OT: 500 megawatt compressed air power storage

[Bill D]

Off Topic: California is probably going to build a 500 megawatt compressed air power storage facility Near Bakersfield. Giant electric driven compressors pumping air into underground storage cavern. Driving up to 5, 100 megawatt turbine generators.
Bill D.

Willow Rock Energy Storage Center

The Willow Rock Energy Storage Center (WRESC) is proposed by Gem A-CAES LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hydrostor, Inc. The project would be located at 8684 Sweetser Road in Rosamond, Kern County, California.

www.energy.ca.gov

 

[john.k]

These systems have failed at various times from the 1880s onwards ,due to the very poor energy recovery efficiency from compressed air........around 10% at best.

 

[SeymourDumore]

These systems have failed at various times from the 1880s onwards ,due to the very poor energy recovery efficiency from compressed air........around 10% at best.

Well, stuff I've found ( me being by no means even a remote expert on the subject ) says otherwise.

This is a cliffnotes version: https://energystorage.org/why-energy-storage/technologies/compressed-air-energy-storage-caes/
Another with a bit older info: https://www.ctc-n.org/technologies/compressed-air-energy-storage-caes
Another: https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/energy/us-grid-energy-storage-factsheet

 

[Bill D]

No mention of pressure but some talk about saving the heat of compression and using it to rewarm the expanding air. I know a mine in the California mother lode blasted an air storage cavern inside the granite of a mine. I belive it was used for decades.
Bill D

 

[Bill D]

Australian mine to host first of its kind clean energy storage facility

Terramin's Angas zinc mine will host a 5 MW Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage facility.

www.mining.com

Former gold mine to host largest underground caverns in history

The site, located under the Black Hills of South Dakota, will host the largest neutrino experiment in history.

www.mining.com

 

[cyanidekid]

those linked articles are, to be excessively polite, utter nonsense. the UN article actually shows a picture of a gas engine 30 gal. compressor and calls it "small scale" CAES!

to be clear, climate change is a real problem, and we absolutely HAVE to stop burning coal.

CAES is not any kind of a large scale solution though.
Ok, lets get into the articles; the first one is basically a press release by a company that runs "peaking" gas turbines, and I'd call it greenwashing.
if you read between the lines, CAES is basically a way of utilizing the turbine facility off peak by storing compressed air, to recover a small percentage of
the unused capacity to increase the peak output. basically a "supercharger" for the turbines burning gas, if I get that right. it requires a large turbine generating facility, and a favorable geology, preferably salt domes. the recovered energy is a tiny fraction of the overall output. the higher efficiency
of "55%" relies on fantasy technology to store the latent heat of compressing the air, AND transfer it to the air being withdrawn.

the UN article is some BS written by an intern who read the press releases and googled "compressed air". anyone who has actually run a compressed air system understands the inefficiency of the process, with all the heating, frictional losses, moisture issues, etc, etc.

these numbers sound like they are just made up. maybe under ideal laboratory conditions, but not real world.

I'm an environmentalist. that's why I think its tragic we are so irrationally paranoid of nuclear power. more people die EVERY YEAR mining coal than have died from ALL the nuclear power accidents, ever. humans are stupid.

 

[reggie_obe]

Only in Kalifornia.....

 

[SeymourDumore]

those linked articles are, to be excessively polite, utter nonsense. the UN article actually shows a picture of a gas engine 30 gal. compressor and calls it "small scale" CAES!

I know that was directed at me, and I must apologize that I have not actually researched the subject, and above all, I am sorry for quoting something as retarded as the "small scale CAES" article!

In my defense I can only say that there was an EIA article ( U.S Energy Information Administration ) describing the possible and actually deployed energy storage options in the US as well as worldwide.
In that article CAES was ranked, rated and quantified to be a viable option.
For the life of me I cannot find the webpage anymore, even though I have linked it on PM at least twice in the past when discussing governmental tax incentives aimed at small scale battery storage.

As far as nuclear power, I am absolutely 100% with you!

 

[Freedommachine]

to be clear, climate change is a real problem, and we absolutely HAVE to stop burning coal.

Annnd burning wood, driving cars, flushing toilets, eating meat, owning property, reproducing...

