FYI and Batteries Are The Grail
FYI and Batteries Are The Grail
July 22, 2011 by Taylor Studios
I wanted to start off this blog with a couple of informational notes. Since Champaign County closed its drop-off facility behind Home Depot at the end of last year, we have been taking our recycling to Illini Recycling off the east side of Market St. next to the mall. Since it’s a business, they’re only open 8am-5pm M-F, but they take just about everything. Go to their to see the full list. In addition, a regional vendor interested in doing a monthly pickup of recyclables contacted us. Whether we have the space to save up a month’s worth of recyclables is a good question (maybe move it over to Taylormart?), but it would save gas for us if we could get it to work.
What’s the big deal about batteries (besides that the City of Urbana recycles household ones)? Well, to make large-scale wind and solar power an actual replacement for coal power, the energy produced has to be available at any time. Right now, that isn’t the case. Those amazing banks of solar panels and fields of wind turbines only provide energy when the sun shines or the wind blows. Current battery technology isn’t able to absorb the amount of electricity a wind turbine field produces or pass that electricity on as quickly as demand dictates once the wind stops. Not to say no one is working on the issue. It’s a huge field of research, but no one design has it all. I know we’ll have efficient, scalable, economical, electricity storage one day. When that happens, maybe even our clothes will generate electricity that we’ll be able to use or sell to the grid!
I guess this is a way of saying why Taylor Studios won’t be installing solar panels or a wind turbine anytime soon. Our local utility doesn’t offer , so we would have to install a bank of lead acid batteries (related to those in your car) to store the electricity we would generate. I’m sure small scale solar advocates would like to run some numbers with me, but in a tight economy, the return on investment is crucial. Now, a geothermal system is a whole different kettle of fish…and another blog.