Wind Energy and Compressed Air Energy Storage Represent Environmentally Friendly Baseload Power

In a discussion of one of our cleantech investment opportunities that happen to implement wind energy with compressed air energy storage, a friend writes, “compressed air as a storage medium is a commodity along with other storage mediums, so the success of this company depends upon whether the subject company has patented a defensible technology that takes CAES, a technology from the 70’s, and increases its efficiency and cost over other storage mediums. Comparing it to coal and nuclear plants is not a relevant comparison.”

I respond: 

Thanks.  I’m not sure why it’s not relevant to compare the LCOE of things like coal and nuclear with wind combined with storage.  Maybe what you’re saying is the comparison is not straightforward, which is absolutely correct.  Where all three are baseload:

• In wind/CAES, all the costs are up front, but the fuel is free, the O&M costs are low, and the system has an extremely attractive eco-footprint.
• In coal, a great deal of the costs are spread over time, but the eco-footprint couldn’t be worse: mountaintop removal, CO2, SOx, NOx, Cd, As, Se, Hg, radioactive isotopes, etc.
• The nuclear technologies from the last century are so dangerous and expensive that they’re non-starters in today’s world; advanced nuclear (e.g., molten salt thorium reactors) hold a great deal of promise, but are not commercially available.

I don’t believe WindSoHy contemplates a proprietary CAES technology.  The efficiencies aren’t great, but the energy is essentially free.  Also, they DO have locations nailed down that offer extremely important advantages re: the cost of construction.