Theme Thread - GW -New/old technology - ecosystems collapsing -disease spreading - hunger increasing etcThis thread is NOT for GW/Change deniers

[JANFU]

Theme Thread - GW -New/old technology - ecosystems collapsing -disease spreading - hunger increasing etc
Climate Change is driven by the world's GG emissions. A man-made threat
This thread is NOT for GW/Change deniers
Now we shall see if we can have a Themed Thread upstairs

To help accommodate the increased supply of wind, Spain’s utilities have turned not to high-tech, 21st-century batteries, but rather to a time-tested 19th-century technology — pumped storage hydroelectricity. Pumped storage facilities are typically equipped with pumps and generators that move water between upper and lower reservoirs. A basic setup uses excess electricity — generated, say, from wind turbines during a blustery night — to pump water from a lower reservoir, such as behind a dam, to a reservoir at a higher elevation. Then, when the wind ceases to blow or electricity demand spikes, the water from on high is released to spin hydroelectric turbines.

That’s precisely what the giant Spanish utility Iberdrola has done with the expansion to its $1.3 billion Cortes-La Muela hydroelectric scheme, completed in 2013. The company uses surplus electricity to pump water from the Júcar River to a large reservoir on a bluff 1,700 feet above the river. When demand rises, the water is released to generate electricity. The 1,762-megawatt pumped storage generating capacity is Europe’s largest and is part of a hydroelectric complex capable of powering about 500,000 homes a year.

For Storing Electricity, Utilities Turn to Pumped Hydro - GreenBuildingAdvisor

In the past decade, wind energy production has soared in Spain, rising from 6% of the country’s electricity generation in 2004 to about 20% today. While that is certainly good news for boosters of clean energy, the surge in renewables has come with the challenge of ensuring that electric power...

www.greenbuildingadvisor.com

Pumped-storage hydroelectricity - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[longview]

Theme Thread - GW -New/old technology - ecosystems collapsing -disease spreading - hunger increasing etc
This thread is NOT for GW/Change deniers
Now we shall see if we can have a Themed Thread upstairs

For Storing Electricity, Utilities Turn to Pumped Hydro - GreenBuildingAdvisor

In the past decade, wind energy production has soared in Spain, rising from 6% of the country’s electricity generation in 2004 to about 20% today. While that is certainly good news for boosters of clean energy, the surge in renewables has come with the challenge of ensuring that electric power...

www.greenbuildingadvisor.com

Pumped-storage hydroelectricity - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

For the physical locations that can support pumped hydro, it is a good idea for medium time frame energy storage, but requires topology, water, and quite a bit of land.

 

[JANFU]

For the physical locations that can support pumped hydro, it is a good idea for medium time frame energy storage, but requires topology, water, and quite a bit of land.

With the large battery backup from wind/solar for high-use periods
The issue from what I have read is power lines to transport greener energy to larger markets
Sodium is one type of battery, cheap, plentiful salt

Sodium-ion Batteries as the Future of Renewable Energy Storage - Climate Adaptation Platform

Read about the promise of shifting from lithium-ion to sodium-ion batteries for renewable energy storage and clean energy solutions.

climateadaptationplatform.com

 

[longview]

With the large battery backup from wind/solar for high-use periods
The issue from what I have read is power lines to transport greener energy to larger markets
Sodium is one type of battery, cheap, plentiful salt

Sodium-ion Batteries as the Future of Renewable Energy Storage - Climate Adaptation Platform

Read about the promise of shifting from lithium-ion to sodium-ion batteries for renewable energy storage and clean energy solutions.

climateadaptationplatform.com

Existing batteries are not up to the task!
What is needed is seasonal grid scale storage, to be able to move Fall and Spring surplus to Winter and Summer demand.
Battery storage is currently measured in hours or minutes, not days weeks and months.

 

[JANFU]

Existing batteries are not up to the task!
What is needed is seasonal grid scale storage, to be able to move Fall and Spring surplus to Winter and Summer demand.
Battery storage is currently measured in hours or minutes, not days weeks and months.

Do you have a link ref battery loss of charge rates?
Why Summer/Fall, when usage during the day is higher than late at night?

