Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#141

Post by _uvv0 » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 8:14 PM UTC

While I'm happy he's glad that we have reliable electricity, he should also reflect that this comes at a significant nonmonetary cost. Presumably he, like me, just hasn't paid the price of this personally in the south.

The displacement of communities, loss of traditional lands, erosion of shorelines, and leached mercury into the water supply has been borne disproportionately by First Nations (indigenous) communities (1,2). This and ignorance of it is from a legacy of racist policy (at best apathy) and poor treatment of these communities. Take somewhere like Easterville that was relocated to the cheapest, least economically useful parcel of land with almost no local industry and wonder why there is poverty (3). Obviously it's not the only factor but I go up to some of these places for health care and really enjoy the work/meeting people, but it's sobering. I can't imagine it's any better in China with their massive projects but don't have any citations or experience there.

1 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-hydro-clean...

2 https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/web/2016/11/Dams-increase-me...

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterville,_Manitoba , can get free press article via google cache if you want

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#142

Post by karamanolev » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 8:17 PM UTC

rr808 wrote: post #100

karamanolev wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The round-trip energy efficiency of PSH varies between 70%–80%, with some sources claiming up to 87%. For me, that sounds like quite good, given the capacity possibilities. We can always build tiered storage, with smaller, but more efficient tiers (e.g. batteries) used first and PSH when that's filled up or exhausted.

Wow I actually was expecting more like 10-20%.

Turbines and pumps can be surprisingly elegant and efficient when built well.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#143

Post by danans » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 8:19 PM UTC

jraph wrote: post #123

marcosdumay wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why we aren't pumping (pun intentional) massive amounts of money into hydroelectric pumped storage Because energy storage is currently not a problem, and consequently not profitable. Unless you have some very bold organization to invest on things that today make negative marginal profit on any scale, or a government rushing into the solution of tomorrow's problem with today's money, you won't see any action. It wil…

> Because energy storage is currently not a problem Yes it is. It's one part of the solution to fluctuations in electricity production (renewables: wind, solar) and consumption (day / night, warm / cold). In a grid, at all time, the production has to match the consumption perfectly. You can make the frequency vary a bit to make up for fluctuations, but only so much before damaging things. Storage helps with a product…

> Yes it is. It's one part of the solution to fluctuations in electricity production (renewables: wind, solar) and consumption (day / night, warm / cold).

It both is and isn't a problem, depending on your time scale, and opinions about how we should bridge the variations in supply and demand.

Today, on the short timescale (subsecond) this need is called frequency regulation, and we mostly do that with so-called "peaker plants", essentially natural gas turbines that run constantly and feed power onto the grid at subsecond notice.

This is a very expensive source of supply (easily 5x the median wholesale rates) because the natural gas is mostly wasted (not to mention the very high CO2 emissions: ~600g/kWh produced [1]).

Therefore, there are a lot of companies working toward solutions to this, that don't involve burning fuel, either by building stationary storage, or by aggregating negative demand, thereby participating in a very expensive electricity market with a low-marginal cost solution. In short, this is where the money is today.

The next level for storage is not yet a problem, but will be: storing excess renewable energy supply between different parts of the day or week. The value of this service to the climate is massive, but the economic value of this is not enough to justify the cost of Lithium batteries. To support this use case, we need batteries or other storage media that are 10-100x less expensive than Lithium batteries.

There are many candidate storage technologies for this use case, from pumped hydro to metal-air batteries, to compressed air energy storage, but no clear winners yet.

1. Estimated based on a rough average of .65tons/MWh for CA peaker plants from: https://www.psehealthyenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/...

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#144

Post by whiddershins » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 8:25 PM UTC

brookst wrote: post #132

roamerz wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That ship has already sailed as most power producing dams have been around for long time. Removing them would destroy the (now natural) ecosystem they have created. Plus dams have way more benefits to us than the extremely clean energy they produce - not just store.

This is the first time I've seen a claim that dams create ecosystems that we should worry about destroying. As far as I know, they disrupt fish and animal migrations, reduce natural carbon sinks, reduce biodiversity, and block sediment from providing nutrients downstream. Is there any source saying dams create healthy natural ecosystems? A necessary evil I can kind of see, but a net positive for ecosystems? That seem…

I don’t know. I suspect the bias is towards the pre-dam ecosystem so it might be challenging to rationally compare them.

Certainly an ecosystem will grow up around nearly any situation.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#145

Post by whiddershins » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 8:26 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #126

BurningFrog wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is to start pumping up water at existing hydroelectric power plants. If you do this using wind or solar power the dam becomes a giant battery you charge.

Where does this extra water come from?

It’s just borrowed

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#146

Post by bpodgursky » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 8:27 PM UTC

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #134

jhoechtl wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is anecdotally facing an Energy crisis Nuclear power:no. Wind energy: off shore out of sight yes, but not on my mountain. Russian gas: no (more). Coal instead? No! So eveyone will install mini PV systems and become self-sufficient? First this wont work during the cold season and how incredible inneficient is this going to be? I think we must stop to outsource providing cheap energy to poor countries and tap o…

There is no lithium to mine around your corner. Half of all known deposits on Earth are in Bolivia and Argentina.

