[Steve_American]

Cryogenic Air Energy Storage - the new long duration energy solution || Just Have a Think.


This is a very promising system. It can be made with off-the-shelf components and needs no exotic minerals. One can be built in the same amount of time as a wind farm. "Air" is one thing we will never run out of.

Remove the [==] to view the video.
https://www.you[==]tube.com/watch?v=fjERw-Ol-_s&list=TLPQMTIwMzIwMjTw8ocfPqLc_A&index=6

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[Puffer Fish]

Cryogenic air storage is a cheap form of energy storage, compared to other options, but there are some issues.

The first is that the energy can only be stored for so long.

The general rule for large tanks of liquid air is that the amount that boils off is 2% of the tank volume per day. This means that about half the liquid air will have been lost after 30 days.

This could still be useful for dealing with differences between power demand at different times of day, or even different times of the week.

The other issue is that there are some big significant efficiency losses involving cryogenic compression of air. The combined system might only be 30 to 40 percent efficient. This can add expense if the renewable power generation is expensive.

But nevertheless it could still be useful for capturing peak surplus power generation from renewables (assuming that renewables account for over 97% of power total power generation, this is inevitable).

There also could be some possible safety hazard issues with huge volumes of cryogenic air storage. I think it would be inevitable there would end up being accidents where worker's lives would be lost.


Pumping cryogenic liquid air through pipes to people's homes might theoretically be a more energy efficient way to provide cooling provided by renewable energy (sort of analogous to how steam used to be piped to city apartments for heating in older times), but this would probably never be practical from an engineering standpoint because it would be too hard to keep out traces of moisture and precipitation, which would ice up and clog the pipes, and even create danger.

Maybe automatic pneumatic tube deliveries of small refillable tanks to people's homes could be another idea. But this would require a more expensive infrastructure and design, which I doubt any city planners are ever going to create.
The idea could be very optimal from an energy efficiency standpoint, however.