 

[JANFU]

Gifted article
Lack of high power transmission lines delays green energy

Electric Grids Are a Hidden Weak Spot in World’s Climate Plans, Report Warns

Even as technologies like wind, solar and electric cars spread, nations are falling far behind in building the power lines needed to support them.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Fearandloathing]

Theme Thread - GW -New/old technology - ecosystems collapsing -disease spreading - hunger increasing etc
This thread is NOT for GW/Change deniers
Now we shall see if we can have a Themed Thread upstairs

For Storing Electricity, Utilities Turn to Pumped Hydro - GreenBuildingAdvisor

In the past decade, wind energy production has soared in Spain, rising from 6% of the country’s electricity generation in 2004 to about 20% today. While that is certainly good news for boosters of clean energy, the surge in renewables has come with the challenge of ensuring that electric power...

www.greenbuildingadvisor.com

Pumped-storage hydroelectricity - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

For decades Canadians have smugly pointed to the vast array of hydro-electric damns across the north in our country, proclaiming "we are clean energy!'. Various papers, researchers and scientists have bragged about this capacity and even taunted other countries.

I first first hand the results of the phenomenon a few years when a glacier near Vancouver disappeared. vanished in under a decade!

Now, a new report has been released that questions whether there will be enough water behind the dams to drive the turbines in the next few decades!


Sadly, there is no way to create more water. There is no way to get it to freeze so we can store it season to season. That means flooding and draught.

That goes to prove we are no less arrogant, no more intelligent than the numbskulls that discovered old dinosaurs could fuel high performance and luxury automobiles that no one ever needed but simply had to have. We came to the electrical altar a few decades too late...the bride had left the building.

I hate to say we told you so, but we told you so.........

 

[Ug make hammer]

Sadly, there is no way to create more water. There is no way to get it to freeze so we can store it season to season. That means flooding and draught.

The water we do have could be stored more efficiently. We could dig valleys deeper before building a dam (though it would need to be a taller dam) and this would reduce the amount of land covered by water, as well as improving the ratio of volume to surface area.

 

[Slartibartfast]

One of the reasons I haven't left Ohio for another location is that in 10 or 20 years, people are going to want to move to places like this. I may as well not boomerang.

 

[Peacenik]

The water we do have could be stored more efficiently. We could dig valleys deeper before building a dam (though it would need to be a taller dam) and this would reduce the amount of land covered by water, as well as improving the ratio of volume to surface area.

That digging would require a lot of power. The energy generated from a completed project would not produce a net gain until the output exceeded the energy consumed by digging.

 

[longview]

Do you have a link ref battery loss of charge rates?
Why Summer/Fall, when usage during the day is higher than late at night?

So far the largest grid scale battery is, the Hornsdale Power Reserve.

1. 70 MW running for 10 minutes (11.7 MWh) is contracted to the government to provide stability to the grid (grid services)[29] and prevent load-shedding blackouts[15][30] while other generators are started in the event of sudden drops in wind or other network issues. This service reduced the cost of grid services to the Australian Energy Market Operator by 90% in its first 4 months.[31][32]
2. 30 MW for 3 hours (90 MWh) is used by Neoen for load management to store energy when prices are low and sell it when demand is high.[33]

So they are not talking about days of reserve but minuets, and a few hours of profiteering.

As for the seasonal energy storage, For most systems Spring and Fall is when the supply is high, but demand is low,
a time when surplus electricity is generated. In the far North Summer has 14 to 16 hours of Sunlight per day, but has minimal demand for heat.
We have a seasonal asymmetry between supply and demand. In a sustainable energy world, we need a storage mechanism
that is capable of leveling out the supply and demand asymmetry for the entire annual cycle.

 

[Peacenik]

Using reservoirs of differing elevations to store energy is a creative low-tech solution, but a good one if the topography allows. Unfortunately, it can only be done in specific locations which lend themselves to it.

 

[Glitch]

For the physical locations that can support pumped hydro, it is a good idea for medium time frame energy storage, but requires topology, water, and quite a bit of land.

It does not take up that much land. In fact, you wouldn't even know that there was a hydroelectric dam on Lake Eklutna, unless you sought it out.



The lake is fed by glacial run-off, and a very large drain was placed at the bottom of the lake for the water outflow. Near the location of the drain a whirlpool forms, but that is really the only indication that the lake is being used for hydroelectric purposes. It was constructed in 1955 and serves primarily Anchorage, Eagle River, and of course the village of Eklutna.

Home - Eklutna Hydro

 

[longview]

It does not take up that much land. In fact, you wouldn't even know that there was a hydroelectric dam on Lake Eklutna, unless you sought it out.

View attachment 67494814

The lake is fed by glacial run-off, and a very large drain was placed at the bottom of the lake for the water outflow. Near the location of the drain a whirlpool forms, but that is really the only indication that the lake is being used for hydroelectric purposes. It was constructed in 1955 and serves primarily Anchorage, Eagle River, and of course the village of Eklutna.

Home - Eklutna Hydro

Is it a pumped hydro energy storage system?

