Posted on 07/31/2018 6:06:27 AM PDT by rktman
Hoover Dam helped transform the American West, harnessing the force of the Colorado River — along with millions of cubic feet of concrete and tens of millions of pounds of steel — to power millions of homes and businesses. It was one of the great engineering feats of the 20th century.
Now it is the focus of a distinctly 21st-century challenge: turning the dam into a vast reservoir of excess electricity, fed by the solar farms and wind turbines that represent the power sources of the future.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, an original operator of the dam when it was erected in the 1930s, wants to equip it with a $3 billion pipeline and a pump station powered by solar and wind energy. The pump station, downstream, would help regulate the water flow through the dam’s generators, sending water back to the top to help manage electricity at times of peak demand.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If Los Angeles says $3B, figure at least $6B.
ah....perpetual motion....FINALLY!!!!
Pumped storage has been around for decades to level loads and deal with peak generating needs. This is a good idea. Makes sense to use unreliable wind power this way.
Is dumb.
Me or the plan?
Send water back up stream to the reservoir? Don’t multiple states already fuss over water rights and short supply?
Isn’t there a significant loss in pumping water up into storage? Will the solar and wind fanboys use this loss in their generation and efficiency claims?
They’re gonna....pump water back to the top of the dam in order to harness it as it runs down, through the generators? All that can do is to shift the time the power becomes available; because they will have an inherent 2x turbine/pump loss, 1 of which is unavoidable.
But this is exactly how CA works: We plan for the water surplus when there is drought and issue bonds to build vast water facilities unless and until some threatened genus of bacteria is discovered and throws the whole project off by 8 years. Then, when we are back into water surplus again and the back-pumping would be ludicrous, we will be 18% completed into the project and unable to quit, with the costs having escalated 225% over the original estimates, with Feinstein’s Tutor Saliba as prime contractors.
Not for this price it isn’t a good idea.
Ahhh...... pumped storage via solar and wind. not a bad idea .
In Tennessee we have the Racoon Mountain pumped storage facility.
The excess power at night generated by the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant powers pumps that move the Tennessee River water up the mountain. At peak need, the water is released to power turbines to generate electricity.
The problem with the process involving the Hoover Dam is that if the turbines are already maxed out, the additional water makes no difference.
If you were around for the Louisiana Purchase, you’d be screeching that that was overpriced too.
They already do this at San Luis Reservoir with good results. Pumping water uphill when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing allows that water to run turbines when they aren’t.
Why do you say that?
I’m too impatient to read glitzy misdirecting multimedia NYT articles, so I just scanned ... do they mention the requirement for a “low reservoir” as well as a “high reservoir”? If the did, I missed it.
If you’re going to store gravitational energy, you have to have something to lift. You need two lakes, one above the transducer, and one below the transducer. They have lake Meade above, but what lake is below?
Maybe none of these people went to school?
The concept is a good idea. So is desalinization of sea water, or using waves and tides to generate power. The cost determines practicality.
One reason government should stay out - like ethanol. If it makes sense to do it, private enterprises will find a way.
It takes power to pump the water up. Some, but not all, of the power will be recovered. So it’s a net loss of power. All this will do is store energy for use later. Seems like too much money for so little gain.
But then it’s CA - they will pi$$ away your money but throw you in jail for using a plastic straw.
The scheme begs the question.
What is more valuable? pumped water or rain?
“The $3 Billion Plan to Turn Hoover Dam Into a Giant Battery”
Don’t touch the red and black at the same time.
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