Yeah but that's really just because of globalization and marginal cost. Lower-quality Lithium reserves are in a ton of places but most countries have punted the environmental cost and hassle to the cheapest places to mine it.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#147

Post by didgetmaster » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 8:30 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #124

jhoechtl wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me my lack of understanding of the englisch language, but I do not understand the distinction you make. Hydroelectricity: Is this power you obtain by placing turbines behind a huge concrete wall of a large river? If so, how is the scenario of building a large concrete dam in the mountains where water is pumped up a hill to covert it into kinetic energy any more better? I understand that hydroelectricity is us…

> I understand that hydroelectricity is used to supply the basic power need, say 80% and a water reservoir with turbines to cover power peak needs This seems like you either didn't understand what pumped storage is, or you've confused several related technologies. A typical pumped storage scheme goes like this: We find a mountain with a high lake and a low lake. We dam the high lake so that its natural outflow (perha…

Do you know the efficiency of using pumped storage? In other words, for every MW of electricity used to pump the water up the hill, how much do you get back in power generation when the water flows back down through a turbine? You will lose a bit of water to evaporation during this process, but it should be fairly negligible. Also all reservoirs lose some water by leakage into the ground. How does the efficiency compare to various battery storage techniques?

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#148

Post by philipkglass » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 8:30 PM UTC

cwkoss wrote: post #136

philipkglass wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only other contender that is even worth mentioning is compressed gas, but it seems to have neither the capacity nor the efficiency of a large hydro deployment. The largest pumped storage station in the US has a storage capacity of 24,000 MWh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta... There's an underground hydrogen storage project underway in Delta, Utah with a capacity of 300,000 MWh: https…

How does the energy in underground hydrogen get utilized? Is the capacity the combustive energy, or only the energy from the gas pressure?

It's burned as fuel in a gas turbine to generate electricity. The process is similar to burning natural gas in turbines, but some equipment adjustments have to be made when running on hydrogen. The Delta project is starting with a 30/70 blend of hydrogen and natural gas, gradually stepping up to 100% hydrogen.

Siemens currently has turbines that can burn up to 75% hydrogen and is targeting 100% hydrogen by 2030:

https://www.siemens-energy.com/global/en/priorities/future-t...

General Electric has a variety of gas turbines, accepting 50% to 100% hydrogen in the fuel blend:

https://www.ge.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydrogen-fuele...

Mitsubishi claims to offer turbine operation on up to 100% hydrogen:

https://solutions.mhi.com/clean-fuels/hydrogen-gas-turbine/

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#149

Post by chasd00 » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 8:31 PM UTC

brookst wrote: post #132

roamerz wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That ship has already sailed as most power producing dams have been around for long time. Removing them would destroy the (now natural) ecosystem they have created. Plus dams have way more benefits to us than the extremely clean energy they produce - not just store.

This is the first time I've seen a claim that dams create ecosystems that we should worry about destroying. As far as I know, they disrupt fish and animal migrations, reduce natural carbon sinks, reduce biodiversity, and block sediment from providing nutrients downstream. Is there any source saying dams create healthy natural ecosystems? A necessary evil I can kind of see, but a net positive for ecosystems? That seem…

there are many human ecosystems living below the dam though. Removing the dam means removing entire towns downstream in some cases.

Re: Why is hydroelectricity unfashionable?

#150

Post by AtlasBarfed » Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 8:32 PM UTC

idiotsecant wrote: post #53

theptip wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you’re in the industry I’m interested in your perspective on this report from Lawrence Berkeley lab on integrated battery storage for wind/solar projects: https://emp.lbl.gov/hybrid It seems to me that high capacity integrated battery projects are being built in large numbers, and they are much closer to cost-competitive than I would have though from the general sentiment in the press/HN comments. Obviously the…

Too little, too late unfortunately. The amount of storage available from these projects is tiny and even though it's accelerating it's not accelerating at nearly the level required for the physics of a primary renewable grid to work. Chemical storage of energy is expensive and requires a long supply chain. It's huge that the costs are trending in a favorable direction and maybe eventually we can do all our load balan…

PV should enable distributed power generation. I'm not saying grid storage, grid generation, and grid hydro isn't needed, but home solar should be a strong focus of policy.

The cost differentials are basically all down to labor, which is generally locally captured.

The "long supply chain" of batteries isn't true. We don't need cobalt or nickel for grid. Sodium Ion is going into mass production in China, and LFP is topping 200 wh/kg. Hell,you don't need cobalt or nickel for EVs anymore, a 300-400 mile car should be easily doable with the current state of the art LFP, and 200-300 doable with sodium ion.

Hydro storage is very very efficient (thanks to all the engineering that went into hydro dams), I think it's in the 90%+ for efficiency. It definitely should be a major part of our energy plans, but this thread makes it seem like it's the only practical way, and uses pumped hydrogen as a straw man competitor.

We need grid wind, gridsolar, geothermal, keep the nuclear, hydro, home solar, home storage, chemical batteries ... all of it. But the cost profile of wind/solar is already better than natural gas turbine, and I'm hoping wind/solar+batteries will pass everything in 5 years with sodium ion, but I don't have numbers on that.

This two weeks storage is ridiculous. With good home solar buildout, that is not needed.