Great to hear there are companies working on this.
I wonder if funds could be made available for the purpose of remediation of Mountaintop removal coal mines, turning them into pumped hydro? Instead of fighting to hold some deadbeat accountable for their mess, try to turn it into a community asset.
I've heard tales of pumped hydro historically getting built in order to buffer inflexible nuclear.
It sounds like their Kentucky project might actually get built.
But I think you downplay the "environmental/progressive/NIMBY/tribal" opposition to the projects in the NW. I hadn't heard much about the Swan Lake, but a very quick Google Search shot back an Oregon Public Broadcasting post (https://www.opb.org/article/2024/04/09/klamath-falls-oregon-pumped-water-energy-storage-project/) calling it "controversial, and that it required a $40M payout to local tribes.
There have been many stories about the Goldendale PHES. Even though the upper and lower reservoirs are only 60 acres each or whatever. A recent example being
Gotta love, "An East Coast company backed by European investors..." Settler-colonialism all over again!
High Country News has a NW tribal reporter who has been all over it (and seemingly all solar or wind in SE WA), and I see "Columbia Riverkeeper" is quite wound up.
I sure like the combination of wind, water and solar but natural energy does disturb nature and its lowish density and location right on the planets surface means that disturbance is quite obvious. OK with me, but disturbing to many.
Good stuff. I struggle, however, to put numbers into perspective. Worse, what are they? In particular, when you say 1.2 gigawatts, is that peak output? Or shorthand for gigawatt-hours. Given this whole article is about storage capacity, I was surprised to not see a single reference (did I miss one?) to (x)watt-hours. You do talk about hours of capacity, so does that mean 1.2 gigawatts for 12 hours?
While I'm here, I would also like a short post (or link to one you may have done?) on what's considered a "typical" household. As in, "could power a city like Seattle" etc. According to Sense, I'm on the high side of their typical customer at 4 kw average use for the last 30 days. Electric cars, heat pumps, and a family that likes to keep the whole house warm. In summer, a quarter of that. 3MW-hour+/month winter, 1MW-hour/month summer.
Sorry for the rant, but I really try to understand the magnitude of things, and it just drives me nuts...
A key aspect is that the economics of these systems work best when demand is high and the requirement is immediate but cannot be exactly determined. For example, half-time during a popular sports event. Being able to spin up turbines to maximum load in 30 seconds is crucial.
It's also worth remembering this pumped hydro facility took 10 years to build and was at the time the UK's largest civil construction project. Battery tech may undergo further transformation to supersede pumped hydro over such an extended time period.
Daily and weekly power storage is believably economic both from pumped storage and batteries, but I have yet to read of economically feasible seasonal storage that could account for the power-demand swings from summer to winter and back. What options are there? Iron-oxygen batteries sited in former automobile wrecking lots? Pumped storage with huge upstream lakes that include recreational vacation cabins?
Thank you so much for this informative take! And, as with all renewable energy projects, let's please continue to ensure we prioritize *early* and authentic consultation and collaboration with Native nations to ensure that siting is respectful of sacred places, medicines and first foods. Renewables aren't in conflict with Indigenous communities and values, but as we move quickly, we also need to move respectfully.
the other is a combination irrigation system with turbines at significant drops as the water flows down through the project. And pumped out of the Columbia by windpower, great combo idea!
I would sure like to see the economics of storage systems expresses in Tonnes Avoided Carbon (TAC).
Every lithium battery plant that I know of (and I am ignorant, so please correct) is located right next to a a big power station: the Tesla facility east of Reno, the smoking ruin of the Moss Landing, the proposed Morro Bay factory.
These batteries are energy-intensive, and therefore carbon intensive. TAC is the better unit of measure for these computations than is Dollars, no matter how they are adjusted for inflation.
"Median cradle-to-gate carbon footprint of lithium-ion batteries
between 48 and 120 kg CO2e kWh−1."
Coal generation is almost 1 kg CO2e/kWh, gas around 0.5.
Split the difference and the battery embodies 90 kg/kwh, divided by 0.75 kg/kWh avoided fossil generation emissions, divided by 80% depth of discharge, seems to yield about 130 battery cycles for a battery to offset its embodied emissions if the cycled variable renewable generation would have otherwise been curtailed and fossil generation used instead. If the battery is cycled half the days, that seems like about 8 months emissions payback. Not too bad IMHO.
