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Re: Not new - California already has one in operation
Author: mook
Date: 09-04-2016 - 20:56
San Luis Reservoir and I think the Thermalito project below Oroville Dam are pumped-storage power producers. San Luis is almost entirely pumped from the California Aqueduct anyway, which is why it's near-empty this year. Thermalito is a relatively low-output, low-head operation.
As noted by others, PG&E has been using the Helms Creek project for years. Was originally built as part of the Diablo Canyon project to provide overnight storage of nuke output (nukes being hard to throttle and most efficient when running near full power).
SMUD has been trying to do a small pumped-storage project near Placerville but so far the NIMBYs have prevented it.
Eagle Mtn has the advantage of few NIMBYs other than Joshua Tree NP. Also, has a railroad that could be rebuilt to handle the Big Stuff usually involved with power plants and dam projects. Source of water seems likely to be the MWD Colorado River Aqueduct - the only obvious source of large amounts of water in the area - and would also serve as relatively local storage which SoCal still needs more of. Not sure how good it is to store drinking water in an old iron mine, though, and something would need to be done to minimize evaporation. All solvable problems.
At least one of the new reservoirs being planned to boost irrigation storage will me mostly pumped, like San Luis. It almost certainly would be a pumped storage power project also like San Luis.
Pumped storage is one of the more effective utility-scale power storage tools, but it only works under limited conditions, and of course needs water to work with (much more available on the west slope Sierra around Helms Creek than at Eagle Mtn). And as SMUD has found if somebody can see the upper reservoir it will probably be a NIMBY target.
As noted by others, PG&E has been using the Helms Creek project for years. Was originally built as part of the Diablo Canyon project to provide overnight storage of nuke output (nukes being hard to throttle and most efficient when running near full power).
SMUD has been trying to do a small pumped-storage project near Placerville but so far the NIMBYs have prevented it.
Eagle Mtn has the advantage of few NIMBYs other than Joshua Tree NP. Also, has a railroad that could be rebuilt to handle the Big Stuff usually involved with power plants and dam projects. Source of water seems likely to be the MWD Colorado River Aqueduct - the only obvious source of large amounts of water in the area - and would also serve as relatively local storage which SoCal still needs more of. Not sure how good it is to store drinking water in an old iron mine, though, and something would need to be done to minimize evaporation. All solvable problems.
At least one of the new reservoirs being planned to boost irrigation storage will me mostly pumped, like San Luis. It almost certainly would be a pumped storage power project also like San Luis.
Pumped storage is one of the more effective utility-scale power storage tools, but it only works under limited conditions, and of course needs water to work with (much more available on the west slope Sierra around Helms Creek than at Eagle Mtn). And as SMUD has found if somebody can see the upper reservoir it will probably be a NIMBY target.
