Comments by "Scott Franco" (@scottfranco1962) on "Energy From Mountains | Renewable Energy Solutions" video.

  1. Most of the real world storage both existing and currently being built it PSH. Further, a huge number of conventional dams can be converted to PSH. Many high mountain dams feed lower level reservoirs, and those systems can be converted to PSH by pumping the water back up hill. Seawater is another open question. It can be pumped uphill to dams or even let drop into mines, then pumped back out. In the USA, I think a lot of storage projects are overrated. We are switching wholesale to natural gas, which has the side effect that it can be switched in and out of the grid fairly rapidly. This complements solar generation well. The big use for storage is wind, which blows mostly at night and thus needs to be stored for use.
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  2. Kit Vitae: Its fairly cheap to retrofit if there is already a a dam lower that is fed from an upper dam. The cost is for the pumps and piping that moves the water back uphill. The most common situation, for example in California is high dams like lake Shasta which feeds lowland reservoirs that don't generate power because the water has nowhere to "fall". However, that is not always necessary. Because the water is pumped uphill, it creates a possibility for new reservoirs where none made sense before. A dam can be created in hills that have no natural rainfall, and filled from water that is being transported along a pipeline. Then, the water is essentially just being stored for later use, as well as storing power. This has an added bonus in that it gives a new way to store water. For example, again in California, a lot of the rainfall goes out to sea because we don't have the capacity to store it.
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  3. Kit Vitae: We will agree to disagree here. This implies a level of trust in government that I don't have. By the way, its already being done in southern California: https://www.nap.edu/read/4780/chapter/8
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