On Thu, 2014-11-27 at 09:13 +1100, Tom Worthington wrote: > One energy storage method you did not mention is compressed air: > http://blog.tomw.net.au/2013/12/bulk-energy-storage-for-renewable-energy.html
It wasn't supposed to be an exhaustive list :-) In general, moving liquids or compressing gases is a poor way to store energy, because so much is lost in intramolecular friction (heat). As you compress a gas it heats up, and that heat is difficult to recover and utilise. A compressed gas is also generally unsafe - the tanks need to be very strong, and a failure can be catastrophic. Pumping water uphill to use in hydroelectrics is very inefficient because of friction, except that the storage is cheap, safe and can be maintained indefinitely Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer ([email protected]) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer http://twitter.com/kauer389 GPG fingerprint: EC67 61E2 C2F6 EB55 884B E129 072B 0AF0 72AA 9882 Old fingerprint: B862 FB15 FE96 4961 BC62 1A40 6239 1208 9865 5F9A _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
