Edmund Storms wrote: > These are all good ideas that have been explored. However, turning an > idea into a practical solution to a problem involving megawatts of > power and billions of dollars takes a lot of time and capital, which > is not available. The issue is not the lack of ideas but the ability > to put them into practice on the scale required. In addition, each > good idea always has some down side that is not recognized until > serious efforts are made to put it into practice. For example, > hydrogen has to be stored. Either this requires power to cool it or > compress it into a smaller volume, or it requires expensive materials > to absorb it. While the cost of these storage methods will be paid > from the savings this storage gives, someone has to put up the > additional money to construct this extra machinery. They want their > money to give a return that is hard to achieve except over a long > period of time. To make matters worse, a hydrogen-air mixture is > explosive over a wide range of concentration, which makes use of > hydrogen more dangerous than natural gas, for example. All of the > proposed methods to store power created by wind and solar have similar > problems that must be solved before any significant storage is > possible.
I know Hidrogen has its storage and transportation problems, and they relatively are serious. What about the "light metal as an energy storage and carrier" proposal, and the associated "Hidrogen on demand" idea? > This takes time and money, which are in increasingly short > supply. If you want to make a contribution, analyze your ideas in > terms of cost/benefit ratio and show the result to someone who has > money. > That's the classical (profit driven) capitalist line, and it's not bad in itself. I just want to mention that there are(at least) two more options: a) governments can implement energy solutions massively, and rise the necessary funds and expertise with relative ease. They don't need to be profit driven, like corporations, and can be necessity driven, or welfare driven. b) individuals can come up with cheap and easily replicable energy solutions. > Ed > > > On Jul 9, 2009, at 9:27 AM, Mauro Lacy wrote: > > >> Edmund Storms wrote: >> >>> And thus we see the basic flaw in wind generation. Unless a backup >>> source of power is in place and can be connected to an active grid, >>> wind power is not practical. >>> >> You can use an intermediate stage as energy storage. Why not produce >> Hidrogen with wind (and solar) power, and burn that hydrogen when wind >> or solar is scarce? Not a backup, a buffer. >> If you are concerned with the dangers and complications of Hidrogen >> storage or transportation, you can use wind and/or solar to refine >> Aluminium, and later burn that Al to produce Aluminium Oxide and >> Hidrogen. Aluminium Oxide can be recicled indefinitely, and the >> Hidrogen >> and heat generated used to produce electric power. >> >> Electric cars can be used to replace explosion cars, and Al can even >> possibly be used as a fuel, with some modifications to actual >> explosion >> cars, by burning it and producing Hidrogen on demand, and burning the >> Hidrogen in turn in the slighty modified explosion motor. I've made >> the >> calculations some years ago, and around 100 kgs of Aluminium were >> equivalent in autonomy and power to a full tank of gasoline. In the >> refuelling stations, a double process is necessary: getting rid of the >> Aluminium oxide for recycling, and refuelling of the Al. Other light >> metals(like Mg) can be more efficient than Al to store and transport >> energy, but Al seems like a good candidate. If this is done massively, >> the cost of energy can drop to almost zero after the initial >> investment >> is amortized. >> >> Mauro >> >> > > >
