Pneumatic Power

sorry, this has to be the most thermaldynamically inefficient request I've seen in a long time. the air pump would be 70% eff. The best pressur you could get would be about 100 psi. The volume of the tank would be the size of a small house to store a resonable amount of energy.. The air motor would be about 50% efficient. The net system would be 30% eff and be huge.

Instead, just charge some batteries.

I'll try not to get my nose out of joint or where it doesn't belong,,,BUT MIIK999 in my opinion, is looking at a possible solution(NOT PERFECT ONE, but at least it's an attempt) to the dismal viability of wind power. Around 25% attendance for wind. I have researched what efforts are being made to rectify the grid penetration problems and haven't heard peep, until I read his post.

25% of the output, 100% of the time would be an awesome trade for 25% of the time you have 100% of the output. Otherwise you only get toast when the wind blows.

MIIK999--I have spent a lot of time pondering this one--What part of the world are you in? You are exactly right(not necessarily air though), in my opinion--We have to transform it to make wind power worth producing.

if you are that far off the grid, then the cost to transport the H2 will be way out there. BTW, any one ever looked at the cost of an H2 compressor, the ol shop air compress will only get you death if you tried to use it. They are quite specilized.

Vicini--I am sharply critical of wind and it's grid penetration on the basis of cost--That changes daily with cost and production of turbines and the supply catching up to the demand, so it is hard to post cost per kWh. I would appreciate anyones comment or research here.

I reside in a region that is rich with hydroelectric power--a certifiable abundance. We also have wind and before we deal with the logistics of wind generated power and the schedule wind keeps, we are putting windmills everywhere. The big problem is that when we produce enough wind power to exceed into what hydroelectric supplies--the public utilities have to buy the "alternative power" produced by the "for profit" companies in the wind market before they can buy the way cheaper hydroelectric power that we already have(more than 3 times, if I am not mistaken). Water and cheap power will be dumped over dams and we all will share the cost of the higher power prices, some solution to the energy crisis!

WWW.grainger.com has air motors. I am not sure that the windmill will have enough torque to run the air compressor. Good luck.

Please remember that large acumulators need to be sound; maybe inspected & certified in your jurisdiction. All that energy you've stored could come out in a spectacular burst. It might spoil your day.

All that 'heat of compression' that we so rigorously try to dissapate will be energy lost to your purposes.

Rather than air, you might want to consider hydraulics. There are systems in development that use hydraulic accumulators to store, for example, wave energy, for this exact purpose, adn there are environmentally friendly hydraulic fluids out there.

And then there is "hydraulics" in a slightly different sense, too. Water could be pumped into a water tower, and then run through a turbine to extract power. Compressing a gas loses energy to heat.