3 ms·
I've only read a little about this, but from what I understand, it's hard to find places that are actually good for this - and the volume of water you need to p
by mattbillenstein 3y ago
I've only read a little about this, but from what I understand, it's hard to find places that are actually good for this - and the volume of water you need to produce a significant amount of energy is quite large for given place where you can get enough height.
My intuition is it's probably better to just over-deploy wind and other renewables - pumps and turbines are not exactly free or easy to maintain either.
- 2Gkashmiri 3y agobut this system is "easier" than say hydro because no artificial dams need to be created, all you need to hae is an existing water system at the top and at bottom. then pump up, pump down. rince and repeat.
- mattbillenstein 3y agoNot an expert, but I have read somewhere probably the most effective use of this is to pump water back up behind dams - imagine you could pump water from the bottom of hoover dam using wind power or whatever. All the generation equipment is already there, so you sorta get that for free. Additionally with lake mead shrinking this might enable more hydro power from existing infrastructure even in the face of climate change. What this means for water-rights downstream, I have no idea - probably not good.
- 2Gkashmiri 3y agoyeah so how about using existing dam structures and building a second reservior at the bottom and using the same system? that would conserve a lot of water and downstream wouldn't have to be used because it would be a closed loop