Electricity-generating wind turbines are a common sight these days. Yet their popularity is limited by the fact that the wind stops blowing from time to time, even on the breezy western plains. But a planned wind farm, and a set of caves, in the interior West may represent a creative solution to this problem.
The Pathfinder Renewable Wind Energy project is the name for a proposed utility-scale facility that would provide Southern California with over two gigawatts of green power. That’s double the amount produced by Hoover Dam, and enough to serve over a million homes.
Hundreds of miles of transmission lines would connect a Wyoming wind farm to caves in Utah, where electricity would compress air into underground salt chambers. When breezes die down, the pressurized air would be released through turbines in order to maintain a consistent supply of energy.
The project would be expensive, requiring an eight-billion-dollar investment by private companies.
It’s also speculative. Only two small compressed-air power plants exist, and the proposed wind farm would itself be twice the size of the largest now operating in the U.S. And no one yet knows who would upgrade the transmission lines needed to get the electricity to Los Angeles.
But some advocates see the Pathfinder project as a milestone. Renewable wind and solar energy have reached a large scale. If they can also achieve the same day-to-day reliability as fossil fuels or nuclear power, they have the potential to dramatically reshape the modern energy landscape.
Earth Notes is produced by KNAU and the Sustainable Communities Program at Northern Arizona University.