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A Californian company proposes using weighted electrically-driven rail vehicles on inclines to store energy. At times when the capacity of electricity supply exceeds demand the vehicles would be driven up inclined tracks, and when demand exceeds generation they are allowed to run down, generating electricity as they fall.
This link includes a video that shows a prototype vehicle (which appears to be built on a conventional locomotive chassis), an interview with a promoter, and an animation of a "farm" of these devices. There is a shortage of hard data, such as how much energy could be stored, for how long, and how steep the tracks are, etc., but a quick calculation shows that some thousands of these vehicles would be required for them to be useful. The control panel for this prototype has a power dial that appears to go up to only 20 kW. The promoter in the interview focuses instead on how the construction material can be recycled at end of life.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday July 04 2018, @12:46AM (1 child)
I'm a builder -- I built a whole city. And I'm a big environmentalist, I've won many awards for environmental. So I know a lot about these things. And for the pumped you need two lakes. A lake on top of a mountain. And a lake at the bottom. And the water goes back and forth. Back and forth. It's not great for fishing. It's not great for swimming. And it's not great for boating. You're at the lake, right? Up on the mountain. And you're on your little boat. You're fishing. And your kids are taking a swim. Beautiful day, the sun is shining. Then, a cloud comes. And suddenly, no water! Boat stranded in mud, kids & fish flopping around in the mud. Where did the water go? It's at the bottom of the mountain, in the other lake. And the folks that were wading down there, well, they better be good swimmers. Because that one got a lot deeper all of a sudden! With the pumped, you take what possibly were two beautiful lakes. PERFECTO. And you make them very very ugly. And if you didn't have the two lakes, very expensive. Because you need two lakes. The two water features. So if you started with one lake, you're building a lake. Or if you start with ZERO lakes you're building two lakes. And a lot of mountains don't come with a lake at the top. A lot of mountains have a pointy tip. But you want a hollow. So maybe you do a sex change for the mountain. Turning a boy mountain into a girl mountain. And that costs big money. If you have nuclear, it's less money. It gets the job done. But it brings out the alt-left. The "hell no, we won't glow" folks. And it makes a lot of fallout. And a lot of noise. Trust me, you can count on getting sued so many times. Before, during & after.
Believe me, it's no way to build an Energy Grid. What we need is RELIABLE power. Coal and nuclear. We need to make our coal & nuclear profitable. So many are closing. But we need them badly. We can do a subsidy. Or we can do a law where folks have to buy the coal power. And the nuclear power. For our National Security!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @02:03AM
Build a wall around D.C. and Mar-a-Lago and use them for pumped water storage.