How about steel springs? Rubber bands? Weights hoisted on cables?
Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage
161–170 of 238 posts
Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
ABS braking does the opposite: a vacuum is stored that's used to release the brakes in short bursts.
Modern (post 1990-something) ABS has its own pump. Air brakes on trucks run in reverse. Compressed air releases spring pressure therefore releasing the brake.
> Air brakes on trucks run in reverse. Compressed air releases spring pressure therefore releasing the brake.
I think pneumatic brakes almost universally work this way, because it's fail-safe w.r.t. line leaks. E.g. in trains the main air line is for powering pneumatics as well as releasing brakes; at nominal pressure (8-10 bar iirc) the brakes are released, at lowered pressure (3-5 bar) the brakes are fully applied. If the line ruptures or the train splits all brakes across the train are fully applied.
Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage
#163I'm not knowledgeable about any of this, but how does this compare to a Trompe? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe
Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
For home use you also have to consider that you're basically making a bomb every time you store energy in the thing.
>For home use you also have to consider that you're basically making a bomb every time you store energy in the thing. No different than people who have LP tanks outside their homes. Or fuel oil tanks buried in their yards. Or coal bins in their basements. Or natural gas lines coming their house. Or pretty much any other storage method except a dam for your water wheel, but even that can burst and flood your home.
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Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage
#165I worked for a company that had old underground mines and a power company used them to fill with compressed air when energy was cheap and then release and generate electricity when it is more expensive. My company got a cut.
Clever
Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage
#166An early design for the automobile ran on compressed (liquid!) air. http://www.didik.com/ev_hist.htm It might work for some applications, but in 120 years we haven't been able to make it work for cars, at least.
Has worked fine for compressed-air locomotives in e.g. mines.
Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Hydraulic energy storage systems store energy by compressing air similar to a battery storing energy in an electric circuit. Wait, did you read the article? :)
Hydraulic systems and compressed air systems are usually regarded as separate things. Maybe the distinction is a bit arbitrary and the former can be regarded as a subset of the latter but there you go. edit: Google says hydraulic transmits power through fluid, compressed air through air/gas.
Pneumatic vs hydraulic is about compressible vs incompressible fluids. (Naturally, hydraulic oil is also a much better lubricator and an exceedingly superior sealant than oiled air).
Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or you could liquify the air. That would make the storage much more energy-dense but introduces all sorts of practical/heat issues. People have played around with running cars on liquified nitrogen. The air conditioners probably worked well.
Steam power, in a sense. Now I kind of want to build one, although the crash scenario is just as terrifying as with a hot car. Hmm.
There are clubs and people all over the United States (often in rural areas) dedicated to building home-made steam powered machines and vehicles.
Unfortunately, these real-life steampunks (not cosplay kids) usually also would rather spend time working on their projects and not documenting them, so there's not very much on the internet compared with the number of people active in the hobby.
Keep an eye out at county fairs and small town carnivals and rodeos. They usually show up.
Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage
#169Highview claims to be able to do this at prices competitive with Lithium batteries. https://www.highviewpower.com/technology/
Re: Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage
#170I was quite excited by compressed air storage when Lightsail came into the picture almost 5-7 years ago. Sadly, they could not make the economics work and ended up pivoting into a company that sells carbon fibre tanks for high-pressure storage. As someone who follows the energy space closely, Lithium ion batteries now have so much momentum and $$$ pumped into them via R&D work, it's going to be hard for competing ene…
>As someone who follows the energy space closely, Lithium ion batteries now have so much momentum and $$$ pumped into them via R&D work, it's going to be hard for competing energy storage technologies to catch up. Flywheel and hydrogen fuel-cell also often come up but I think we're at a point now where batteries are going to take off simply because of their wide area of applicability. With that economy of scale costs…
Don't rule out hydrogen just yet - at least not for cars (and then using your car as a generator to power your home):
http://www.thedrive.com/tech/14431/are-hydrogen-cars-the-nex...