C'mon kid, you're not really one of those Agenda 2030, fourth industrial revolution, climate cult nut-jobs are you?

I'm not insinuating that you are - but you should know that a large number of very wealthy and powerful people are consolidating the world's wealth by espousing an ideology centered on environmentalism and social equity.

Speaking of which;

Demand for Prostitutes Soars in Davos as WEF Kicks Off, Reports Claim

The demand for prostitutes and escorts has reportedly spiked in Davos, Switzerland, which is currently hosting the World Economic Forum

www.breitbart.com

 

[SeymourDumore]

Annnd burning wood, driving cars, flushing toilets, eating meat, owning property, reproducing...

Free, give him the benefit of the doubt as he explicitly broke from the retarded stupidity of the "Greens" by stating a clear advocation of nuclear power.

I do stand with him and say that coal as it was used in the past is polluting and is pretty fucking wasteful.
Nowadays I burn wood in a gasification furnace, and I won't make any apologies for doing so, but perhaps we could come up with a way to use coal in a similar fashion in the future where we can reduce ( nearly eliminate ) CO2 emissions and increase efficiency.

For the record, I grew up in an environment where coal was king.
A small shovelfull of coal was worth more than 3 loads of wood in the same stove.

 

[john.k]

The greens aint stupid ..its a powerful fundamentalist religion that has carefully devised appeal for the young,with considerable funding from the axis of evil........ their activities go to weaken western economic potential ........like all religions they mix a grain of obvious truth into their carefully planned lies.......Grassroots greens here are offering the young houses ,free money andpolitical power in the short term,along with their broader aims.......it works too ,in areas around concentrated education facilities with a high population of disaffected young .

 

[Milland]

Apart from Cyanide, this thread went to utter shit faster than most except for the Covid related ones.

Mods, a mercy killing is in order...

 

[john.k]

Covid....whatever happened to that ?

 

[DDoug]

underground pumped storage, and when the next earthquake hits ?

 

[jaguar36]

underground pumped storage, and when the next earthquake hits ?

Its 2000ft below ground, I imagine the only thing that would happen in an earthquake would maybe be it starts to leak and its just air so who cares.

Two intresting notes I found was that the round trip efficiency is just 60% for it, and that they are going to be digging a new caveran. I had assumed they were using some existing mined out mine or something.

Also in case you didn't already know how much of a nightmare it is to do business in California, look at the ridiculous amount of paperwork they've had to give the state, including studies on foxes, desert tortoises, and ravens.

 

[DDoug]

Its 2000ft below ground, I imagine the only thing that would happen in an earthquake would maybe be it starts to leak and its just air so who cares.

Two intresting notes I found was that the round trip efficiency is just 60% for it, and that they are going to be digging a new caveran. I had assumed they were using some existing mined out mine or something.

Also in case you didn't already know how much of a nightmare it is to do business in California, look at the ridiculous amount of paperwork they've had to give the state, including studies on foxes, desert tortoises, and ravens.

"Maybe it starts to leak" ??
Maybe it's a big leak, and very quick....like a pressure vessel rupture or ...."Explosion" ?

Let's just stick with what works.

 

[jaguar36]

Let's just stick with what works.

It does work, how do you think they store natural gas underground?

 

[DDoug]

It does work, how do you think they store natural gas underground?

They doo it nearby, and we aren't in a seismic zone....
The pressures are less as well.

Why doesn't Kalifornia store NG underground instead ?

No, they want to Stuff CO2 underground so a rupture will kill thousands by asphyxiation.

Actually, it's a great idea. Driving wedges into faults will slide the whole damn state into the ocean. Yup, keep doing what your doing Kalifornia.

 

[Bill D]

That part of California still has producing oil and gas wells . Bakersfield was the first city in the world to have natural gas cooking stoves.
One of the largest oil resivoirs in the world was there. It is still very large on a world scale. California has outlawed fracking for some reason. Not like there is drinkable water being pumped up from 2,000 feet down. Bakersfield always has the cheapest gasoline in the state since there is a refinery right there near the oil fileds.
Bill D

 

[jim rozen]

"..considerable funding from the axis of evil........ "

Oh my, are republicans doing this now? Next up, Santos has actually been married to greta thunburg all along.