Hoover dam as giant battery
 

Your EV is only as clean as the source of its energy:

"The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, an original operator of the Hoover 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. The net result would be a kind of energy storage — performing much the same function as the giant lithium-ion batteries being developed to absorb and release power."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...T.nav=top-news

Makes sense to me. Other than initial expense, I've been wondering why they havent't just added generators to the down side of the canal just to charge battery storage. One would think that if solar and/or wind with battery storage is now on par with building new plants that it should be cheap enough to insert a couple generators and charge battery storage. JJ

I like this a lot. I mentioned it at https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...tml#post574720.

Reddit points to the NYT article, but one comment said:

If I interpret this correctly, the total power produced goes up; or at least the % of theoretical maximum goes up.

That's interesting to say the least. Maybe not as efficient as using solar energy directly or to store it on batteries, but simply avoiding them altogether might decrease the risk of a haz-mat incident in case of something going bad.

The power to do it will be coming from west texas and eastern NM.
To quote my self,

There was a podcast recently that I listened to which discussed this. Not really a new idea, just being done again.

http://one.npr.org/i/620288114:620349298

Apparently has efficiencies roughly as much as a chemical battery. The podcast also discusses the issue of grid balancing and why.

Creating pumped hydro storage on the cheap by using an existing facility, buying dirt cheap peak power production and time-shifting it to expensive peak load times is a win for everyone.

Your attitude mystifies me.

It it doesn't benefit the end user.
California just needs to build their own power plants.
Then there are no tranamission to storage to transmission losses.
Storage is what you do when you have more power then you know what to do with due to certain uncontrollable conditions. Otherwise it's just a bandaid.
California doesn't have a surplus of power they buy it up from neighboring states.
I look forward to California pipe dreaming up more ways to use Texas and new Mexicos surplus wind power.
Because of that I'm all for it. The best part about it is people in California appear to think this is a great idea.

3 billion dollars isn't cheap. It's actually a waste of money considering it generates 0 net power.
They would be better off finding another 4 billion dollars and building a AP1000.

Maybe I'm missing something, regardless of what state of is in, if there is excess renewable power isn't it a good idea to maximize its use? Even if its inefficient to send the power, store it, and then generate it again as hydro, unless the loss was huge I would think it is overall beneficial.

Well, someone gets it.

It's beneficial for Texas and new Mexico. California is getting screwed.

Hoover dam is in Nevada. :confused:

hardware.slashdot.org:Can Hoover Dam Become a Giant $3B Battery? (cleantechnica.com)

A comment explains the length of the aqueduct, It reaches the next downstream dam.

So the upper and lower reservoirs and [underutilized] turbines exist. All that's needed is the aqueduct and massive pumps.

cleantechnica.com:City Of Los Angeles Wants To Turn Hoover Dam Into World’s Largest Pumped Energy Storage Facility

Oh, LA. "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."

How?

It would be most efficient to transmit excess power to regions that can use it. Storing energy is a last resort, although a necessary one. There will always be need to store energy if we are to rely on renewables to a large extent, but the best solution is always to send excess supply to places unable to meet their demand.

freebeard- great post expounding on the topic. Not sure what you think of cleantechnica, but I boycott them due to the cult-like environment their unobjective leader has created, and their gross misrepresentation of and outright deceit of facts.

CA ranks 44 out of 50 states for cheapest energy. They might be determined to edge out Hawaii for most expensive electricity.

How can the dam operate at %20 capacity? Would it not overfill?

Where does the accumulated water go?

It seems to me that the fam is only passing 20 percent of the water, the rest is going somewhere else.

The hoover dam has been down over 100 feet in recent years they can't run it wide open because there isn't enough water coming into the dam. The hoover dam probably hasn't been ran at full capacity for a long period of time since the 90's.

California is getting screwed because like red point said they have the 6th most expensive power in the US.
Then California is going to buy the cheapest power in the United States and by the time the bureaucracy sells it to the customer it's nearly the most expensive power in the lower 48.
What did you actually think California was going to buy cheap wind power and pass that savings on to the customer? Ha, no thats not how socialism works.

The power companies out here in TX and NM have been working since 2007 or 2008 to get the Texas and south west grids interconnected so they could sell power to California.

Got it, so it can reduce costs, but it's bad because California is doing it to reduce their costs.

It's potentially bad because it's $3,000,000,000 to send water up a hill. How much water do you need to send up a hill before you've derived $3 billion in benefit, plus interest, plus maintenance?

Let's ignore interest and other costs and just consider the $3 billion. At $0.04/kWh, you would need 75 billion kWh to justify the expense. That's enough power to supply 6,966,375 homes for a year.

Thanks. No opinion. But I've read Slashdot every day [since the 90s] even though it's no longer a career requirement. Slashdot was the first news aggregator, and has the best moderation system of anyone, even Reddit (whom Facespook is copying*).

Hopefully, a little of it would go to Mexico.

Think of it as load-balancing. Caching and shifting electricity in time and space. The water that goes round and round between the upper and lower reservoir is the medium.

*Reddit lets you vote up or down (like and dislike) but Slashdot let's you say why (interesting, insightful, funny). And you can view comments at different score levels (and higher).

