A wind farm with batteries.

Hello,

Scientific American reports on Xcel Energy's plan for a wind farm in Minnesota. This initiative will use batteries to store the electricity. This is interesting. Our current system doesn't use electric storage. Once energy is generated it must be used immediately. With nuclear or fossil fuel, we can burn it on demand. Mother nature controls the winds. They are strongest at night. Yet, we want to use the power during the day.

Storage is very desirable but it most cost a lot of money. With many technologies, improvements are breathtaking. For example, Moore's law states cpu performance doubles every two years. Unfortunately, batteries are basically improving in a linear fashion. On the other hand, there will be a lot of research in this area. If there are huge improvements in battery technologies, this pioneering effort may not be economical.

-John