OT: 500 megawatt compressed air power storage

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.

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.

john.k said:

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.

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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

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

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of "55%" relies on fantasy technology to store the latent heat of compressing the air, AND transfer it to the air being withdrawn.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.

Only in Kalifornia.....

cyanidekid said:

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!

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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!

cyanidekid said:

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

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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;

Freedommachine said:

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

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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.

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 .

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...