Liquid Air - The future of energy?

[deejayburnout]

Found this in the latest edition of Industrial Technology Magazine.

Could this be the future of Energy??

Liquid Air

[Lucio]

It just seems a bit fantasical to me, a lot of glossed over areas such as the amount of energy needed to cool the air compared to how much you can extract from the air afterwards.

There was a similar idea a while back for an air powered car that used compressed air as a power source

[HalloweenJack]

it`ll be down to cost - similar to liquefied gas from the ME

[kalniel]

It's not a future of energy really, just another way of storing/transporting energy.

[wasabi]

Seems to rely very heavily on the concept of 'wrong time' energy. Which is what battery cars and all sorts of other things are betting the farm on too. Once very other house starts running 5 kilowatt car charge cycles overnight, there won't be much cheap 'wrong time' electricity left.

[kalniel]

Probably more wrong place than wrong time - some countries, or parts of countries, have much better energy generating potential than others. Fossil fuel energy is readily transportable, but other forms aren't.

[DanceswithUnix]

It just seems a bit fantasical to me, a lot of glossed over areas such as the amount of energy needed to cool the air compared to how much you can extract from the air afterwards.

There was a similar idea a while back for an air powered car that used compressed air as a power source

Same bloke behind the car (or at least the same bloke did make a liquid air powered car).

From better write ups I have read before, the equipment involved is quite simple and hence easy to maintain. Energy density and efficiency are decent. In short, it seemed a well thought out system and had the backing of someone like the institute of mechanical engineers. Think it was them, was someone who should to know their thermodynamics anyway.

The car looked like a publicity gimmick, he can keep that

[BobF64]

The only thing you can compare it to is oil derivatives, and the long term prospects of the oil industry.

So any vehicle that has energy stored in it from a cheap source that has a long life will only get cheaper, compared to the increasing cost of something that is running out.

And as long as the air is compressed using the nice tasty electricity from nuclear power, its all good.

[wasabi]

And as long as the air is compressed using the nice tasty electricity from nuclear power, its all good.

Big 'as long as'. Lots of people think a couple of dinky solar panels on their roof and the odd wind-farm will fuel all these futuristic vehicles. On top of the current demand.

[peterb]

The article itself isn't particularly well researched - and the 2could generate 22,000 UK jobs" ? based on what? And air is a mixture of gasses, all with different boiling points.

Compressing air is easy, compressing it, liquefying it and storing it less so. The ideal storage tank is a stainless steel vacuum flask, which is relatively heavy.

The article doesn't go into much practical detail though.

[DanceswithUnix]

The article itself isn't particularly well researched - and the 2could generate 22,000 UK jobs" ? based on what? And air is a mixture of gasses, all with different boiling points.

Compressing air is easy, compressing it, liquefying it and storing it less so. The ideal storage tank is a stainless steel vacuum flask, which is relatively heavy.

The article doesn't go into much practical detail though.

Not all the gasses are stored, so I think you end up with a not very pure liquid nitrogen. There was also some mention of a large container of gravel to provide high surface area thermal inertia for fast turn around from storage to generating as demand changes, so I don't think weight of storage vessels is a concern.

They have a pilot plant, and if it all goes bang we only lose Slough so no loss

http://www.highview-power.com/wordpress/?page_id=1445

Seriously though, I like the simplicity of this and I hope it works out for them.

[BobF64]

Big 'as long as'. Lots of people think a couple of dinky solar panels on their roof and the odd wind-farm will fuel all these futuristic vehicles. On top of the current demand.

This is true, and for the sake of the planet, we need to debunk and bury such imbeciles.

The article itself isn't particularly well researched - and the 2could generate 22,000 UK jobs" ? based on what?

I always love it when people say that, just because something could generate jobs doesnt mean it can sustain them, nor ensure the jobs are paid well enough that people want them.

I can almost guarantee that anyone eager to say "could generate" would be very unwilling to accept any penalty if it doesnt happen.

[deejayburnout]

It was something that i liked the concept of. Cheap energy is what we need but my big concern is the the cost to cool the air down. Running chillers at my work to provide 8deg chilled water is costly, i cannot imagine how much energy is required to chill it even colder.

[Butcher]

It was something that i liked the concept of. Cheap energy is what we need but my big concern is the the cost to cool the air down. Running chillers at my work to provide 8deg chilled water is costly, i cannot imagine how much energy is required to chill it even colder.

It works on a different principle, namely you compress the gas until it is a liquid which cools it, rather than directly chilling it as you would do with water.

Still it's not an energy generation strategy so it's not really about cheap energy, just storing off-peak generated energy for later peak usage. Pumped storage hydro works along similar lines.

[watercooled]

Compressing a substance releases energy (heat), even if you don't liquify it, this is part of the principle behind the Diesel cycle - the fuel ignites from compression heat. Fire pistons for lighting camp fires work the same way.

On the flip side, decompression takes energy from the environment, which is why gas cylinders can end up with condensation or frost around them, even in warm weather.

Both are present in the refrigeration cycle, the cold side being the evaporator, the hot side being the condenser. However the process isn't terribly efficient, so I wonder how this compares to, say, pumped storage? It might take up less room and be cheaper to commission, but it's not much good it if it's only like 5% efficient. In fact, considering refrigeration requires compressing something anyway, I wonder if/how it ends up more efficient than directly compressing air?

Edit: Just done a quick search (I should learn to do that *before* posting really), and it seems it doesn't use a heat pump to liquify the air (for some reason I thought it implied that in the linked article, but I'm tired and a bit drunk so ISTR I've just misread it). Instead it uses the Claude Cycle and efficiency is claimed to be fairly high. Still, I'll be interested to see how this compares to pumped storage.

[deejayburnout]

any kind of compressor, be it a screw compressor the size to compress air to liquify is going to be powerful.

will need a lot of energy to run it. would be counter productive. bit like using energy to make energy. use 1.21 gigawatts of electricity made at a gas powered power station to make 1.21 gigawatts of liquid air. what's the point?