We have been hearing about the benefits and potential revolution that will come about when we commit to using Solar, Wind, Wave and other sustainable natural energies. We have heard how we will be able to give up on our fossil fuel habit, reduce our carbon emissions and hopefully slow down or reverse the effects of global warming.
We at GoGreenMug http://www.gogreenmug.com, of course are big supporters of these sustainable energy sources and are excitedly anticipating some big changes now that President Obama has made environmental sources of energy an integral part of the 2009 Economic Stimulus Package and his federal budget. For now, although we know of a few homes and companies that use solar energy or wind turbines for power, we are not quite in a position that all of us can swear off those fossil fuels.
The problem is storage. Electricity cannot be stored, it can only be transformed into a different type of energy. Solar, wind and other natural environmentally generated sources of energy are not consistent. The Sun does not always shine all day and never at night, the wind does not blow at a high enough speed all day or night either. This would mean that we may encounter electricity fluctuations as the sun goes behind a cloud or the wind dies down. Therefore this type of energy needs to be stored before it is transformed into electricity that must be delivered. Fossil fuels such as coal and oil have that storage advantage. The coal or oil can be kept in its natural state before being burned to create the electricity.
There are a few costly ways in which Solar, Wind and other such energies can be stored - large batteries, fuel cells and heat storage. Batteries are familiar to all of us. We all know that the larger the battery the more power it can store but also the more expensive it is. In fact battery technology really has not advanced much since it was invented, mostly because fossil fuels became much cheaper to use. Electric cars in particular have struggled because the cost of the battery is high and it takes a long time to charge and delivers limited mileage. This makes it almost impossible for the electric car to compete against a gas engine that can offer longer mileage and be filled up in minutes.
The other methods of energy storage may work out a lot better. Heat storage makes a lot of sense for Solar energy. The sun can heat a pipe full of water and create steam which is then much easier to store before it is converted into electricity.
President Obama's plans give encouragement to all forms of energy storage. He has even budgeted specifically for scientific research into battery technology. Once specific technologies become essential and funded, we have seen how quickly they can develop. Media (movies, photographs..) storage has encouraged hard drive manufacturers' to quickly increase hard disk storage space and retrieval speeds. Every year larger and larger storage disks are built, while the size of the drive and the costs remain the same or in some cases decrease.
Energy storage has also become an essential technology as we try to move away from using fossil fuels and therefore we hope to see the same exponential technological developments and cost effectiveness here that we have seen in other technological fields.
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