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The main downside is that you need a place to store the water at the top. Favorable geography is most likely already in use. And building new lakes on hill tops
by petschge 7y ago
The main downside is that you need a place to store the water at the top. Favorable geography is most likely already in use. And building new lakes on hill tops alters the ecosystem quite a bit.
- pfdietz 7y ago> Favorable geography is most likely already in use. Favorable geography ON RIVERS is limited. Off rivers, the possibilities are enormous and largely unexploited.
- PeterisP 7y agoOff rivers it's hard to get a sustainable supply of the huge amounts of water required to make a reasonably large operation to work.
- pfdietz 7y agoNo, not really. The evaporative losses are significantly less than a water-cooled thermal power plant of similar average capacity, even in desert conditions. And compared to water extraction for irrigation the water needs even to charge the reservoirs would be modest.