I think there needs to be a hybrid system for some redundancy when there's no sun or no wind, of course then maybe we need a water feature so we can have hydro when there's no sun and no wind..hehe.
> The upper reservoir (Llyn Stwlan) and dam of the Ffestiniog Pumped Storage Scheme in North Wales. The lower power station has four water turbines which generate 360 MW of electricity within 60 seconds of the need arising.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/water/pumped-storage-hydropower
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...
So the $10bn on snowy plus $10bn AU of renewables can provide about the same contribution as 4GW or $40-60bn AU of nukes.
You're really selling pumped hydro.
Let’s compare solar growth with pumped storage growth. In 2010, US had 0.9 GW of installed solar power generation capacity. In 2020, it has 19 GW of installed capacity. That’s 2100% growth. In the same time period, pumped storage has grown from 21.5 GW to 22.8 GW. That’s 6% growth.
When should I expect to see significant growth of pumped hydro storage? I am willing to bet $500 that by 2030, pumped hydro generating capacity will not grow to more than 40 GW, while solar capacity will most definitely double by then. Will you take the other side of this bet?
And that is, in fact, what is being done.
The only error is in spending less on renewable generating capacity than the looming catastrophe demands. I recommend you put your $500 there, instead.
But it is far from clear that we will have enough spare renewable generating capacity deployed by 2030 to charge up storage, most places. 2040 seems more likely, provided global civilization has not collapsed by then. We will need to start on factories to make the equipment needed to provide storage well before we need the storage. Factories take appallingly long to build.
Although a holes don't tend to wear out and can be used many more times than a battery, I'm not convinced low cost abundant-material battery options won't eat their lunch if we keep dragging our feet on the renewable buildout.
I guess if we were really committed to the idea we could use all that Uranium to make some very cheap holes and have it actually contribute to zero carbon energy rather than being a myth, but I'm not convinced the fallout is worth it.
It is wholly possible that, in the fullness of time, some battery chemistry will undercut pumped hydro.
The main problem with chemical batteries is that the cost is linear with capacity, where pumped hydro cost tends to per square root of marginal capacity (for dike construction), but also costs per watt for the turbine-and-pump(s), with a fixed up-front cost for the penstock.
Dikes are as mature as any technology still in use: they predate writing. We don't need to guess what they cost. We have, similarly, well beyond a century of experience with penstocks and kinetic waterwheels. Pumps have been in use for some time, too.
Only if there is a project of reasonable size that has a manageable cost. Otherwise the corolloray that smaller dikes cost more implies that only a small handful of perfectly placed megaprojects will work. Responding with vague rhetoric for something you claim will work when there are hard numbers for finished projects using other technologies makes you look no better than the fission shills.
Snowy 2 blows fission out of the water, even being over budget by the usual fission ratio. But it had a watershed and it wasn't greenfield.
Are there any actually existing off river PHEL projects (or adequately sized reservoirs) with real budgets that actually got finished to compare?
A century ago they built earthen dams up there using earth-moving equipment with parts operated by cables on pulleys, because hydraulics were not mature. The roads are still used today, mainly for recreation, and are execrable, but sufficed.
Eagle mountain is a brown field off river PHES project. Is it fair to say brown field projects are no more expensive than green?
It has 430m of head which is a fairly good site and a grade of about 30% which is excellent (so cost of power is minimized). Most cost grade A sites should be worse than this.
Cost: $2.5bn
Power: 1.3GW
Capacity: 18GWh or 14hr
Cost $138/kWh
Assuming half is the power infrastructure then cost of capacity is about $70/MWh. The long term cost of a hole is about as close to zero as you want, but O&M costs $10 to a few tens of $ per MWh for existing hydro so there is no reason to think O&M would be cheaper than replacing a >5000-8000 cycle cell if it could match up front costs.
Compare to $200/kWh for current commercial iron/iron flow or historic lows of lithium (which should be indicative of an upper bound on sodium ion as the manufacturing is similar). CATL and Natron are claiming around $60-90/kWh is achievable for SIB by 2030, and Form energy (less believable but still probable) are claiming an eventual lower bound for Fe-air of $20-50.
