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Why would you need a water tower? If you're in flat geography at sea level, you could probably access tidal energy to drive generators. If you're flat and far f
by killjoywashere 4y ago
Why would you need a water tower? If you're in flat geography at sea level, you could probably access tidal energy to drive generators. If you're flat and far from water, couldn't you dig a shallow hole and a deeper hole, and put the generator and pumps in between? I mean, even in Kansas it's not that hard to find an elevation difference of 50 feet.
- Sakos 4y ago> If you're in flat geography at sea level, you could probably access tidal energy to drive generators There are projects testing this, but ocean water is highly corrosive and maintenance is a nightmare.
- jillesvangurp 4y agoIt's just an example from the comment I replied to was using; I agree it's not a very feasible thing to do. But I used it to illustrate the difference in cost between that and pumped hydro using natural reservoirs. The point being here that you'd need a stupidly large amount of water towers to come close to the amount of energy you can store in a pumped hydro reservoir Whether it's a water tower, a big crane, or whatever that holds the mass that you then use to drive a generator. You have to build it or use nature to have some natural height difference. Building infrastructure like that is expensive. So nature is preferable and way cheaper. I come from a relatively flat part of the world; so that's not really an option there. Gravity based batteries are nice where they can be done cheaply. But otherwise probably not ideal.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoDigging 100m deep holes isn't cheap.