192
'No-water' hydropower turns England's hills into green and pleasant batteries
(www.rechargenews.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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Technology
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I mean, we actually could use that damn water, for things, it's a perfect reservoir for drinking and/or irrigation.
Who in their right mind looked at this and said "You know, mercury has a higher specific gravity than water, it might even work better!!"
It's 2.5x heavier than water so can produce 2.5x the power for any given volume.
We have a lot of hydroelectric. But we don't have the mountains to build much of it.
Entirely true, but since we're talking volume, this is only a 25% increase in linear dimensions (for the advertised 2x increase) or 35% (for the 2.5X maximum slurry density). If we are limited to a specific height of retention, that's 40% and 60% (rounded). Note: for structural capacity, like a tank, retaining a g=2.5 liquid requires substantially higher strength than a g=1 liquid (for a given retention height). Since this is the internet and should source my knowledge: I know this because I happen to be an engineer who designs retaining structures. Anyway...
For the effective cost of creating and maintaining the slurry, maintaining the integrity of the system (and keeping out wildlife), and the cost of decommissioning the otherwise unusable fluid, you're likely talking about a reduction in area of 20-38% (1/8) to switch from using plain water to this engineered material. I don't disagree that there may be some edge cases where the increased risk and expense is justifiable, but it's hard to see this being viable except as some kind of tech demo.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see. They're doing it and there's an outside chance that they've thought it through properly (and a good chance that they have not, of course).
Again, we can use the water for things, and water is something we can get more of one way or another.
A 2.5x multiplier doesn't seem as worth it to me, especially when we can do stuff like add hydrothermal storage to that number easily, among other things.
We can get plenty of water. We can't get plenty of suitable sites.
If the water leaks we can shrug our shoulders.
If the calcium carbonate slurry leaks we will feel more awkward.