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Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

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Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#221

Post by reacharavindh »

I’m not an electrical engineer. But, thinking about the power storage/retrieval problem with a computer engineer’s lens, I can draw a parallel to data storage/retrieval.

L1/L2/L3 caches - expensive, small, but fast.

RAM - mid tier, still fast, bigger than cache, less expensive than cache, but limited in capacity compared to disk/flash based storage.

SSDs…

Disks….

You get the point.

Would it be the same with the grid?

Several power sources - nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, hopefully not coal and gas.

Banks of Lithium batteries acting as first level(efficient and immediate but limited capacity storage).

Whatever excess is directed to longer term, non immediate storage - pump up water to generate power later, molten salt, air compression etc.

Even more left? - spin up production of time insensitive materials that would be used anyway later - sea water desalination plants, green hydrogen generation, sewage treatment etc.

At large scale such tiered ecosystems would be very cool and super useful.

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#222

Post by adrianmonk »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #105

In early 20th century in London there was an alternative hydraulic "power grid" with plants (aka pumps), storages and an underground distribution network of pipes. A building, for example, could connect to high pressure water mains and use it to power elevators. Electricity eventually won, but it's interesting to see an idea coming back. Zeppelins next! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Hydraulic_Power_Company

That is an interesting system (which I had never heard of), but it seems pretty different from this.

The London system used water under pressure and was used for power distribution, whereas this one compresses air and is for energy storage.

And the Wikipedia article says the London system used "large vertical pistons" with weights to store energy, whereas this one pressurizes air.

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#223

Post by tomcooks »

jesperlang wrote: post #33

There is a great post on compressed air energy storage (CAES) over at Low-Tech Magazine: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/05/history-and-future-o...

Finally someone mentioning this, it's a gem of an article in a gem of a website

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#224

Post by nervousvarun »

inglor_cz wrote: post #115
emptysongglass wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naive question but couldn't our forerunners who otherwise succumbed to cold in harsher climates have exploited this fact to dig subterranean villages and towns? What's the element I'm missing as to why they didn't?

Pre-industrial holes may collapse long before you reach -100 meters. Even -5 meters is a challenge in certain places. Also, digging (or rather drilling) in bedrock is hard without motorized equipment and good steel. Also, supplying fresh air down there is a problem. Also, preventing the mine from flooding is usually a huge problem. Mining is hard and a lot of people lost their lives doing that. That said, if your onl…

And of course the difficulty with caves is hibernating predator(s) (bear is the one I can think of maybe more?)

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#225

Post by loceng »

reacharavindh wrote: post #221

I’m not an electrical engineer. But, thinking about the power storage/retrieval problem with a computer engineer’s lens, I can draw a parallel to data storage/retrieval. L1/L2/L3 caches - expensive, small, but fast. RAM - mid tier, still fast, bigger than cache, less expensive than cache, but limited in capacity compared to disk/flash based storage. SSDs… Disks…. You get the point. Would it be the same with the grid?…

I've wondered if putting an compressed air energy storage system under certain types of buildings would work. Any thoughts on that? E.g. Apple's Ring HQ is already on a floating system to counter earthquakes, so why not add a layer of air? Unnecessary? Much more expensive than other options? Else?

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#226

Post by wcoenen »

Melatonic wrote: post #205
Raidion wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't correct. Deep mines are notoriously hot, because you're digging towards magma. Google says temps increase by 3° C for every 100m.

Do you have a source for that increase? I was not able to find it. Seems very suspect considering that the earths outer crust is approximately 20 to 30 miles thick. Are you suggesting that if we go approximately halfway through the outer crust, say 15 miles, the temperature is going to be 725 degrees warmer than surface temp?

Page 62 of https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/supporting-material/proc-renewab...

> The heat is transferred from the interior towards the surface mostly by conduction, and this conductive heat flow makes temperature rise with increasing depth in the crust on average 25-30°C/km

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#227

Post by ted_dunning »

u320 wrote: post #63
PBnFlash wrote: post #61

Air is kind of a shitty working fluid. I always kind of dismiss compressed air storage because of that. I saw a video recently that pumped water into tanks and used used the air as a spring. Just dip a pipe down and use the air to move the water. Extracting energy from a hyrdo generator. https://youtu.be/sBF5EnK9MPs

Isn't that just pumped hydro? You would need similar masses of water.

It is pumped hydro, but you don't have the same mass of water because of the dramatically different pressures involved. Smaller water mass is the advantage to this, but the problem of managing heat is the downside that pumped storage doesn't face.

This general technique is known as "liquid piston".

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#228

Post by bumby »

mabbo wrote: post #194
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #105

In early 20th century in London there was an alternative hydraulic "power grid" with plants (aka pumps), storages and an underground distribution network of pipes. A building, for example, could connect to high pressure water mains and use it to power elevators. Electricity eventually won, but it's interesting to see an idea coming back. Zeppelins next! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Hydraulic_Power_Company

This sort of system is used today in many modern industrial facilities. Case in point: Amazon warehouses. Lots of the mechanical automations inside some of those warehouses are powered by compressed air in open loop systems. As the conveyor pushes the item off, onto a different lane, there's a distinct hiss of air escaping. The movement of the machine was powered by compressed air. Out in the parking lot in these fac…

They aren't really the same types of systems.

Pneumatic "muscle pressure" is common in lots of industrial applications, especially those that operate in austere environments. But those are different than the tech being researched in the article in large part because the mechanical compressors in industrial applications are hugely inefficient. Many constant volume compressors have 90%+ of the energy as waste heat.

I believe the article is referencing isobaric (constant pressure) compressed air energy storage (CAES) that have much better efficiencies.

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#229

Post by beders »

reacharavindh wrote: post #221

I’m not an electrical engineer. But, thinking about the power storage/retrieval problem with a computer engineer’s lens, I can draw a parallel to data storage/retrieval. L1/L2/L3 caches - expensive, small, but fast. RAM - mid tier, still fast, bigger than cache, less expensive than cache, but limited in capacity compared to disk/flash based storage. SSDs… Disks…. You get the point. Would it be the same with the grid?…

Stanford researcher Mark Z. Jacobson makes a similar case but with renewables and storage only: https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WWSBook/WWSBook...

Re: Goldman Sachs invests $250M in compressed air energy storage

#230

Post by stcredzero »

reacharavindh wrote: post #221

I’m not an electrical engineer. But, thinking about the power storage/retrieval problem with a computer engineer’s lens, I can draw a parallel to data storage/retrieval. L1/L2/L3 caches - expensive, small, but fast. RAM - mid tier, still fast, bigger than cache, less expensive than cache, but limited in capacity compared to disk/flash based storage. SSDs… Disks…. You get the point. Would it be the same with the grid?…

Look into natural gas trading and scheduling. There's already an entire body of knowledge around storing energy, and sophisticated automated contracts, financial instruments, laws, and regulations. "Pools" are just energy storage, and the same geologic features used for those facilities could be used for compressed air storage.

(EDIT: I used to do this software!)

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