Author Topic: An alternative approach to global warming  (Read 716 times)

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Offline Omni

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Re: An alternative approach to global warming
« Reply #30 on: August 05, 2018, 01:46:43 pm »
Yes, pumped hydro storage has a lot of benefits. I am not sure the Hoover dam is the best example however because it also requires storage downstream of the dam to pump from. At the Hoover dam there are not a lot of downstream lakes, the closest of any size is 10 miles or more away and it is not that large itself.

A little closer to home I have been looking for good examples of where this could be carried out. The last dam on the Madawaska river just before it flows into the Ottawa river at Arnprior has potential. There is significantly large volume of water downstream of the dam and only a mile or so away. While the immediate upstream storage cannot be compared to lake Mead, it is in balance with the downstream volume and the size of the generating station.

The most interesting of course would be the great lakes, and pumping water back up hill from either Ontario to Erie, or Huron to Superior. There is enough water volume in these lakes that you are not going to appreciably alter their level, but you would still get the benefit of that volume flowing back downhill through the generating stations.

One thing they did say that made the Hoover project attractive was that California has more solar power than it can put into the grid without problems so they could redirect the excess the relatively short distance to the Colorado River to help run the pumps.