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There are pumped storage hydro-electric plants with abundant and cheap capacities. They also work and are in use, mostly in China and Japan. China is building

by caseyy 2y ago

There are pumped storage hydro-electric plants with abundant and cheap capacities. They also work and are in use, mostly in China and Japan. China is building a lot more, too. It will probably have 80% of the world’s energy storage capacity in a decade. We just don’t talk about them in the West for some reason. I guess battery tech is more appealing somehow but it’s not cheaper nor more environmentally friendly, all in all. I hope that now once there are some serious users of power, they might build some of these plants, and then governments in the West will wake up to how good the plants are.

nine_k 2y ago
It might be easy to build pumped storage in Boulder City, NV, situated among mountains near the Hoover dam. It would be much harder to build something similar near Houston, TX, where the land is flat as a table.
- caseyy 2y ago
  They are grid-wide plants, which don’t need to be near large population centres. Sierra Madres/Rockies offer great elevation gradients in West TX, if one would want to keep it in the state. This is a consideration but I don’t think it’s the real reason we don’t consider these plants.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > are pumped storage hydro-electric plants with abundant and cheap capacities You’re flooding gorgeous landscape near high property values.
    - caseyy 2y ago
      I think this is more likely it. NIMBY is a plausible explanation for both the delays in building these plants and NPPs. Not to mention the guaranteed opposition to whoever suggests them as a politician.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> are pumped storage hydro-electric plants with abundant and cheap capacities Cool. Yes. Now scale that by two orders of magnitude. Here’s the kicker: getting approval to put an SMR in Wyoming is easier than flooding another valley or buying massive contiguous plots. Nuclear, if these guys can execute, which is a big if, promises to be as agile as gas generators. Our current default when we have energy shortfalls.
- caseyy 2y ago
  Well, I cannot currently foresee a situation where we’d need to apply this technology to store several orders of magnitude more energy. Even storing 50% more energy this way in the West would have significant self-reinforcing positive effects on the renewable energy industry. You might be thinking in an all-or-nothing way. Some solutions don’t need to scale well on cubic scales, etc. Moreover, there is hardly a reason pumped storage power plants can’t be done along side nuclear investment. There isn’t a dichotomy of choice, expanding use of both — or either — would benefit us all. In fact, there are synergies between pumped storage and nuclear power — pumped storage allows nuclear to more closely meet the peaks and valleys of electricity demand throughout the day. I think the biggest problem is that the energy sector isn’t making big plant investments due to capitalistic incentives. Why invest into plants if less supply of electricity means a higher unit price, and any state investment into private power companies can go straight into retained earnings/dividend? It would be improving things for technological advancement sake, against investor interests. Things work differently when the power companies are state-owned, of course. But that doesn’t completely flip the script either — technological advancement for advancement sake is still not often pursued. And it’s often even seen as wasteful by the electorate. If we wanted technological advancement, we have several clear ways to achieve it, even without scaling the current technology exponentially. The problem is that we didn’t want it enough. But now some companies do.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > I cannot currently foresee a situation where we’d need to apply this technology to store several orders of magnitude more energy The current baseline power demand forecasts from the DoE and IEA. > Even storing 50% more energy this way Is in the broad scheme meaningless. It would still require massively increasing our investment in gas generators.
AStonesThrow 2y ago
Hydroelectric dams have a storied history of pissing people off, through death and displacement, at the very least. My ancestors (along with natives) were run off from their valley home in PA when a dam was built. Out here in the Sonoran Desert, we've got a lake where the river should be, and the indigeneous (among others) are still pissed about the dam that was pretty much politically forced on all of us. Conversely, there are groups who absolutely rejoice when a dam is decommissioned and demolished. It's party time when that land is reclaimed, and the water flows again naturally.
- caseyy 2y ago
  Well, this is about pumped storage hydroelectric plants, which are not dams. These plants aren’t generally built on rivers because they require much larger water reservoirs. As with any land development, they require land, of course. But all power grid elements do.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > this is about pumped storage hydroelectric plants, which are not dams Damn or not, pumped hydro requires flooding and then unflooding, turning the Alpinesque ecologies into tidal pools. That's disruptive.
    - caseyy 2y ago
      They don't turn Alpinesque ecologies into tidal pools if you don't build them in Alpinesque ecologies. The truth is that we are developing a lot of land every year for different purposes, from industrial to residential. The question is whether we will develop it for everyone's benefit, or for some yet another tax exempt monopoly's warehouse. We could even build these plants in place of abandoned industrially exploited land, such as quarries, which conveniently already form quite large water reservoirs. We could reclaim a completely dead parcel of land and once we stop using the reservoir, it could blossom into a set of new natural ecologies. Don't take the worst case scenario and present it as the only one when there is a world of possibilities.

