Comments on: Energy Bags Under the Sea to be Tested to Store Off-Shore Wind

By: Bruce Miller

Bruce Miller — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:51:00 +0000

Trick with most sustainable, renewable, perpetual, eternal, power sources, power storage techniques: They cannot support the “Cheap Oil Era” developed, fully unsustainable, extravagant, even preposterous, “American Dream” lifestyle and version of civilisation. Factoid: very few in this world live that way anyway! Some 30% of the 300 M in America ! imagine now for a moment, what these very workable, practical systems mean, not to the few, but to the remaining 7000 M in the world – and you have a more realistic view.
Canadians in Straw Bale homes consume so little energy as to rely on Passive Solar for heating for the winter. This Straw Bale “Super-insulation technique bears more technical development, and wider use. university of Alberta has a hemp bodied car – no caol no nukes, to weld, form, shapes, steel, no rust, no rot, just a good, solid, light, strong, utility vehicle body – not even great presses, or rollers needed! Suppressed! Corporately damaging technology! Refused at U.S. borders for a hemp content! Ass-holes fear some may “smoke” a godammit car?
We face an uphill battle against the Corpocracy, and a down hill run as they fail in the U.S.A., as mounting unemployment smacks of genetic selection, as even the AMA jaundiced by reports of poor health care there for the majority bury their guilt in glossy two page colour ads depicting them as “saviours to mankind”.
University of Manitoba “Stack Wood” housing techniques have not gone un-noticed in Canada either.
There really is a very comfortable, modern technologies supported, “Off-Grid” life out there for those who would seek out. Even hidden on the net are many sites revealing newer techniques blened with forgotten older technologies, for a happy life-style apart from the Corporate Monsters, the Great Corporate American Propaganda Whore and her mesmerizations, exhaultations, false declarations, sly innuendoes, and slick plays for your Soul, your cash, and your very life.
hope reigns eternal for a comfortable unfettered lifestyle, unbeholden to the mighty Corporations yet on even their own internet!

By: Olmo | Green and Energy

Olmo | Green and Energy — Fri, 13 May 2011 12:36:00 +0000

Cool, the world need more of this technologies. but now… not in “the future”

olmo

By: Kerry Swift

Kerry Swift — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:26:00 +0000

Susan – how are they being anchored? That is a huge issue.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 01:54:00 +0000

I feel a need to clarify…

The reason that I clicked on ‘Liked’ is because Susan responded back and in such a nice way. I appreciate it when people who write articles engage with commentators.

I’ve got no opinion on Susan’s sentences. I just like the good info she and the other authors bring to the site.

By: Anumakonda Jagadeesh

Anumakonda Jagadeesh — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:45:00 +0000

Great Innovation to store offshore wind energy through bags under the sea. I am glad more and more approaches to harness wind energy are coming up.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Wind Energy Expert
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:20:00 +0000

I went back and de goofed it a bit, hope I wrangled some sense out of it.
I was really trying to compare it to the simple natural force of gravity used in releasing the stored energy in pumped storage.

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 22:43:00 +0000

That makes sense. So its just a one time cost to build it, not for every kwh stored. Thanks.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:17:00 +0000

Let me copy something over from a GMT article…

“The Ionex Energy Storage System is a 1-megawatt-hour unit capable of producing 1 megawatt or 2 megawatts of continuous AC power from a 40-foot shipping container weighing 35,000 kilograms. The container can be mounted on a concrete pad or on a wheeled trailer.

….

We think two-hour systems will be about $1,200 per kilowatt.” But he stressed that “we really need to see a fully installed system under $300 to $400 per kilowatt-hour.””

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ionex-has-a-1-mw-battery-ready-for-the-grid/

And from another GMT piece about Duke Energy contracting with Xtreme Power to provide a 36MWh storage system for its 153-megawatt wind farm in Notrees, Texas…

… he has confidence that Xtreme could one day get its prices down to $500 a kilowatt hour, or less than flow batteries and sodiums, but Xtreme is not near that price now. ”

$16/kWh would be an extreme breakthrough in storage.

Remember, that’s the cost of the facility. It’s not what storage would add to the cost of a delivered kWh of electricity. The facility would get used over and over and over….

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:01:00 +0000

Yes, I tend to think it is $0.16 per KWh too, but I wasn’t able to confirm with the editor of Power Mag, who I am quoting Prof Garvey as saying. Elsewhere – and a few years ago, Garvey said $20 per MWh, which is even more evidence that it would not be so high.

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:55:00 +0000

Tell me about it! Many of my sentences are clunky…

By: Roderick Read

Roderick Read — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:37:00 +0000

Pumping air to depth takes huge energy… an alternative. Send the power to the bottom in electric cables. Use the electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. You now have two very valuable resources at industrial working pressure.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:12:00 +0000

This storage technique would seem to have an advantage over CAES in a salt dome or other underground location. As the stored air is used there will be no decrease in pressure as the ocean above will fill in the now-vacated space.

This also suggests onshore storage possibilities. Drill a modest-sized well very deep and then excavate a large underground area. Install air bags in the excavated area and then flood the area above the storage bags. Going deep underground also means storing air at hotter temperatures.

Even using abandoned mines (which are often naturally flooded) might provide storage opportunities. They probably already transmission lines running to them.

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:07:00 +0000

Susan, this sentence is quite clunky:

“these huge inflatable undersea bags would also use the relentless power of compression found deep under the sea, to make energy as the sea is allowed to compress the bags air forced under the sea.”

By: Nikodean1

Nikodean1 — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:54:00 +0000

Are you sure it is $16/lWh? Or 16 cents?

$16 sounds very extreme. I don’t think it can be that expensive.