee for them, you make sure to vote accordingly the next election. And then be happy, having expressed yourself in all forms necessary.

Yes, of course, all those power plants are burning old currency because that coal, natural gas stuff is just so impractical. Gotcha. May I recommend a sober posting group in your area?