Guess the forgot compressed air explodes.
This was proposed at a plant in Texas a couple of years ago, don’t know if they did it or not. This plant was going to pump air into salt mines and run compressed air generators during peak demand. From what I understand they use abandoned salt mines to store natural gas as well. I wonder what kind of mechanical efficiency this process yields, probably in the low single digits.
Not really, compressed gasses can contain a lot of potential energy at elevated pressure and can release that energy in very energetic explosions but the air itself is not exploding. Air is very compressible and stores potential by changing volume rather like a spring. Any rupture in the plumbing releases the stored energy very rapidly.
To carry the spring analogy further, liquids have a much higher "spring rate" (water is about 1% per 1000psi) and therefore don't experience the large change in volume when pressurized. Therefore any rupture results in the stored pressure being rapidly reduced to ambient.
Regards,
GtG