Environment & Energy

...is superior to all other forms of energy storage on purely thermodynamic grounds, since no exergy destruction is involved with energy transformations.

I have no use for flywheel storage, since it requires the conversion of thermal energy to mechanical energy with ultimate losses to friction, even with the best tribological science applied.

In a situation involving exergy recovery of thermal energy now routinely rejected to the environment, one could consider the storage of syngas as a load leveling tool. The hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to give DME and/or methanol is, in fact, exothermic, the exothermic nature of it actually representing a problem for direct DME hydrogenation, since the copper based catalysts can be unstable at high temperatures. Such a system would be similar to compressed air systems without the requirement to heat the gas with dangerous natural gas, as was proposed many years ago by Denholm to address the poor reliability of generally useless wind systems.

Emissions and Energy Efficiency Assessment of Baseload Wind Energy Systems Paul Denholm, Gerald L. Kulcinski, and Tracey Holloway Environmental Science & Technology 2005 39 (6), 1903-1911.

This particular paper sticks in my mind after all these years because it was a milestone in the path that transformed me from a rote supporter of so called "renewable energy" into a generalized opponent of it. The carbon cost of CAES and the requirement for the use of dangerous natural gas appalled me.

Direct conversion of thermal energy to chemical energy has a lot to recommend it, not just for load leveling purposes on a grid, but also for portable energy use. A DME self propelled vehicle to my mind would be cleaner and more sustainable than any of the popular alternatives, including the one I personally own, a hybrid car. In general however, I oppose the car CULTure, but DME could replace all fossil fuels, dangerous natural gas, LPG, dangerous petroleum and dangerous coal, as noted in the seminal paper by the late great "Martian", Nobel Laureate George Olah:

Anthropogenic Chemical Carbon Cycle for a Sustainable Future George A. Olah, G. K. Surya Prakash, and Alain Goeppert Journal of the American Chemical Society 2011 133 (33), 12881-12898