Why is Energy so Difficult to Store? Why is Stored Energy so Difficult to Use?
2 hours ago
Guest Blogger
By Kevin Kilty
Figure 1. An energy storage scheme with complexities galore. High temperatures, exotic materials, and extreme machine demands. (h/t Chaamjamal)
Air compressed and shoved into old mines and caverns; mass hauled uphill, and let down again; heat stored in mass. New, advanced energy storage schemes? Well, no, these are from the last big energy crisis 1968 to 1982.[1] However, anyone paying a modicum of attention to either the professional or popular literature must have noticed lately an inordinate number of energy storage schemes being proposed that run the gamut from simple to bizarrely complex (see Figure 1).[2] I see this as an implicit admission that renewable energy systems cannot work on their own without an array of ancillary services supplied by someone else.
Recently an acquaintance who works for a major U.S. utility sent me brochures describing several schemes, and asked what I thought of them. Two store energy in mechanical ways, and one is a thermal storage system resembling the one profiled on WUWT a few weeks ago. As the time scale to switch to 100% renewables is constantly being advanced on us, even as we only begin to recognize the unsuitability of renewables alone, my acquaintance said, “We are going to waste a lot of money in the next ten years.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/05/29/why-is-energy-so-difficult-to-store-why-is-stored-energy-so-difficult-to-use/
