Storing Wind Power Underground. By Ernest Scheyder, AP, September 2, 2008. "How do you turn on the lights when the wind isn't blowing? A New Jersey company... announced [last week] that it had joined with Michael Nakhamkin, one of the top thinkers in energy storage, to develop new ways to trap wind-generated power in underground reservoirs. Nakhamkin has helped develop technology to pull excess energy off the power grid -- usually at night when usage has waned -- to run compressors that pump air into sealed, underground caverns that once held oil, salt or natural gas. During periods of higher demand, the air is released and heated to run air expansion turbines. The heating process uses about 100 megawatts of power from natural gas and 200 megawatts of power from the compressed air. The announcement comes just as a drilling boom for natural gas heats up nationwide."
2008-09-03
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment