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My Clean Break column today is actually more of a feature looking at compressed-air energy storage (CAES) and how Ontario, geologically, would be an excellent location to give it a try. About 50,000 natural gas and oil wells have been drilled in southwestern Ontario over the past 150 years and most of them are depleted. Turns out that depleted gas fields are one of several types of underground reservoir that can be used to store compressed air. Salt caverns are another option, and we have plenty of those as well. In fact, 60 per cent of Canada's natural gas storage is in the region. Compressing and storing air wouldn't be that different technically. Another benefit is that southwestern Ontario has strong wind resources, so building a 1,000 MW-plus CAES facility on its own or as part of a partnership with area wind developers could prove quite economical. The idea, of course, is that cheap wind power generated overnight when demand is down could be used to compress and store the air. The air could then be released to generate electricity during daytime peaks, making wind a dispatchable resource in Ontario and more of a realistic replacement for coal power as it gets phased out of the province. Surplus overnight nuclear power, when we have it (mostly during the summer), could also be stored this way.

[A] New Jersey company plans to announce on Tuesday [8/27/08] that it is working on a solution to this perennial problem with wind power: using wind turbines to produce compressed air that can be stored underground or in tanks and released later to power generators during peak hours.

A French-designed car that's propelled by compressed air and claims speeds of more than 60 miles per hour is expected to go into commercial production as early as this summer,

Nice idea, but has it got performance potential? Rotary engine impressively compact and friction free. How much emission is generated by the compression of the air? Is it just passing the emissions on to a power station?

The air-car could be a reality in 2009. Some think it will be better than the electric car. The company producing the car has been acquired by the indian TATA constructor. The news is in French, but relevant for the world.

des videos et une doc exhaustive sur des énergies alter aussi ...