6 ms·
That would be an absolute disaster for the environment if you would do that. Also pumping up that much water would require an absolutely enormous amount of ener
by peterpost2 3y ago
That would be an absolute disaster for the environment if you would do that. Also pumping up that much water would require an absolutely enormous amount of energy, and dozens of pumping stations.
- closewith 3y agoAm I right in thinking 9.8 joules per kilo per metre * 20,000,000 kilos * 26 metres = 5,096,000,000 joules or ~1.4 MWh? That seems low, so I must be missing something?
- Jabbles 3y agox10 -> 200,000,000 kilos
- closewith 3y agoGood catch. Even so, 14 MWH is only about $3,000 at Panama prices. That's nothing compared to the cost of transit. Obviously there'd be extreme capital costs and engineering/environmental challenges, but far less than an equivalent train. After all, the canal moves more tonnage daily than the proposed train could in a year.
- AndrewDucker 3y agoPotential energy is actually pretty cheap. Which makes it unfortunately useless for energy storage (lifting 1 ton by 1m is about the same as an AAA battery)
- cubefox 3y agoWhy is this useless though? Space constraints?
- falserum 3y agoYes. (Space inefficiency)
- cubefox 3y agoBut in some countries there are large areas of undeveloped land, so lots of space to store energy.
- AndrewDucker 3y ago1,000kg by 1m is about 3Wh. A Tesla Powerwall is 13.5 kWh. So you either need 4,500 tons by 1m, or 1 ton to be raised 4.5km, or 67 tons by 67m. To match a single home's battery backup. Doing that for cheaper than $2,000. Which is what a battery that size costs in large quantities. That sounds pretty unlikely.
- cubefox 3y agoDam reservoirs can reach a pretty massive volume. The Hoover dam holds 35.000 km^2 of water (that's 35 billion tons if I'm not mistaken) according to Wikipedia. I'm not sure how much of that can be raised by how much.
- AndrewDucker 3y agoOh yeah, water works well, because you can raise it very efficiently. It's a very well worked through technology. Moving billions of tons of concrete vertically is a lot harder. (Most dams also supply their own water. Hydro storage is trickier, and needs you to build pumping systems, and sometimes to hollow out mountains)
- falserum 3y agoHydro dams prove that it’s possible, but they require being blessed by geography/topology.
- defrost 3y ago"Absolute disaster" .. or "transform the canal side environment into similar to the seaside environment" ? > Also pumping up that much water would require an absolutely enormous amount of energy, and dozens of pumping stations. Similar to other water pumping projects about the globe that cover distances further than 65km across rises of a similar magnitude? The canal system already has dozens of pumping stations, abd there's a regenerative energy recovery factor to the operation that makes the total energy required somewhat less than just a straight lift x tonnage.
- peterpost2 3y ago>"transform the canal side environment into similar to the seaside environment" That is one and the same, you are arguing for killing off the entire ecosphere near the canals. And not of just the canal but also of the lakes it's connected to.
- saalweachter 3y agoSo the Panama Canal goes through Gatun Lake, a freshwater lake. Salinating the canal would salinate the lake. Gatun Lake is where Panama City, the capital of Panama and the home of two million people, gets its drinking water.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- moffkalast 3y agoAnd reducing local salinity by dumping so much fresh water isn't a complete environmental disaster? Megaprojects like this are gonna have a huge impact regardless of what you do.
- closewith 3y agoDo you know where rivers typically end?