My understnding is that in most places in the world they use the cheapest form of electricity in the base. Then, as demand increases, they add more expensive forms. So...they have a large base of hydro and coal. As demand increases in the summer, they might add gas turbine generated electricity to meet this peak demand. My feeling on wind power is that you would never need to worry about storage. Just feed it into the base use of electricity. Try to build it up to a relatively large percentage of total use. However, you wouldn't try to make it 100%. Maybe 80% of peak use, covering the valleys. Then, supplement with biodiesel fired generators, or some other source, for the final 20% or so. No need for storage, and all demands are met with renewables.
Where my in-laws live in Spain, they are attaining approvimately 20% of the region's electrical demand from wind generation. Another percentage comes from burning straw/hay in a power plant. The remainder of need on top of this comes from various non-renewable sources, which hopefully will be diminished. Derek > On Sat, 17 May 2003 12:20 am, Bryan Brah wrote: > > As Hakan has said storage of wind generated electricity will be the > > hardest problem to solve if we are to rely on it for our power needs. > > actually, any environmentally derived power has this problem, potentially. > > specifically, the amount of power cannot be shifted to meet demand > arbitrarily. > > so, we can either store the power, over provision, or change our lifestyles > to > match the available power.... not mutually exclusive ofcourse. personally I > think we need to do all three. :-) > > storing power is actually relatively easy. batteries are fine but lossy and > environmentally troublesome, but they work. energy density is a serious > problem here... I beileve (from memory) that zinc is a reasonable material > for storage of electrical power. > > better from my pov is PV decomp of water then use the Sabtier Reaction > (reverse water gas) to make methane from H2 + CO2 over Pt hotwire or Alumina > supported catalyst. - or just store the H2 - though this has other problems. > > when you want to use the power pass the methane or H2 through a fuel cell, > keeping the reaction products for the charging cycle... :-) liquid fuel self > presurising battery! > > > -- > Dr Paul van den Bergen > Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures > caia.swin.edu.au > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > IM:bulwynkl2002 > "And some run up hill and down dale, knapping the chucky stones > to pieces wi' hammers, like so many road makers run daft. > They say it is to see how the world was made." > Sir Walter Scott, St. Ronan's Well 1824 > > > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Biofuels list archives: > http://archive.nnytech.net/ > > Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. > To unsubscribe, send an email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/uetFAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
