A couple of Gulf states do have something as useful for electricity storage as a hill near an existing reservoir. Alabama and Mississippi have salt domes. Starting just north of Mobile and stretching all the way under southern Mississippi are a warren of natural salt caverns long used for dumping toxic chemical waste. These can be just as profitably used to store compressed air. This is precisely what the CAES plant, in McIntosh, Alabama, does. When electricity is cheap or there is too much of it, usually at night, the excess is used to condense air and force it into these caverns. Then,
...more
