Slashdot Mirror
Forget Better Batteries, Nothing That Exists Or is in Development Can Store Energy as Well, And as Cheaply, as Compressed Air (theconversation.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The concept seems simple: you just suck in some air from the atmosphere, compress it using electrically-driven compressors and store the energy in the form of pressurised air. When you need that energy you just let the air out and pass it through a machine that takes the energy from the air and turns an electrical generator. Compressed air energy storage (or CAES), to give it its full name, can involve storing air in steel tanks or in much less expensive containments deep underwater. In some cases, high pressure air can be stored in caverns deep underground, either excavated directly out of hard rock or formed in large salt deposits by so-called "solution mining", where water is pumped in and salty water comes out. Such salt caverns are often used to store natural gas. Compressed air could easily deliver the required scale of storage, but it remains grossly undervalued by policymakers, funding bodies and the energy industry itself. This has stunted the development of the technology and means it is likely that much more expensive and less effective solutions will instead be adopted.
Look up Shingeki no Kyojin for more info on the amazing potential of compressed air. Don't believe me? Watch this.
Hold my beer. I have a plan.
I'd be nervous, though, about any storage in steel containers as that goes very bad when it goes (a few hundred PSI is one thing, but a few thousand PSI is another).
Shoot. There goes my plan to create a vast energy storage system based on 100,000 Harbor Freight 10-gallon air compressors strung together with hoses and extension cords. I'll have to use my 20% off coupon for something else.
I guess this idea will never get off the ground, since there aren't any engineers capable of figuring out a better solution.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.