Word: peake
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...cleverly worked out a new version of Djordjevitch's plan. For melting snow, Martini substituted electric pumps to compress the air. For the Karst caves, he substituted abandoned salt or potash mines surrounded by nonporous rock that is easy to seal. Cheaper electricity is available during off-peak (usually early morning) hours when the demand is low, and Martini figured it could be used to pump air into the mines. The compressed air could be released during hours of peak electrical demand to drive gas-turbine-powered generators providing additional power when it is most needed...
Pumping Water Up. Geologist Martini already had evidence that his scheme would work. There was no doubt that compressed air could be stored underground; it is often used for testing the sealing of caverns that many nations use to store natural gas. In addition, off-peak-hour electricity is already used to pump water up into a reservoir above the level of a water-driven turbine. During hours of peak demand, the water is released to flow down against the blades of the turbine, which drives an electric generator...
Flushing Salt Out. Martini is sure that his plan has great potential, especially for Germany. Just north of the Ruhr industrial complex, where peak power needs are acute, there are many abandoned salt and potash mines, plus some 200 enormous salt domes between 150 ft. and 6,000 ft. below the surface. When all of the available mines have been filled with compressed air, Martini says, salt can be flushed out of the domes with water, giving the Ruhr natural reservoirs with a vast capacity for storing electrical power...
Eleven-Year Cycle. The astronomers will be part of a "solar patrol" established to warn astronauts against possible danger from the sun, which by 1968 or 1969 should reach a peak in its eleven-year cycle of activity. During these years, great storms will erupt on the solar surface; there will be a dramatic increase in the number of dark sunspots and bright flares. Using both optical and radio telescopes, the patrolmen will be particularly anxious to spot the flares, for they always accompany the sun's violent expulsion of swiftly moving atomic particles...
...Flight of the Phoenix crashes a shuddery old two-engine transport into the Sahara, follows its crew's effort to construct from the wreckage a spit-and-bailing-wire one-engine plane to escape in, and reaches a peak of excitement when this kite struggles to take off with five men sprawled on its wings. Measured against the ordinary run of adventure epics, Phoenix is a bonanza...