20-03-2017, 11:43 PM
Quote:Hi PZ.Hi Peter.
I just want to show something about pumped hydro that is troubling. (At least to me, maybe not to anyone eles however.)
From your great friend Andrew Bolt in today's Herald Sun 20 March 2017..
Bolt is quoting a professor Andrew Blakers.
I have never heard of him, but he is a professor and I am not.
Any scheme costs more than it produces. Hence the need for power bills
Nothing is free in the realm of power generation. Sadly, you can never regenerate more than you generate.
But at the end of the day the only reason it costs more is because you have to burn something to generate the power.
If we ever have a mass rollout of solar/wind farms and multiple hydro plants to balance the output it shouldn't cost much at all. Certainly less than the cost of mining, burning and disposing of fossil fuels.
The other thing about the 20% figure in that article is it assumes it's never going to rain in these areas.
Any rain collected in the top reservoir will lower the amount of power needed to complete refilling it.
Expanding the current Snowy mountains scheme makes sense for that reason alone IMO.