In any case for any storage, duty cycle or similar capacity factor is important to payback of emissions, energy, and $ invested. Kinda like if you drive your pickup 1000 miles/year, you shouldn't buy a Rivian to save the planet. Instead contribute to BEV buses for you school district or transit authority which are driven 40,000+ miles per year.
The existing PHES reservoirs in CO don't need plastic or concrete or asphalt linings. Many reservoirs don't. The lithium batteries I see are located at PV power plants. Even if they located at an old powerplant to take advantage of the grid, the ones in CA are clearly packing in the PV during mid day and releasing it to avoid evening fossil generation. CAISO has oodles of data on that.
As far as Moss Landing, seems like a good case for LFP instead of NMC, and hey Thomas Edison almost burned down the Vanderbilts' house. And did burn down a bunch of other stuff.
Of course the concrete lining for the closed-loop reservoirs is also carbon-intensive. and just like everything else in the carbon economy must be priced accordingly.
Asphalatized concrete is a new term to me, but asphalt, in the grand, carbon accounting, is a carbon store, so the (durable) tar in the lining earns whatever value the carbon-economy delivers to carbon stores (such as, for example, the carbon capture systems they are bolting onto the Icelandic volcanoes).
The carbon economy is loaded with opportunities for innovation. The forests sector (which delivers liquidity and therefore facilitates credit) has a natural planning horizon that is measured in centuries, rather than the decades we are used to in the fossil economy. Long-horizon projects, like closed-loop pumped storage, are supported by the (base loaded generation of) the TAC-positive forests industries.
I've considered two different projects involving pump storage. The one that will likely get built is above the elevation of John Day dam. Water will be pumped up 2100ft and used for peak load
Great to hear there are companies working on this.
I wonder if funds could be made available for the purpose of remediation of Mountaintop removal coal mines, turning them into pumped hydro? Instead of fighting to hold some deadbeat accountable for their mess, try to turn it into a community asset.
I've heard tales of pumped hydro historically getting built in order to buffer inflexible nuclear.
Something I played with, is the Pumped Hydro Energy Storage Atlases from Australian National University: https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/pumped_hydro_atlas/
It sounds like their Kentucky project might actually get built.
But I think you downplay the "environmental/progressive/NIMBY/tribal" opposition to the projects in the NW. I hadn't heard much about the Swan Lake, but a very quick Google Search shot back an Oregon Public Broadcasting post (https://www.opb.org/article/2024/04/09/klamath-falls-oregon-pumped-water-energy-storage-project/) calling it "controversial, and that it required a $40M payout to local tribes.
There have been many stories about the Goldendale PHES. Even though the upper and lower reservoirs are only 60 acres each or whatever. A recent example being
https://www.yakimaherald.com/opinion/guest-commentary-goldendale-energy-project-comes-at-the-expense-of-tribes-nature/article_e8c39852-4bd6-11ef-86b2-533cae58bd45.html
Gotta love, "An East Coast company backed by European investors..." Settler-colonialism all over again!
High Country News has a NW tribal reporter who has been all over it (and seemingly all solar or wind in SE WA), and I see "Columbia Riverkeeper" is quite wound up.
I sure like the combination of wind, water and solar but natural energy does disturb nature and its lowish density and location right on the planets surface means that disturbance is quite obvious. OK with me, but disturbing to many.
Good stuff. I struggle, however, to put numbers into perspective. Worse, what are they? In particular, when you say 1.2 gigawatts, is that peak output? Or shorthand for gigawatt-hours. Given this whole article is about storage capacity, I was surprised to not see a single reference (did I miss one?) to (x)watt-hours. You do talk about hours of capacity, so does that mean 1.2 gigawatts for 12 hours?
While I'm here, I would also like a short post (or link to one you may have done?) on what's considered a "typical" household. As in, "could power a city like Seattle" etc. According to Sense, I'm on the high side of their typical customer at 4 kw average use for the last 30 days. Electric cars, heat pumps, and a family that likes to keep the whole house warm. In summer, a quarter of that. 3MW-hour+/month winter, 1MW-hour/month summer.
Sorry for the rant, but I really try to understand the magnitude of things, and it just drives me nuts...
