An Energy Breakthrough Could Be Buried Deep Beneath Rural Utah

Solar and wind farms are good at generating electricity, given that the sun is up and the winds are blowing. However, when the sun and the wind disappear for days at a time, these farms become less useful. This is the problem the Germans call “dunkelflaute,” which means “dark doldrums.”

For Los Angeles, salt may be a solution.
One hundred miles south of Salt Lake City, a giant mound of salt reaches thousands of feet down into the Earth. It’s thick, relatively pure and buried deep, making it one of the best resources of its kind in the American West.
Two companies want to tap the salt dome for compressed air energy storage, an old but rarely used technology that can store large amounts of power.

More details of this news over at the Los Angeles Times.

(Image Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)


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Sure . Why not? Los Angeles has already siphoned off power from most of the western states. There is a nuclear plant in Palo Verde, Arizona who serves LA. The Intermountain Power Plant In Delta, UT is operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (as if LA owns Utah as a colony). Utah coal is strip mined and burned --all for LA's benefit. This salt dome plan is B.S. There will not be all that much "compressed air" to take up the slack for idle wind turbines. They are opening up reservoirs in the dome for the planned conversion of the IPP to gas, when the coal runs out. Just another case of the western states getting Californicated.
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