Wind hole

Wind power, yes. I have long known about windmills providing power, but this concept is something new, or at least newer. In this scheme it's the air pressure that does the work.

This week I learned from a Stateline.org article that a consortium of Iowa power companies is planning to fill a big underground hole with pressurized air which would then be released to generate electricity. The graphic below shows how it would work. (Click on the picture to enlarge it.)


Obviously, it isn't a brand-new concept, as two other air-storage caverns already exist, one in Alabama and one in Germany. But the "Iowa wind hole" (as the writer called it) would be "the only one to use wind power to pump air under the earth."

Wind-powered turbines would pump air into a porous rock formation roughly 3,000 feet below the earth, and that compressed air would later be released, spinning turbines that would generate electricity. "Air also could be pumped underground using conventionally generated power at times of non-peak demand for electricity, such as at night, and released to generate power when electric rates are high. That’s how the air storage sites in Alabama and Germany operate."

You can read the whole article by clicking here: http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=188977

Iowa's governor is also pushing to develop the state's renewable energy industry, now based largely on producing ethanol from corn. Ethanol is perceived by some to be the next way we power our cars, but ... take a look at my post above this one.