It wouldn't perhaps harm to refer to long-standing successful examples outside of America, such as 'Electric Mountain' in Wales, UK, which has operated for almost 40 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station?wprov=sfla1
A key aspect is that the economics of these systems work best when demand is high and the requirement is immediate but cannot be exactly determined. For example, half-time during a popular sports event. Being able to spin up turbines to maximum load in 30 seconds is crucial.
It's also worth remembering this pumped hydro facility took 10 years to build and was at the time the UK's largest civil construction project. Battery tech may undergo further transformation to supersede pumped hydro over such an extended time period.
Daily and weekly power storage is believably economic both from pumped storage and batteries, but I have yet to read of economically feasible seasonal storage that could account for the power-demand swings from summer to winter and back. What options are there? Iron-oxygen batteries sited in former automobile wrecking lots? Pumped storage with huge upstream lakes that include recreational vacation cabins?
Good article. I see a real future with this enabling more renewable penetration.
Thank you so much for this informative take! And, as with all renewable energy projects, let's please continue to ensure we prioritize *early* and authentic consultation and collaboration with Native nations to ensure that siting is respectful of sacred places, medicines and first foods. Renewables aren't in conflict with Indigenous communities and values, but as we move quickly, we also need to move respectfully.
the other is a combination irrigation system with turbines at significant drops as the water flows down through the project. And pumped out of the Columbia by windpower, great combo idea!
I would sure like to see the economics of storage systems expresses in Tonnes Avoided Carbon (TAC).
Every lithium battery plant that I know of (and I am ignorant, so please correct) is located right next to a a big power station: the Tesla facility east of Reno, the smoking ruin of the Moss Landing, the proposed Morro Bay factory.
These batteries are energy-intensive, and therefore carbon intensive. TAC is the better unit of measure for these computations than is Dollars, no matter how they are adjusted for inflation.
Google "lithium batteries carbon footprint per kwh"
and get "The dependency of global lithium-ion battery emissions on production location and material sources" 2024
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652624011739
"Median cradle-to-gate carbon footprint of lithium-ion batteries
between 48 and 120 kg CO2e kWh−1."
Coal generation is almost 1 kg CO2e/kWh, gas around 0.5.
Split the difference and the battery embodies 90 kg/kwh, divided by 0.75 kg/kWh avoided fossil generation emissions, divided by 80% depth of discharge, seems to yield about 130 battery cycles for a battery to offset its embodied emissions if the cycled variable renewable generation would have otherwise been curtailed and fossil generation used instead. If the battery is cycled half the days, that seems like about 8 months emissions payback. Not too bad IMHO.
In any case for any storage, duty cycle or similar capacity factor is important to payback of emissions, energy, and $ invested. Kinda like if you drive your pickup 1000 miles/year, you shouldn't buy a Rivian to save the planet. Instead contribute to BEV buses for you school district or transit authority which are driven 40,000+ miles per year.
The existing PHES reservoirs in CO don't need plastic or concrete or asphalt linings. Many reservoirs don't. The lithium batteries I see are located at PV power plants. Even if they located at an old powerplant to take advantage of the grid, the ones in CA are clearly packing in the PV during mid day and releasing it to avoid evening fossil generation. CAISO has oodles of data on that.
As far as Moss Landing, seems like a good case for LFP instead of NMC, and hey Thomas Edison almost burned down the Vanderbilts' house. And did burn down a bunch of other stuff.
Of course the concrete lining for the closed-loop reservoirs is also carbon-intensive. and just like everything else in the carbon economy must be priced accordingly.
Asphalatized concrete is a new term to me, but asphalt, in the grand, carbon accounting, is a carbon store, so the (durable) tar in the lining earns whatever value the carbon-economy delivers to carbon stores (such as, for example, the carbon capture systems they are bolting onto the Icelandic volcanoes).
The carbon economy is loaded with opportunities for innovation. The forests sector (which delivers liquidity and therefore facilitates credit) has a natural planning horizon that is measured in centuries, rather than the decades we are used to in the fossil economy. Long-horizon projects, like closed-loop pumped storage, are supported by the (base loaded generation of) the TAC-positive forests industries.
I've considered two different projects involving pump storage. The one that will likely get built is above the elevation of John Day dam. Water will be pumped up 2100ft and used for peak load
https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/projects/goldendale-energy-storage-project/