Abstract
Fossil fuels are energy storage. There is very little electricity stored now because with fossils there has been no need for it. The coal and natural gas that generate two-thirds of electricity and nuclear uranium that generates 20% of power are the energy storage, and have provided many decades of energy storage so far. Wind and solar electricity are intermittent. Sometimes there is too little and sometimes there is more than the grid can use. The extent to which intermittent wind and solar can supplant fossil fuels will depend on storage for when the sun and wind die out, up to several weeks seasonally. This chapter looks at potential ways to store electricity with a national grid, pumped hydro storage (PHS), electrochemical batteries, compressed air energy storage (CAES), concentrated solar power with thermal energy storage, and biomass energy storage.
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Friedemann, A.J. (2021). Energy Storage: Excess Electricity from Solar and Wind Must Be Stored. In: Life after Fossil Fuels. Lecture Notes in Energy, vol 81. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70335-6_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70335-6_11
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