nakedjaybird

Alternative Energy Storage Is an Investment Tsunami

As for pumped hydro, take a look at Banks Lake and Grand Coulee Dam; existing for years. Also take a look at Hawk Creek and Lower Crab Creek in WA state as pumped hydor storage possibilites. What lands do you think the BLM have been buying for years?

Alternative Energy Storage Is an Investment Tsunami

John - right on re. response to Doug with diesel hybrid and the cheapest longest life (lowest life cycle cost) batteries.

I only dream of the biodiesel injected burner with no moving parts and solid state waste heat recovery devices directly powering the Chorus Motor with the only on-board stored energy device being a GRASS TANK. Two manybe three years away.

Alternative Energy Storage Is an Investment Tsunami

John - with all the other variable and flexible demands during the day one does not need the demand that EV's provide off peak.

Alternative Energy Storage Is an Investment Tsunami

John - OK, so the rich buy pure EV's; good. The masses will go for normally priced vehicles called hybrids and 200-300% increases in economy with unlimited range which you don't seem to dis as much as expensive pure EV's with better economy but limited ranges; and the rest buy scooters and bikes, or in addition to the others.

But, again, as for storage on the demand side of the equation, which you don't wish to address vis-a-vis generation and inbetwix surge storage capicity, EV's may provide some demand sponge flexibility, but something like commercial and industrial refrigeration using insitu storage permitting significant flexible demand at point of use is being overlooked (not unlike making ice or additional cold salt, etc., when excess power is available, and "melting" the ice when demand power is peaking). Do that all over the US in major ciites and industrial complexes, the same places that create the demand. That's just refrigeration. Now look at other demand loads that can be shuffled accordingly. Try heating. HVAC? Things where we don't even lose the inefficiencies of charging/discharging that batteries, flywheels and other stored enery devices inherently contain (internal resistances, overcharging and unrecoverable disassociation of gases, etc.).

Now, you may say that those or enough of those systems cannot be turned on and off quickly enough (shut down and started up too much), which may be true currently (no pun intended), but with the advent of the applied computer/communication... technologies and ability to monitor and control millions of systems in a variety of ways, utilities will be able to not only reach in and turn off residential refrigerators as well as commercial and industrial loads in a fashion that no one will notice, but not even the refrigerator or the other loads will find it strange.

We have computers controlling the turning off and on of up to 18 harmonic phases of 3-phase motors, and the motor doesn't care. In fact, that control ability makes a 20hp motor deliver the low speed torque of an 80 hp motor. That's good. Point being, the computer controls the number of phases turned on and off for a 60hz motor. Is that fast enough for your repsonse times? Frequency regulation?? Within 60hz? At the final load, the end user.