AFP—German energy firm RWE vows CO2 emission cuts—“We will make as much money with renewable energy”

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gYkF9ENhIKD_X4FgiIP6ZvmtLJiA

German energy firm RWE vows CO2 emission cuts: report

(AFP) BERLIN — Germany's second biggest energy firm RWE plans to significantly cut CO2 emissions from its power stations by 2012, chief executive Juergen Grossmann said in an interview to be published Sunday.

Grossman told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that RWE plants would reduce their CO2 emissions from 180 million tonnes to 140 million tonnes before the end of 2012.

"This includes closing 16 of our oldest units," Grossman was quoted as saying. "We will make as much money with renewable energy as we do now."

…

"We'll succeed in getting a full supply with renewables only if we can store electricity because the wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine," he said.

…

[lapfog_1]

1. We can always store it the way the nuclear and fossil

electricity producers do now, pump water uphill.

The utilities do this now because some power plants do not power off and back on without some cost, demand is down during the night, so they pump water uphill and recapture it in the daytime by releasing more water through a hydro plant.

Not terribly efficient, but it does work.

The compressed air works as well, but scale might be an issue.

Storing the energy in flywheels, especially lower mass higher speed flywheels, is gaining ground.

Then there is the battery and ultra capacitor folks. A lot rides on their ability to commercialize some promising laboratory research.

[MKNK1]

2. all the good sites are already occupied. nt

[lapfog_1]

3. All the good sites for what?

Hydroelectric? Nobody is talking about building more dams, just running some water uphill to refill an already existing reservoir.

As for the compressed air idea, yeah, the current ideas are all underground storage... and those are limited right now. But some people are working on new storage ideas.

The flywheel thing is something you install (either above or below ground) at the power plant site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkQ23jmPPnA

[joshcryer]

4. I like flywheels, but I am beginning to think storage is not as big of a deal...

...as is stated. Solar for day, wind for night. They both produce almost an inverted power signal, it's really uncanny, to be honest. As if nature said "look, do it this way and you're good to go."