Alternative to chemical storage of energy

[noah]

Air as a storage medium would have to be pretty hi-tech (ie expensive) to be workable. There is a problem with heating on compression and cooling on exhaust which need to be balanced out somehow. The compressed air car which is re-invented every few years would be a pain to drive in winter- probably turn into a block of ice in the rain.
My waterwheel ran an air compressor (direct drive) for about 12 years. Altho the wheel is 20 foot diameter it still needed a 1/2 ton flywheel to smooth out the irregular load of a two pot compressor. This fed a 16,000 litre air which is, on this very day, being sent to the scrappy.

[clockmanFR]

 
In the mid 1970's I designed, with some help from serious engineers, (chief Eng for JCB, hyd specialist from Barfords) a hydraulic pump lift system. A small pump connected to a Chinese design VAWT, (200BC) would pump up a telescopic ram, salvaged from a 40 ton tipper lorry. This would raise a 4 (even more) ton water tank. at a set distance the valve would open and release fluid through a rotary hyd motor and this was connected to a genny. Made some parts and got all the other bits, but got side tracked.

However, at the same time a wealthy landowner (Lordship type) near Grimsby Lincolnshire came up with the same Principal. I remember that he even got grid tied and had special buildings constructed. It worked but i never got to see the figures, he was using his design of HAWT.

       

[renewablejohn]

There is a 150 tonne hydraulic accumulator run on steam in Liverpool which I have been trying to save from the scrap man for the last 4 years but I have not managed it yet.

[brackwell]

Surely the electric car solves this day/night storage problem and no fuel costs ! but if you dont like that what about large sized capacitors as being proposed in electric cars for braking energy capture ?

Ken

[djh]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Hydraulic_Power_Company

"At its peak, the network consisted of 180 miles (290 km) of pipes, and the total power output was about 7,000 horsepower (5.2 MW)."

Edit: But basically those systems are just small-scale versions of Dinorwig!

[renewablejohn]

I cannot remember which London station ( St Pancras rings a bell) it is but the hydraulic lifts in the station were operated by energy stored in hydraulic buffers which the train ran into whilst stopping.