Reply #9: The problem is poor efficiency

[Dogmudgeon]

Energy can be stored in many ways, and some of the posts here have given illustrations. But the overall problem is that there is always a loss of energy when you store it, and currently, those losses are huge. If and when wind/solar begin to contribute more than a few percent of our energy needs, we will have to have some kind of storage available, and if it's not cheap and efficient, it's going to kill the favorable economics these methods now enjoy.

That's why non-intermittent energy is so desirable. It doesn't have to be stored; it's always "on". But aside from organic fuel (i.e., fossil, "bio", and some synthetics), the only two reliable forms of large-scale non-intermittent energy we have are nuclear and deep geothermal. Deep geothermal is still an "immature" technology, and you've seen what happens when anyone proposes nuclear energy in these parts. (Hydro is a marginal case, and it's causing severe watershed-management problems in lots of areas.)

A lot of people are hoping for a magic gadget the size of a TV set that you can put in the basement or backyard that will produce 100 kWH forever without heat, chemical emissions, ionizing radiation, and at a cost of a buck a day -- and it's never going to happen. (But there are a dozen or more entrepreneurs who could make it work if only you would invest $9,999.95 -- or whatever you can spare.)

Okay, in theory, a large enough pendulum should be able to generate energy converting its responses to the Earth's movements into some kind of electromagnetic flux, and it should do it forever. I would guess that with a 5-mile-high tower hanging a 30-ton magnetic weight moving across a couple hundred miles of wire wound into coils, you could juice up your laptop until the Omega Point resurrects Nikola Tesla. But what do we do once we reach Peak Angular Momentum?

Yeah, if you're a science geek, feel free to correct the physics and math of my wild-assed scheme. Not that it will work anyway. I'll still advocating thorium and/or digging real deep. Other half-solutions will also need to be pursued. But there will be no magic any time soon. The physical universe sucks like that.

--p!