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LA's idea to turn Hoover Dam into a battery

Will suck up excess green electricity and store it in the dam....$3 billion they say to do this so make it $5.

Is there any chance this is a good idea?

Why let the water run 20 miles?

tyvm




https://www.utilitydive.com/news/lo...-pumped-storage-project-at-hoover-dam/528699/

Bad idea, except what little extra the dam can handle.

Juggling the books this way to make green power look cheaper, is a mirage. To make the green power cost effective, it would mean maintaining normal dam levels lower than optimum for power generation, to have reserve for wind and/or solar water to be pumped up. A lower average level means less power from the generators due to a smaller mass of water driving them. If the dam average level is 10% lower to maintain reserved space for reverse pumping, then we only get 81% of the water power generation vs. before.
 
Bad idea, except what little extra the dam can handle.

Juggling the books this way to make green power look cheaper, is a mirage. To make the green power cost effective, it would mean maintaining normal dam levels lower than optimum for power generation, to have reserve for wind and/or solar water to be pumped up. A lower average level means less power from the generators due to a smaller mass of water driving them. If the dam average level is 10% lower to maintain reserved space for reverse pumping, then we only get 81% of the water power generation vs. before.

Am I hearing you right that California is desperate for some way to store power so that they can have their green energy dream...that maybe actually the tech is not ready?
 
Am I hearing you right that California is desperate for some way to store power so that they can have their green energy dream...that maybe actually the tech is not ready?

The technology works. That's not the problem. When they assessing such a project for funding, they will conveniently not volunteer important facts, like when there is a conflict of natural water capacity vs. pumped water additions to capacity.
 
I'm thinking there's going to be a lot of downstream people who will be demanding their water rights are not impacted.

Let the wheeling and dealing begin!
 
Keep in mind that most our dams were built not caring about maximum flows of water to capture, because they all had spillways to lose extra water with. Too many times of the year, most dams we have built in this nation will be at nearly or over maximum power capacity. When this happens, these are times of the year the project goes into the red. These will be times the power has no place to go, and still wasted. Cost projections need to remember that this will be a cyclical event of no return on the money.
 
I'm thinking there's going to be a lot of downstream people who will be demanding their water rights are not impacted.

Let the wheeling and dealing begin!

How, as long as it is managed right they still get all the water they would have....but what I want to know is what happens when law or the people downstream demand water to be sent down, water that is behind the dam because of the battery project. If there is any chance that the battery project loses this water then surely it is a bad idea to spend all these $Billions on the project.
 
Keep in mind that most our dams were built not caring about maximum flows of water to capture, because they all had spillways to lose extra water with. Too many times of the year, most dams we have built in this nation will be at nearly or over maximum power capacity. When this happens, these are times of the year the project goes into the red. These will be times the power has no place to go, and still wasted. Cost projections need to remember that this will be a cyclical event of no return on the money.

Are you trying to create a downside to hydro power?
 
I hate how I am now: "Oh I see it is a CALIFORNIA Idea..... we know how those have been going lately.... OK, Lay it on me...".
 
Are you saying there's not?

He's asking if the objections are significant.

The short answer is no.

Thus will allow a more flexible response to the need for power.

He needs numbers to show that it wouldn't work, or that it would be excessively expensive. That he doesn't have.

Mycroft had the only good negative point I've seen. This will wind up in courts over the Water Rights. I'd be surprised if this didn't get to the SC, the stakes are high.
 
He's asking if the objections are significant.

The short answer is no.

Thus will allow a more flexible response to the need for power.

He needs numbers to show that it wouldn't work, or that it would be excessively expensive. That he doesn't have.

Mycroft had the only good negative point I've seen. This will wind up in courts over the Water Rights. I'd be surprised if this didn't get to the SC, the stakes are high.

Currently is seems that the biggest squawks are coming from folks who use the river objecting to huge pipes ruining their viewshed for 20 miles.
 
Currently is seems that the biggest squawks are coming from folks who use the river objecting to huge pipes ruining their viewshed for 20 miles.

In places like the Hover Dam, that isn't necessary. Such projects that have been done have normally been small scale, doing exactly that. I would question the sanity of ruining small natural areas for an insignificant addition of power smoothing.
 
With pumped water storage, there has to be a lower source for the water, to be pumped.
I think the water rights to the water coming out of the dam are already spoken for.
That and the dam is already like 120 feet low.
Maybe they could build a saltwater lake above the Salton sea?
 
Bad idea, except what little extra the dam can handle.

Juggling the books this way to make green power look cheaper, is a mirage. To make the green power cost effective, it would mean maintaining normal dam levels lower than optimum for power generation, to have reserve for wind and/or solar water to be pumped up. A lower average level means less power from the generators due to a smaller mass of water driving them. If the dam average level is 10% lower to maintain reserved space for reverse pumping, then we only get 81% of the water power generation vs. before.

Somewhat right. The mass of water at the generators is regulated so they have consistent mass flowing though them, and to be able to adjust for demand. Water level is simply the potential reserve of energy to drive the generators. Dams are designed to operate at various extremes of levels because of the cyclic nature of weather and climate. The generation levels will remain the same no matter if the water is replenished by nature or by pumping by solar or wind. The only way this project is possibly viable is because the dam is constantly running lower than optimum power output and the reservoir is constantly low. Otherwise the project is pointless. This presupposes there is water to pump into the reservoir in the first place.
 
You realise it's caused more deaths and environmental damage than nuclear, right?

You realise that's because it's many times more pervasive than nuclear, right? Where I live, British Columbia, all the electricity is from hydro and the only deaths it's caused is the normal construction accidents. Deaths at the same rate as construction of nuclear facilities elsewhere.
In the meantime crap from the Fukushima disaster is still washing ashore, 7 years later.
 
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