Comments on: Why Wind Storage Worth Trillions

By: jagadees.s

jagadees.s — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:42:56 +0000

They can build power plants near to coal mines and then use cable to transport power. But the did not. Why?

By: jagadees.s

jagadees.s — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:42:00 +0000

They can build power plants near to coal mines and then use cable to transport power. But the did not. Why?

By: J Smith

J Smith — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:46:09 +0000

“Even today, a century later, every 12 hours in this nation a trainload of coal from Wyoming or Pennsylvania or Ohio, must arrive at an electric power station near your city, to make your coal power for the next 12 hours. No trainload of coal; no coal power.”

This isn’t true. Most coal facilities stockpile enough coal for 30-60 days worth of coal. Only long-lasting (multi-week) rail service interruptions will cause coal generation to be curtailed. Miss a train? No big deal…an extra one will come next week.

By: J Smith

J Smith — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:46:00 +0000

By: Bill Woods

Bill Woods — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:14:16 +0000

“I believe Germany has a system which stores wind-generated electricity during non-peak hours by converting it into hydrogen – no idea on details though…”

Not that I know of. Denmark has a system which stores wind-generated electricity by converting it into hydrogen oxide behind dams in Norway and Sweden. It costs Denmark dearly, though.

http://www.cepos.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Arkiv/PDF/Wind_energy_-_the_case_of_Denmark.pdf

By: Bill Woods

Bill Woods — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:14:00 +0000

“I believe Germany has a system which stores wind-generated electricity during non-peak hours by converting it into hydrogen – no idea on details though…”

Not that I know of. Denmark has a system which stores wind-generated electricity by converting it into hydrogen oxide behind dams in Norway and Sweden. It costs Denmark dearly, though.

http://www.cepos.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Arkiv/PDF/Wind_energy_-_the_case_of_Denmark.pdf

By: Adam Nehr

Adam Nehr — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:00:05 +0000

Rich,

The USA has a systemlike that that stores solar energy with hydrogen and provides transportation as well! The system is called called HyRail or Interstate Traveler.

Try http://www.interstatetraveler.us and you will see the system outline for yourself.

By: Adam Nehr

Adam Nehr — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:00:00 +0000

Rich,

The USA has a systemlike that that stores solar energy with hydrogen and provides transportation as well! The system is called called HyRail or Interstate Traveler.

Try http://www.interstatetraveler.us and you will see the system outline for yourself.

By: Rich

Rich — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:21:56 +0000

I believe Germany has a system which stores wind-generated electricity during non-peak hours by converting it into hydrogen – no idea on details though…

By: Rich

Rich — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:21:00 +0000

I believe Germany has a system which stores wind-generated electricity during non-peak hours by converting it into hydrogen – no idea on details though…

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:44:00 +0000

Good idea, Ed. We do need to find multiple paybacks like rail had.

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:18:00 +0000

Thanks for the very interesting points: Yeah, Big Coal is a terrific read that really hammers it home, chrisp. Sorry about those nights.

Yeah, Russ, the thousands of harebrained and/or(brilliant?) ideas we’ll need to solve all these problems: what makes these times so compelling.

Bill W: That’s a point. Now that the EPA is carefully tallying carbon, yeah, I wonder if that does include coal train emissions?

By: Ed S.

Ed S. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:39:55 +0000

Whatever you may feel about the coal power infrastructure (rail, mainly) you cannot ignore the fact that it was put in place because it was useful to more industries than just electricity generation. America was built on rail. Whatever energy storage medium that is proposed will not face the same multi-use benefits of that infrastructure. This makes investment difficult because 100% of the cost must be borne by electricity prices. Sure, the consumer paid for rail to be developed, but it was spread out across hundreds of industries, including personal travel.

From a technical perspective I like the pairing of offshore wind turbines with some form of gravity or pressure fed water-based energy storage. Hopefully this would minimize the complexity and cost of energy storage.

By: Ed S.

Ed S. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:39:00 +0000

By: Bill W

Bill W — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:10:39 +0000

This brings up an interesting point: do the models used for calculating the pollution of coal-fired powerplants include the pollution caused by mining and delivering the coal for them? If not, coal power is a lot dirtier than they’re telling us.

This also points out that the railroads have a vested interest in fighting the shutdown/conversion of coal plants. But maybe if we stop moving so much coal, we can move more of our goods being shipped back onto the railroads and off the highways.