Among today's headlines:
New Shape Called the 'Scutoid' Has Been Discovered In Our Cells (gizmodo.com)
The Next iPad Pros Will Shrink and Lose Their Headphone Jacks, Says Report (9to5mac.com)

I don't think it has anything to do with cost reduction for the general population. It has more to do with California's renewable energy requirements. Hydro storage is a form of renewable energy just as solar and wind are. The state has mandated 50% renewable energy generation by the year 2030 and is pushing for 100% by 2045. The power companies out here are still monopolies that are in business to make money so I don't expect them to lower their rates at all even though they are regulated by a citizen's utility board. Our current base rate is about 21.5 cents/kwh and goes up from there. PGE is trying to push a demand rate which would base the cost on the maximum usage in any one hour increment during the billing period. That will really hurt people. As for me, I plan to be grid free long before things get really nasty.
JJ

My base rate is like $0.07 or 8.
Enjoy buying TX and NM energy for about 2 or 3 cents a kwh then paying over 20 cents for it.
I'm pretty sure California's renewable energy thing is a scam.

They can do 100% renewable by 2040 if they charge $1 per kwh.
That should be interesting.

And that in a nut she'll is how the people of California are getting screwed on energy.

Indeed, it's been done for decades, with the Pacific DC intertie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie shipping excess power from the Columbia River hydro (and these days, wind) to Southern California - and sometimes the other way, depending on seasonal demand.

WRT California building local power plants, where? Pretty much every significant hydro location is already used. Local wind & solar have the same use time issues. Fossil fuels? You pretty much have to ship in the fuel, which has its own costs. And with nuclear, you spend $1 billion on the plant, and $10 billion on the lawsuits from every anti-nuclear group under the sun.

Meanwhile, the tides roll in and out...

Death Valley isn't being used for much.

CA residents deserve the rates they get, as they are responsible for electing people that represent their interests. If their interest is high cost renewable, that's what they get.

I actually want the Hoover dam battery plan to go through so I can see how the experiment plays out at others expense.

My numbers for payback assumed they can get renewable energy for free. Any cost for electricity above nothing will greatly extend out the amount of kwh of Hoover stored water required to break even with the expense to build it. Basically, the cost to purchase TX sun power plus the cost of storing that energy in the Hoover dam must be lower than the cost to just generate the power, or at least less than the current utility rate to customers, or it will cause an increase in utility rates.

I'm saying there is almost no way the project can be done without increasing the already extremely high CA utility rates. Someone has to have the highest utility rates, and Hawaii has held that title for too long.

Energy Return on Energy Invested per energy source.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesco.../#7134d085a027

Nuclear wins at 75x

Solar PV with hydro energy storage loses at 2x, 4x without storage.

Per the author US needs 7x to be sustainable.

Nuclear for the base load and wind and solar for the peak day time loads.
Problem solved.

That's one of my favorites. Have Elon Musk bore some 32ft diameter aqueducts below sea level from the Pacific to Death Valley. Inline turbines in the flow, an OTEC plant to harvest energy from the temperature difference at the exit, and then algae farms and desalination. (Just like a pig, everything buy the squeal)

Actually salton sea is lower and closer

I am not sure that Forbes piece is accurate. Page 28 and 29 of the 2013 study it cites for the graph show significantly more varied and different results: http://festkoerper-kernphysik.de/Wei...I_preprint.pdf

Just the advancing and retreating tide level alone could produce massive power, couldn't it?

Perhaps the added surface water will reflect more of the sun's rays, and act as a buffer against extreme heat and cold (heat capacity).

Huh? Where the heck did you get that idea? https://www.nps.gov/deva/index.htm

Sorry, but it's not really about politics. It's about economics and geology.

FTM, what exactly is the problem with California's electric rates? Like just about everywhere in the US, they're dirt cheap when you consider what's involved.

I now favor the Salton Sea. Of course both are encumbered by prior usage, but the Salton Sea is an environmental disaster from 1905 anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea

What would be need would be acres of holding ponds for the algaculture.

The costs of coal and other fuels hould include downstream atmospheric pollution. The cost of a catalytic converter is part of the cost of burning gasoline for fuel. The costs in respiratory disease is part of the cost of buring fossil fuels for energy. They are inextricable.

This is of relevance. Pretty damn cool and I'm impressed with the efficiency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McByJeX2evM

Too bad California has some of the worst air quality in the country.
You would think paying some of the highest energy costs in the country for renewable energy the air would be decent.
But that's not how socialism works.

This is entirely suspect. Nuclear plants take about 10 years to build, and about 10 years to dismantle - and we have to store nuclear waste for millenniums - and they only produce power for about 50-60 years. Mining and refining nuclear fuel takes lots of energy. Shutting down nuclear plants every 18 months for several weeks for refueling, and major systems have to be repaired / maintained, requiring additional shutdowns.

The embedded energy of solar panels is covered in about 2 years, or less. They will last for 30-40 years.

Land based wind power is THE cheapest to build, now - and solar is the next cheapest.

Nuke is the cheapest/cleanest/safest non-hydro way to produce power on demand. Next gen reactors promise to vastly reduce waste, and to utilize already stored waste as fuel, while being walk-away fault tolerant.

Wind doesn't solve the problem of demand, and introduces it's own problem of unpredictable supply. That's not to say the technology isn't interesting and useful, only that it's an incomplete solution.

Yes. And since we're discussing California, part of the cost of using fossil fuels to generate electricity is the cost of transporting it there. There just aren't any significant coal or natural gas deposits there, so you either have to haul it in by the trainload, build natural gas pipelines, or turn it into electricity near the source and ship that.

IDK whether shipping electricity is cheaper than shipping fuel. However, once you have the transmission network built, you can use it to ship electricity from any source. Got way more hydro in Washington or wind in Texas than you can use locally? Put it on the grid and ship it where it's wanted.

I agree, if its renewable then it matters a lot less how much is wasted.

I see a beefed up grid being part of the energy solution of the future. More of an internet of connectivity with multiple redundant pathways to send bulk energy.