venturebeat.com — An idea that has long been batted around by entrepreneurs and venture capitalists is finally getting its day in (or, more accurately, out of) the sun: Pumping air into pressurized air cave systems using electricity from wind turbines, to blow out and provide spin turbines when it’s not quite so gusty topside.
Aug 27, 2008 View in Crawl 4
kellfinderAug 27, 2008
Huge step in the right direction towards a goal of making alternative energy more mainstream.
trolleyfanAug 28, 2008
Well basically because you need a lot of water. And water storage systems (that are big enough to make this worthwhile) are expensive.This would be good for intermittent power supplies like wind and solar. Yes, it's inefficient - but as it's essentially storing power that would just be "thrown away" without it, even "inefficient" is better than what we've got.
Closed AccountAug 28, 2008
Comment.
amyvernonAug 28, 2008
If this works, that'd be really wild. "Hi, would you like to buy some air from my cave?"
lucas123Aug 28, 2008
I'm a little confused. You're using power to create compressed air in a cave and then generating power by releasing it. What's the ratio of pressure creation to energy production? And, I would think that a cave system would be almost impossible to make air tight and that, when pressurized, air would seep into porous rock. I've got to admit, I would have never thought of this one, but perhaps my knowledge of the subject is what's lacking.