Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are zero viable alternatives when you start talking TWh. That’s simply the reality and why there isn’t any long term grid storage, nothing is even close to viable when compared to batteries and extra generation. Pumped hydro simply doesn’t scale. You can look at topographic maps and do some basic math but the vast quantities of water you would need simply don’t have enough locations to be viable. Worse, the few…
Now you're just lying. Pump hydro scales better than batteries, although there are geographic limitations. Compressed air and thermal also scale better than batteries while not having any geographic limitations. Hydrogen scales beyond every else in terms of quantity, and this becomes even more pronounced once you talk about hydrogen derivatives like ammonia. And you're consistently ignoring the part about not everyth…
Compressed air and thermal aren’t economically viable, which is why decades after introduction there isn’t large scale deployments of the stuff.
> Any sort of heat utilization or recapture massively increases efficiency for some of those ideas.
Low grade heat has minimal to zero economic value. This is why nuclear power plants need to build cooling towers etc rather than having something useful to do with all that heat energy. There’s some very niche utility, but it’s competing with other extremely cheap sources of heat like solar thermal which itself has barely catch on despite rapid payback periods.