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Re:Giant Compressed-Air Battery in the Australian Outback by pfdietz on Monday May 06, 2024 @12:21PM (#40276378)
It doesn't store energy in the sense that all that work you did compressing it doesn't increase its internal energy. It just has the energy it started with, floating around in the atmosphere. Now, some of that energy can be converted to work, if the air is adiabatically expanded, but particularly at high compression it's not large compared to the energy that went into compressing the air (and that was dissipated as heat when the hot compressed air was cooled.)
Re:Giant Compressed-Air Battery in the Australian Outback by crazygringo on Monday May 06, 2024 @01:03PM (#40276797)
But it does increase its internal energy. Its temperature goes up.

Obviously if you let the compressed air cool, then you're letting the energy dissipate. So if you want to preserve all the energy, don't do that.

Re:Giant Compressed-Air Battery in the Australian Outback by pfdietz on Monday May 06, 2024 @01:46PM (#40277309)
The air that is stored underground has been cooled, so yes, the energy that was added isn't there.