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no next message in --047d7ba977a429ac1a050aab405b Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Is this narure? Nick On Dec 20, 2014 3:54 PM, "David & Alison Webster" <dwebster@glinx.com> wrote: > Hi Steve & All, Dec 20, 2014 > Systems which do not work well, such as the Wales site, do not prove > that pumped storage can not work anymore than I can prove, by direct > demonstration, that music can not be extracted from a violin. > > For pumped storage to work reliably one must have volume sufficient to > ride out any prolonged period of calm. An account of a system which does > work, > cut from a 2012 e-mail is pasted below. > > START OF PASTE > Re Ludington my letter (pasted below) to the Advertiser Editor (Not > used) contains the essentials. Also see > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant > START OF PASTE > Dear Editor: Sept 24, 2012 > According to Warren Peck (Register, Can we trust CANWEA ads ?,Aug 2), > electrical storage is still in the research and development stage. > Well, the pumped storage facility in Ludington, Michigan was built > between 1967 and 1975, is still functioning and has a capacity of 1872 > Megawatts. It has served so well that an $800 million upgrade is about to > be undertaken. > There is always room for research and development but pumped storage is > proven technology. According to Kraushaar & Ristinen (Energy and problems of > a technical society, 2nd ed., 1993) the efficiency of pumped storage is > typically 64% as compared to 36% for optimum generation by heat. > They also note that the Ludington reservoir can store 15 million kW.hr > of energy. Based on a recent article (Chron.Herald. Sept 19) the average > residence in Canada uses 10,389 KW.hr/year. So that one reservoir stores > enough energy to supply 17,000 residences for one month; hardly prototype. > > Yours truly, David H. Webster 678-7824 > END OF PASTE > > and an account of another site from Ivan Smith, Oct 18, 2012 > START OF PASTE\\\ > I'm familiar with the 174 megawatt Sir Adam Beck Pump Generating Station > at Niagara Falls http://www.opg.com/power/hydro/niagara_plant_group/ > adambeck2.asp built in the mid-1950s, when I was working at the Nova > Scotia Light and Power Company. http://ns1758.ca/electric/ > electricpwr14.html There were numerous reports about this large pumped > storage plant in the technical journals that NSL&P purchased and circulated > among its employees. Pumped storage was not new even then, but the Niagara > plant attracted special attention because it was/is very large. The Beck > Pumped Storage Plant has now been operating successfully for sixty years. > There are dozens of such plants around the world. -- > END OF PASTE\\\\\\\\\\ > > In addition, as described by Kraushaar & Ristinen (Energy and problems > of > a technical society, 2nd ed., 1993), Chapter 8, the same hardware can be > used for both pumping and power generation and natural waterways need not > be involved; water being moved between upper and lower reservoirs. One > system, being constructed in California in 1993 to move water between a > surface reservoir and a lower one excavated from solid rock was designed to > store 1.12 million kW. > > Yt, Dave Webster, Kentville > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Shaw" <srshaw@Dal.Ca> > To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca> > Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2014 2:00 PM > Subject: RE: Long again: Re: Long: Re: [NatureNS] light > > > Hi Dave, >> A larger problem is that currently and forseeably wind is relatively >> small potatoes and intermittent, and putting in many wind farms doesn't >> even remotely average out the power fluctuations. You also mentioned >> somewhere that this fluctuation could be solved by storing electrical >> energy during an energy glut by pumping water uphill into a storage >> reservoir (then recovering it in times of increased demand by letting the >> water run back down, powering turbines). This rang a bell as this year we >> had visited the Dinorwig power station in Snowdonia Natl Park (Wales), >> built discretely inside a mountain, that operates on just this principle >> with a large water differential height of ~500 meters. It is an enormous >> project but can't even out daily fluctuations in demand even with 3 other >> similar smaller stations running. It is used these days mainly to add a >> surge of power to the national grid at the end of popular TV programs in UK >> like East-Enders, when literally millions of viewers head simultaneously >> for the kitchen to plug in their electric kettles for cups of tea -- >> really: Dinorwig alone can go from 0 to full 1.3 GWatt power in 12 seconds >> to cope with this, and can supply some power for a few hours. The >> turbines are reversed at night when electricity is cheaper, to pump water >> back up to the upper storage lake. >> >> There's some info on Dinorwig in Wikipedia, but the point of this note is >> that in looking this up, I came across a book that discusses all this with >> numbers and excellent graphics in the context of the recent UK current >> practical energy mix: David J. C. Mackay, 'Sustainable Energy without the >> hot air', 2008-9. He discusses how many Welsh and Scottish pairs of >> lakes/lochs you could feasibly convert like Dinorwig to even out all the >> variability in power demand if you had the will to do so, and concludes >> that it simply can't be done in UK (not enough useful lake pairs with good >> differential heights, never mind the politics). Instead, glut electricity >> needs to be exported to some other form of storage, and he discusses how >> this is more easily possible e.g. for Denmark with its links to Scandanavia. >> >> You don't even have to ask Santa for it, as it can be downloaded for free >> as a PDF from >> http://www.withouthotair.com/download.html >> I've only just skimmed a bit of it, but it looks good from what I've read >> so far, and could save us all from unsupported generalizations as to what >> is practically possible in all of this. Some things just aren't. >> Steve (Hfx) >> ________________________________________ >> From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca [naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca] on >> behalf of David & Alison Webster [dwebster@glinx.com] >> Sent: Friday, December 19, 2014 4:13 PM >> To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca >> Subject: Long again: Re: Long: Re: [NatureNS] light >&g