[clueless]

What happens as coal regualtions push price up and renewables continue to become cheaper?

Not meaning to attack you, but this way of thinking has to be changed.

"Cheaper" is a realitive term. Chepaer means nothing, nothing ever really gets cheaper. Wind Turbines require huge capital investment that will never be recouped by the company building them.

They get "cheaper" from subsides and accounting tricks, but the reality is in the long run they will never be profitable or make any real impact on the supply side.

Renewables may become more usable, but they do not get cheaper. Same with photovolatics, they will never come close to generating the bang for the buck that Combustion or Steam power generation will - You should know that.

I am not sure if Nuclear Energy uses air, but CT's and Steam do - That is the reason why they are so efficient is the largest componet used in the combustion process is air which is simply sucked out of the atmosphere. That is why the ICE will never be replaced - Because it does not have to transport the air it uses in combustion, which in most cases is (What) 20:1 ??

[smallpoxgirl]

The article stats that it costs less than 1 euro to travel 100 kilometers.

1 euro = 1.33 dollars
100km=62.14 miles

So you are looking at $0.02 per mile.

I saw that. They don't give any derivation for those numbers. How did they decide it costs 1 euro /100 km?

OK. I found an error in my calculation. The 90 m^3 is probably at STP. So the tank holds 0.3 m^3 at 300 bar.

0.3 m^3 at 300 bar is 9 mega joules. That's 0.07 gallons of gasoline.

That makes the efficiency 1800 mi/gal!

9 mega joules = 2.5 Kwh. Assuming 33% efficiency for the compressor, that's 7.5 kwh per fill or about $0.75.

Those numbers still don't seem right. Can this thing really be getting 1800 mi/gal equivalent efficiency!?!?!

[KevO]

What happens when it crashes ?

It makes a farting noise and whizzes ramdomly through the air

[americandream]

It's an improvement on the filthy boxes we drive around in at present. Fingers crossed.

[yesplease]

"Cheaper" is a realitive term. Chepaer means nothing, nothing ever really gets cheaper. Wind Turbines require huge capital investment that will never be recouped by the company building them.

Not according to the NRDC.

It takes only three to eight months for a wind energy farm to recoup its investment in building and installation -- that's one of the shortest returns of any energy technology on the market.

The Earth receives a ton of energy per day from the sun. Since it spins with a tilt, there's alternating warming/cooling happening all the time, which results in air moving. We're just putting up big generators attached to impellers to take advantage of this, and they use a small, small, small fraction of this huge initial energy source.

Those numbers still don't seem right. Can this thing really be getting 1800 mi/gal equivalent efficiency!?!?!

Well... Supposedly, all of that isn't useful,

Thus if 1.0 m3 of ambient air is very slowly compressed into a 5-liter bottle at 200 bar, the potential energy stored is 583 kJ (or 0.16 kWh). A highly efficient air motor could transfer this into kinetic energy if it runs very slowly and manages to expand the air from its initial 200 bar pressure completely down to 1 bar (bottle completely "empty" at ambient pressure). This is practically impossible and if the bottle is emptied down to 10 bar, the energy extractable is about 330 kJ.

So if your calcs are correct, and the blurb is correct, ~1000mpg equivalent. Of course, the biggest hits in efficiency come from the electric compressor efficiency (?) and the efficiency of power generation/transmission ~(30-50% iirc). So the well to wheel efficiency may only be ~150mpg (assuming 50% electric compressor efficiency and 30% power plant/transmission) compared to something like ~100mpg for a similar sized car powered by a gasoline engine. Course, something like this may help make variable/cheap renewable resources like wind power more attractive, provided there were suitable off-peak methods of energy storage.

[clueless]

Not according to the NRDC

.

I am speaking to people running projects for power companies who are buying and operating them.

[yesplease]

I am speaking to people running projects for power companies who are buying and operating them.

Any links regarding these struggling wind turbine operators?

[clueless]

I will ask him to come over and post.

If it is so "cost effective" than why are there only two companies building them ???


When something is on the internet does that make it true ???

Here is a quote from your source:

How Much It Costs

The cost of wind energy has come down 85 percent in the last 20 years, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. In 2002, wind power cost 4 to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour, a price that is competitive with new coal- or gas-fired power plants.

OK - What is the baseline here ? Are they using material and labor costs from the 1920's ? Or perhaps Indonesian slave camps ?? The US dept of Wind Energy ? What do they know about running an engineering company and fielding an operation like a wind farm. These are the same guys that have run the US into a 10 trillion dollar deficit.

[yesplease]

Two companies building what? Wind turbines, or wind farms? And of course, everything should be taken with a grain of salt. I tend to trust peer reviewed papers because the reviewers are generally vicious, but internet blurbs, as well as personal anecdotes are both suspect.

[clueless]

Two companies building what? Wind turbines, or wind farms?

Two companies building wind turbines. (in the US)...

[yesplease]

This site claims there are more than two, but who knows? Here in CA, we supposedly have turbines from U.S. Windpower, Kenetech & Vestas, GE, etc. I'm not sure who is American and who isn't, but I'm guessing there are at least three different wind turbine co's on that list? Besides, specialized construction isn't usually a business where there are going to be companies jumping in left and right. But that also doesn't mean the business isn't profitable either.

The US dept of Wind Energy ? What do they know about running an engineering company and fielding an operation like a wind farm. These are the same guys that have run the US into a 10 trillion dollar deficit.

