Webcast on Renewed Interest In Electric Locomotives For Freight Service

[Paul Milenkovic]

I heard that there are non-trivial maintenance costs for the overhead wire.

[nfotis]

tdmidget

So let us in on the secret. Just where are these undammed rivers and mountains waiting to unleash this gush of power? Pumped storage is about 25% efficient. It's a serious net loser and when you are pumping that power must come from somewhere. Coal, maybe?

Have you given a thought to the difficulties of permitting such a venture? Endangered species act? EPA? Sierra Club?  and on and on. I am currently working at a hydro electric plant and it is generally felt that a nuke would be easier to permit today. At the present time 42% of it's income goes to fish hatchery and protection.

 

 

The pumped hydro energy storage is obviously an energy loser, you store excess energy you get anyway from windmills or photovoltaic - else, you would have to just throw the energy to the atmosphere.

 

Another solution would be to use the excess energy for operating a desalination plant, like the ones pioneered by Israel. This way, you trade energy for potable water.

 

The whole idea is that you want to isolate the grid from the spikes associated with windmills and other non deterministic renewables.

A pumped storage hydro is a proven and scalable solution (you can just build an artificial reservoir, no need to mess with natural water reservoirs), and it responds to demand in 1-2 minutes instead of hours.

 

N.F.