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Hydraulic storage is basically a hydroelectric dam on a small or large
scale, except instead of using water brought by a watershed, the water
is pumped up behind the dam with pumps powered by the generator whose
energy output you want to store. For example, you would have electric
pumps powered by solar panels or wind turbines, the idea being that
when the wind or cloud-free days produced a surplus of power (or you
built in surplus capacity) the pumps would pump water from a lower
reservoir uphill into a higher storage reservoir. The electricity would
be stored as the potential energy in the elevated water. When you
needed the power back, you would drain the water back downhill through
turbines just like a hydroelectric damn.
Now, this certainly works and it has been done on a small scale.
However, it will never, ever be a real-world, large-scale solution that
can make alternative power work.
Why? Well, let’s just do some back-of-the-envelope calculations.[Chicago Boyz Shannon Love continued]
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Let's see. Use the sun to pump water into a holding area and then allow the water to turn turbines when the sun doesn't shine? This will definitely work. We only need 800 square miles of solar panels to keep a relativily small city running....as long as we don't have a long cloudy spell.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the animals? They can live under the solar panels. What about the farmers? They can grow mushrooms instead of corn....as long as it doesn't affect government subsidized ethanol.
Everyone loves the idea of alternative energy.... until you bring forward someone with real engineering experience and show them the REAL numbers.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to reduce the population of the Earth to a few million, give everyone several hundred square miles to live on and several million dollars worth of high-tech hardware it works great. Otherwise everyone will live in hippie huts like a 3rd-worlder.
Then they get really mad when they realize their utopian vision is just a fantasy.....
City of Denver has been using Hydro storage on a large scale for over 30 years. In California the Helms project was built to balance the proposed 5 Unit Diablo Canyon Nukes. As only 2 were built it now also balances all inputs into PG & E’s Grid.
ReplyDeleteStorage efficiency is better than batteries and everything but flywheels. You can’t compare to ideal only to real world systems to be accurate. Doc Smith Super-Capacitors would be great but they don’t yet exist. Saving part of ‘free’ power is always better than throwing it all away.
There is a large pumped storage facility here in Virginia, but it is in the mountains in a natural valley, easily dammed, and it's there because there is a large enought difference between required daytime peak capacity and surplus night time off-peak capacity to make it physically possible. It is also attractive because the Feds wouldn't allow building of more nuke power plants to meet that peak power demand. Florida and other heavily populated areas (where the power demand is) is flat as a pancake. Where will the dreamers put the ten mile diameter four hundred feet high concrete super donuts to store the generating water, the ten mile diameter two hundred foot high concrete donuts to store the outfall water and the eight hundred square mile solar farm to pump the water back up into the reservoir? I can hear the NIMBY now.
ReplyDeleteLt. Col. Gen. Tailgunner dick
The TVA has been doing this near Chattanooga (Racoon Mountain) for years. Pump the water up hill at night when there is excess power and drain it back down during the day.
ReplyDeleteTVA has a pumped-storage project in southern Tennessee that would be considered "large scale." The author apparently did no research before writing....
ReplyDeleteSteven Den Beste had lots to say about alternative power and the problems associated with it. His last post on the subject talked about scaling problems
ReplyDeleteAnd astoundingly large mechanical losses each time the power is converted.
ReplyDelete