by caseyy 2y ago

nine_k 2y ago

It might be easy to build pumped storage in Boulder City, NV, situated among mountains near the Hoover dam. It would be much harder to build something similar near Houston, TX, where the land is flat as a table.

caseyy 2y ago
They are grid-wide plants, which don’t need to be near large population centres. Sierra Madres/Rockies offer great elevation gradients in West TX, if one would want to keep it in the state. This is a consideration but I don’t think it’s the real reason we don’t consider these plants.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > are pumped storage hydro-electric plants with abundant and cheap capacities You’re flooding gorgeous landscape near high property values.
  - caseyy 2y ago
    I think this is more likely it. NIMBY is a plausible explanation for both the delays in building these plants and NPPs. Not to mention the guaranteed opposition to whoever suggests them as a politician.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> are pumped storage hydro-electric plants with abundant and cheap capacities Cool. Yes. Now scale that by two orders of magnitude. Here’s the kicker: getting approval to put an SMR in Wyoming is easier than flooding another valley or buying massive contiguous plots. Nuclear, if these guys can execute, which is a big if, promises to be as agile as gas generators. Our current default when we have energy shortfalls.

caseyy 2y ago
Well, I cannot currently foresee a situation where we’d need to apply this technology to store several orders of magnitude more energy. Even storing 50% more energy this way in the West would have significant self-reinforcing positive effects on the renewable energy industry. You might be thinking in an all-or-nothing way. Some solutions don’t need to scale well on cubic scales, etc. Moreover, there is hardly a reason pumped storage power plants can’t be done along side nuclear investment. There isn’t a dichotomy of choice, expanding use of both — or either — would benefit us all. In fact, there are synergies between pumped storage and nuclear power — pumped storage allows nuclear to more closely meet the peaks and valleys of electricity demand throughout the day. I think the biggest problem is that the energy sector isn’t making big plant investments due to capitalistic incentives. Why invest into plants if less supply of electricity means a higher unit price, and any state investment into private power companies can go straight into retained earnings/dividend? It would be improving things for technological advancement sake, against investor interests. Things work differently when the power companies are state-owned, of course. But that doesn’t completely flip the script either — technological advancement for advancement sake is still not often pursued. And it’s often even seen as wasteful by the electorate. If we wanted technological advancement, we have several clear ways to achieve it, even without scaling the current technology exponentially. The problem is that we didn’t want it enough. But now some companies do.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > I cannot currently foresee a situation where we’d need to apply this technology to store several orders of magnitude more energy The current baseline power demand forecasts from the DoE and IEA. > Even storing 50% more energy this way Is in the broad scheme meaningless. It would still require massively increasing our investment in gas generators.

AStonesThrow 2y ago

Hydroelectric dams have a storied history of pissing people off, through death and displacement, at the very least. My ancestors (along with natives) were run off from their valley home in PA when a dam was built. Out here in the Sonoran Desert, we've got a lake where the river should be, and the indigeneous (among others) are still pissed about the dam that was pretty much politically forced on all of us. Conversely, there are groups who absolutely rejoice when a dam is decommissioned and demolished. It's party time when that land is reclaimed, and the water flows again naturally.

caseyy 2y ago
Well, this is about pumped storage hydroelectric plants, which are not dams. These plants aren’t generally built on rivers because they require much larger water reservoirs. As with any land development, they require land, of course. But all power grid elements do.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > this is about pumped storage hydroelectric plants, which are not dams Damn or not, pumped hydro requires flooding and then unflooding, turning the Alpinesque ecologies into tidal pools. That's disruptive.
  - caseyy 2y ago
    They don't turn Alpinesque ecologies into tidal pools if you don't build them in Alpinesque ecologies. The truth is that we are developing a lot of land every year for different purposes, from industrial to residential. The question is whether we will develop it for everyone's benefit, or for some yet another tax exempt monopoly's warehouse. We could even build these plants in place of abandoned industrially exploited land, such as quarries, which conveniently already form quite large water reservoirs. We could reclaim a completely dead parcel of land and once we stop using the reservoir, it could blossom into a set of new natural ecologies. Don't take the worst case scenario and present it as the only one when there is a world of possibilities.