Alvia--- It doesnt qualify as a mature domain, bu the number of companies looking to store power from wind is significant. General compression is probably the leader.
http://news.cnet.com/Saving-wind-power-for-later/2100-11392_3-6170659.html D On Dec 18, 2:25 am, "Alvia Gaskill" <[email protected]> wrote: > http://geo-engineering.blogspot.com/2008/12/combat-global-warming-wit... > > Wednesday, December 17, 2008 > Combat Global Warming with Evaporative Cooling > To combat global warming, wind turbines along the coastline could be used for > the dual purposes of generating electricity at times when there is wind and > evaporating water at times when there is no wind. Just a small breeze over > the water can give the top water molecules enough kinetic energy to overcome > their mutual attraction, resulting in evaporation of water and associated > cooling of both water and air. > > The evaporation will give some cooling effect, but the real impact on global > warming will come from albedo change. When there's much wind at night, > offshore wind turbines could produce more energy than is needed on the grid. > Such surplus power could be stored and - at times when there's little wind - > used to pump up sea water and have this sprayed by the turbines as a fine > mist over the water. > > [No technology available to store wind-generated energy. Use it or lose it. > AG] > > This spray will contain tiny particles of sea-salt that get sucked up into > the air, especially when there's little wind and sunshine causes rising > currents of air. These little salt particles will attract further droplets of > water from the surrounding air, forming clouds that are lighter in color from > space than sea water (see albedo comparison below, from Wikipedia). > > [It's not that easy to make clouds. AG] > > In early 2006, I wondered to what extent such increased cloud coverage could > mitigate global warming. On the one hand, the extra clouds will reflect more > sunlight back into space, but on the other hand water vapor is itself a > greenhouse gas. While the albedo difference between clouds and sea water is > obvious, some of the evaporated water could rise higher up into the > atmosphere and increase humidity of cirrus clouds at high altitudes, thus > trapping the heat underneath and heating up Earth even further through the > greenhouse effect. Also, such evaporation could cause unwanted salty rain to > fall over land. > > Has anyone done any modeling on this? > Cheers! Sam Carana. > > 455769-1.jpg > 93KViewDownload --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
