this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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... what, just anywhere flat? Pumped hydro should be feasible wherever there's a hill.
If we're building big weird structures, even that is optional. You can put one pool above-ground and another in-ground. Deep and tall presumably beat wide.
To actually do the volumes that make pumped hydro practical you need not just a hill but a space which can hold a truly huge volume of water.
Yeah pumped hydro needs lakes, not pools, as far as I know. They flood entire mountain valleys, using the surrounding mountains themselves as the storage structure, because they need so much space.
But a warehouse-sized balloon works?
Yes, because phase transitions involve absolutely huge amounts of energy.