 

[Glitch]

Is it a pumped hydro energy storage system?

No. The water intake (located 36 feet underwater) goes straight through the turbines, and the current (177,438 MWh) generated goes directly to power 24,600 residential homes. Their only storage of power would be the lake itself. The lake level varies, depending on the amount of snow they receive. This year the lake will have lots of water, because Anchorage is likely to set another record snowfall this Winter.

 

[longview]

No. The water intake (located 36 feet underwater) goes straight through the turbines, and the current (177,438 MWh) generated goes directly to power 24,600 residential homes. Their only storage of power would be the lake itself. The lake level varies, depending on the amount of snow they receive. This year the lake will have lots of water, because Anchorage is likely to set another record snowfall this Winter.

Beautiful lake by the way! The question is about using pumped hydro, and to do that you need both a high and a low lake,
to move the water between, just the outfeed river would not do in many cases because they depend on downstream volume
for the wildlife in and along the river.

 

[VanceMack]

How can it still at this late stage of the debate be lost on 'green energy' proponents that literally NONE of what they propose is possible with out the MASSIVE EXPANSION of mining of fossil fuel resources and the increased use of fossil fuels just to produce the materials their green energy hopes are pinned on?

 

[PoS]

Existing batteries are not up to the task!
What is needed is seasonal grid scale storage, to be able to move Fall and Spring surplus to Winter and Summer demand.
Battery storage is currently measured in hours or minutes, not days weeks and months.

Batteries will never work. There has to be a tremendous tech leap for them to be even considered as viable. Basic physics and geology tells us this.

 

[VanceMack]

BTW...its ironic when talking about the impact of climate change on impoverished people in lesser developed country that you ignore the fact that rather than being helped by modern fuel technology, they are LITERALLY reduced to burned coal, wood, and old dung just to stay alive.

 

[longview]

Batteries will never work. There has to be a tremendous tech leap for them to be even considered as viable. Basic physics and geology tells us this.

I have been around too long to say "Never", but it is highly unlikely without some major advance in material science.
When you consider that even after the Carnot loses, gasoline carries 5 times the energy as the best battery per pound,
and the Carnot losses in modern hybrids are MUCH lower, that is a steep hill to climb.

 

[longview]

BTW...its ironic when talking about the impact of climate change on impoverished people in lesser developed country that you ignore the fact that rather than being helped by modern fuel technology, they are LITERALLY reduced to burned coal, wood, and old dung just to stay alive.

Actually I think the low end have the greatest to gain.
A few kW of electricity means little in first world, but to someone at the bottom, it could be life changing.
Really simple things like running water, refrigeration, and a few lights at night, could have a large impact.

 

[Glitch]

Beautiful lake by the way! The question is about using pumped hydro, and to do that you need both a high and a low lake,
to move the water between, just the outfeed river would not do in many cases because they depend on downstream volume
for the wildlife in and along the river.

Since the intake is completely submerged, the downstream volume doesn't matter. It also allows for continuous generation of power even during the Winter when the surface of the lake is frozen. The outflow from the turbines feeds back into the original stream that served as an outflow for the lake. That stream only runs for a short distance before it reaches Ship Creek. Despite what the name implies, Ship Creek is actually more substantial that some of our rivers.

Ship Creek in Anchorage, just before it reaches the estuary.
​

Ship Creek is a good place to catch King salmon in June, and Silver salmon in July, if you don't want to leave Anchorage's city limits.

 

[longview]

Since the intake is completely submerged, the downstream volume doesn't matter. It also allows for continuous generation of power even during the Winter when the surface of the lake is frozen. The outflow from the turbines feeds back into the original stream that served as an outflow for the lake. That stream only runs for a short distance before it reaches Ship Creek. Despite what the name implies, Ship Creek is actually more substantial that some of our rivers.

View attachment 67494972
Ship Creek in Anchorage, just before it reaches the estuary.
​

Ship Creek is a good place to catch King salmon in June, and Silver salmon in July, if you don't want to live Anchorage's city limits.

Think about how much water from Ship creek could be removed to refill the lake?
As I said it would take a lake at the top and a lake or very large river at the bottom.

 

[VanceMack]

Actually I think the low end have the greatest to gain.
A few kW of electricity means little in first world, but to someone at the bottom, it could be life changing.
Really simple things like running water, refrigeration, and a few lights at night, could have a large impact.

Portable propane and natural gas generators run very clean and would be Godsends to many communities.

 

[longview]

Portable propane and natural gas generators run very clean and would be Godsends to many communities.

Assuming they had a supply of fuel, but a wood gasifier could provide that.