I'm curious, how did the US dept of Wind Energy run us into a 10 trillion dollar deficit?

[clueless]

This site claims there are more than two, but who knows? Here in CA, we supposedly have turbines from U.S. Windpower, Kenetech & Vestas, and probably GE. May even be more...

There two manufacturers in the US. -

Siemens and GE will be the owners of the wind biz in the US. Vestas and Suzlon people are leaving like mad, and due to mandates from the federal govt and tax incentinves all the small guys will be out of business or purchased in a matter of a few years.

[clueless]

I'm curious, how did the US dept of Wind Energy run us into a 10 trillion dollar deficit?

Their they are part of the US Dept of Energy aren't they ? Which is a part of the US govt. Correct ? Do you trust the US governments fiscal management or monetary policy ? For them to make a blanket statment like

The cost of wind energy has come down 85 percent in the last 20 years, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Is bizarre to say the least...Are they saying the cost of selling wind energy ? Or the cost of producing it ??

[yesplease]

Their they are part of the US Dept of Energy aren't they ? Which is a part of the US govt. Correct ? Do you trust the US governments fiscal management or monetary policy ? For them to make a blanket statment like

The cost of wind energy has come down 85 percent in the last 20 years, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Every generalization is dangerous, especially this one.

GWB is part of the government too, but it doesn't mean every employee can't pronounce certain words.

Is bizarre to say the least...Are they saying the cost of selling wind energy ? Or the cost of producing it ??

It must be the cost of selling it, since wind turbines seem to be rated in power, not energy. Were wind farms so heavily subsidized in the early 80s that they could sell electricity for ~30 cents per kwh? The downsizing of the industry I think you're alluding to is probably a byproduct of our current administration's policy towards business. Big companies making bigger profits.

[clueless]

It must be the cost of selling it, since wind turbines seem to be rated in power, not energy. Were wind farms so heavily subsidized in the early 80s that they could sell electricity for ~30 cents per kwh? The downsizing of the industry I think you're alluding to is probably a byproduct of our current administration's policy towards business. Big companies making bigger profits.

Yes I agree - We will one day all be working for the company.

But what is so strange about that is the United States is becoming so hollow that small businesses seem to be the only hope...

[malcomatic_51]

I only skimmed through the first page of responses so what follows may be repetition. This idea is such a hopeless non-starter. Not even submarines driven by compressed air have ever been successful, it was still more efficient to store the energy for submerged propulsion in batteries.

It takes WORK to compress air, and that WORK has to come from somewhere, probably from electric power from the grid. Is this a PO solution or is it a feeble effort to disguise a very poor store of energy as a solution? Well obviously it is the latter. When you compress air you lose energy due to adiabatic heating. This heat will not be recovered in practice, because the air will almost certainly have cooled by the time you get around to using it.

The only applications I am aware of where compressed air has proved useful has been in torpedoes and model aircraft (and balloons going phrooow! at parties...). That is, very short duration applications. Think about it, if you have to put a pressure vessel in a car, do you fill it with air or nat gas?

Answer... duh!

I'd be more enthusiatic about rubber bands!

[Heineken]

Like I said at the beginning, this thing is dead in the water.

Any notion published in a rag with a name like "Gizmag" is likely to share a similar fate.

Gizmos are not going to save the world. Not even gizmos that actually work but in so doing preserve the same stupid infrastructure that is killing the world. Powered personal chariots are most especially in that category.

And BTW, whatever happened to those thousand-foot-tall solar-powered wind tunnels they were going to build in Australia, that were going to save the world?

The only thing that is going to save the world is massive sacrifice producing massive change in how we live, but that's at the bottom of everybody's list.

[onequestionwonder]

And yet none of you geniuses has answered with a single equation, why it is impractical.

Answer a question, or be silent.

Why is it impractical?

[jbeckton]

And besides you cannot run an industrial automated factory on photvoltaics, Wind turbines or anything else other than a combustion or steam turbine.

You do understand that that statement is nonsense right?

Most operations at most factories operate on electricity period. Its method of generation has nothing to do with it. A steam turbine or a combustion turbine produce exactly zero electricity! Only the generator produces electricity and the generator requires no FF to burn.

Forget personel ICE cars, they will be gone. However, there will be fuel for auxilary operations, be it expensive gasoline, ethanol...etc long after peak oil.

[fluffy]

And yet none of you geniuses has answered with a single equation, why it is impractical.

Answer a question, or be silent.

Why is it impractical?

Short answer: It isn't.

There are issues, such as size and range, but for the majority of commuter journeys, especially in Europe, neither is a real problem, and if the running costs are much lower then these things will sell. Probably not in huge quantities, but in the event of a serious oil crisis a.k.a. 1970s, they will fly off the shelves, so to speak.

Same with the G-Wizz electric car:

http://www.goingreen.co.uk/

Although this approach isn't going to work for trucks and busses, it could take out a huge amount of personal transport fuel usage. Additionally, countries like india and china could use these and NEVER end up driving petrol cars. Even in the US, the effect of going from a petrol powered SUV+Compact for the typical suburban family to diesel SUV+electric/compressed air compact would drop oil usage by over 50% with no lifestyle changes.

But, of course, there are people on these boards who appear in total denial that any form of technology could possibly help in any way with peak oil, hence the replies..