Seems fair to say raw cost per kWh should favour chemical batteries in many areas by 2030 and LCOS should be on par in 2050s. Cost of power already favours batteries and colocation should favour them further by reducing transmission costs and curtailment. Batteries (except for iron-air) are also faster and more flexible which is why they are replacing gas peakers.
Then there are electrolysers which have a high cost per use and per power but vastly lower (effectively free) cost of capacity.
Seems like fairly strong evidence that PHES is a poor fit in most areas unless it's huge or started right now. Can you find a better example (ideally one which is finished)?
So if you add some PV panels and wind turbines around it, it's just like a nuclear reactor but cheaper?
[0] https://www.opb.org/article/2022/01/10/pumped-storage-hydrop... [1] https://slenergystorage.com/
I was hunting for the video of the "where water is being released to make sure that there is sufficient volume in the river for the hydro plant at the proper time to meet the expected demand" - https://youtu.be/jvnaiHFT6nQ
This is repeated often, but is wholly false, each time.
Often it comes with a claim that an existing, elevated watershed is needed, which is false. A watershed is needed only for regular hydro generation. Most places suitable for that already have dams, many of which can be used for pumped hydro storage. Many are. But that is just a matter of convenience. The claim is often made hoping to confuse readers.
Some claim an existing elevated lake is needed, which is false. An earthen dike at a hilltop suffices. Such a dike may be needed only at one end of the reservoir.
Some insist an expensive concrete dam is needed to provide enough "head" to store much energy. They either have not heard of a penstock, or pretend. An earthen dike suffices. "Head" is the height of the hill, not the depth of water behind the dike.
Some insist a copious water supply is needed, which is false. Water may be stored at the bottom and pumped back up, with only evaporative losses. Such loss may be reduced by floating solar PV on the reservoir. Some places can use sea water.
Some insist a mountain is required, where in fact a hill suffices. The greater the altitude, the more energy each ton of water stores, but a few hundred meters height is plenty. In places with underground cavities, even the hill is optional. Using an underground cavity for the lower reservoir can radically increase the head available, vs. just a hill.
Few places are very far from any hill, or cannot afford evaporative loss from a reservoir. Such places will use other storage.
This seems like an over simplification. At a minimum it needs to be an earthen dyke on a strata suitable for retaining water, right? It needs to be located in an appropriate area, near suitable grid infrastructure to ship the power out and road access to get workers and equipment in. Lots of mountainous regions are highly valued for their natural beauty which makes large infrastructure projects more challenging.
The bottom of the reservoir needs to be impermeable. It is well understood by civil engineers how to achieve this.
Earth-moving equipment is very good at getting to places you would not want to try driving your car into (unless, I gather, you are French). Generation and pumping equipment remains at the bottom of the hill. An earthen dike on a hilltop can be as inconspicuous as you care to make it.
You do need wires from there to where the power is, as usual.
Perhaps you could refrain from making snarky comments about minor spelling errors which clearly didn't impact your understanding until you understand dyslexia better?
> The bottom of the reservoir needs to be impermeable. It is well understood by civil engineers how to achieve this.
Understood isn't the same as economically feasible. It's not a trivial issue.
> Earth-moving equipment is very good at getting to places you would not want to try driving your car into
Earth-moving equipment isn't designed to make long distance overland journeys. They are typically delivered to a work site at most hundreds of yards from where they are needed.
> Generation and pumping equipment remains at the bottom of the hill
You still need to get the equipment there so the bottom of the hill needs to be near a road. And you don't want miles of penstock because that will reduce the dynamic head pressure due to friction losses.
The point is there are constraints which you are pretending just don't exist.
Dozens were built in California's Sierra Nevada range in the 1920s using pulley-operated equipment. Those were actually hydro power reservoirs feeding penstocks that have since had pumps attached.
Power loss from flow in penstocks is typically negligible.
If this dike could retain water it would most likely be a lake. Unless there's no rainfall around, but then there's no water to pump up.
Also eff whatever land creatures and plants live there, right?
Hydrogen via electrolysis is an alternative, I think? Less efficient, but stays for longer and can be used either in a fuel cell or an ICE engine.