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> So, now we need about 100 pumped hydro plants of the same size as largest one energy storage facility in existence There are about 70 > 1MW pumped storage st
by flukus 7y ago
> So, now we need about 100 pumped hydro plants of the same size as largest one energy storage facility in existence
There are about 70 > 1MW pumped storage stations around the world already, with 40 more planned (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pumped-storage_hydroelectric_power_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pumped-storage_hydroel...), mostly in China. These are just glorified dams and as far as dams go they're tiny, so scaling up (and maybe down too) isn't an issue, there are an estimated 84,000 dams already in the United States. At ~$4 bilion dollars to build 100 of them would come in at the cost of about 1/3 the F-35 program and deliver much more national security.
So it's entirely feasible to have enough pumped hydro storage to cover this mythical scenario of a continent having no wind for an hour.
- xyzzyz 7y agoYour comment doesn’t answer any of my questions. Where are you going to build 100 dams with enough water to store gigawathours worth of electricity? The problem with massive projects like that is that you simply cannot build them just about anywhere.
- flukus 7y agoYou can build them just about anywhere, all you need is a tiny amount of land area for the reservoirs enough of a vertical gradient. There are large mountain ranges running down both coasts with more than enough space to accommodate this. Looking at the surrounding geography of the bath county installation alone looks like it could easily be scaled to 10 times it's current size.