4 ms·

Nah, wind and solar are cheaper and safer and don't take as long. We can use the existing dams for dispatchable power though. As well as CSP of which the unsubs

Nah, wind and solar are cheaper and safer and don't take as long. We can use the existing dams for dispatchable power though. As well as CSP of which the unsubsidized LCOE has recently hit parity with O&M of nuclear and is plummeting. Throw in some thermal storage as well, that's safe.

Manuel_D 4y ago
Nope, hydroelectricity is about the same levelized cost of energy. Include storage costs and it's vastly cheaper: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.... Look at the countries that produce all or nearly all their electricity from renewables. It's dominated by hydroelectricity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable_electricity_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable... And since it's a well understood problem we can just build it everywhere, in arbitrary quantities.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  This is quite the tantrum to be having in response to being told that you don't need a nuclear reactor to pump water downhill. Was it really so earth shattering to your world view?
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    But you do need an alpine lake, with another body of water down below it to collect that water so it can be pumped back into the upper reservoir. The geography needed to built pumped storage is very specific. Simply saying that we can just build dozens of terawatt hours of pumped hydro is as nonsensical as saying we can just build more dams. Is that really so earth shattering to your world view?
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      You claimed that chemical storage is always necessary to pump municipal fresh water with VRE. I pointed out that this a perfect example of a dispatchable load because it is frequently already done with reservoirs and water towers and you had a tantrum and tried to straw man that as claiming all generation be backed by PHES.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        Reservoir towers don't hold nearly enough water to be viable energy stores. You need a big alpine lake like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlough_Hill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlough_Hill And you need a reservoir down below to receive the water as it passes through turbines otherwise you're waiting for rainfall to fill that upper reservoir up naturally. The geographic conditions to make pumped hydro are far more constrained than you seem to think. Most water reservoirs for municipal water supplies don't have the elevation drop to be used for generation and they don't have the lower reservoir to capture and feed water back into the upper reservoir.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        By some bizarre coincidence they hold exactly enough energy to move the water down the hill to its destination at the pressure specified whenthe tower was built. So weird how that happens. Almost as if heating and transporting water have been trivially dispatchable loads for centuries before electricity was used to do them at all.

Manuel_D 4y ago

Nope, hydroelectricity is about the same levelized cost of energy. Include storage costs and it's vastly cheaper: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.... Look at the countries that produce all or nearly all their electricity from renewables. It's dominated by hydroelectricity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable_electricity_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable... And since it's a well understood problem we can just build it everywhere, in arbitrary quantities.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
This is quite the tantrum to be having in response to being told that you don't need a nuclear reactor to pump water downhill. Was it really so earth shattering to your world view?
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  But you do need an alpine lake, with another body of water down below it to collect that water so it can be pumped back into the upper reservoir. The geography needed to built pumped storage is very specific. Simply saying that we can just build dozens of terawatt hours of pumped hydro is as nonsensical as saying we can just build more dams. Is that really so earth shattering to your world view?
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    You claimed that chemical storage is always necessary to pump municipal fresh water with VRE. I pointed out that this a perfect example of a dispatchable load because it is frequently already done with reservoirs and water towers and you had a tantrum and tried to straw man that as claiming all generation be backed by PHES.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      Reservoir towers don't hold nearly enough water to be viable energy stores. You need a big alpine lake like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlough_Hill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlough_Hill And you need a reservoir down below to receive the water as it passes through turbines otherwise you're waiting for rainfall to fill that upper reservoir up naturally. The geographic conditions to make pumped hydro are far more constrained than you seem to think. Most water reservoirs for municipal water supplies don't have the elevation drop to be used for generation and they don't have the lower reservoir to capture and feed water back into the upper reservoir.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - Schroedingersat 4y ago
        By some bizarre coincidence they hold exactly enough energy to move the water down the hill to its destination at the pressure specified whenthe tower was built. So weird how that happens. Almost as if heating and transporting water have been trivially dispatchable loads for centuries before electricity was used to do them at all.