Fluid Dynamics

Been reading and seeing a lot over the last few days about water batteries. Of course, we've been generating electricity from water's power for a long time, and have had the ability to store latent energy in the form of pumped-storage plants for nearly as long. The difference between generation and storage is that one is continuous - as long as water flows, you can extract its energy to generate electricity: storage takes surplus energy and uses it to pump water to a high - literally - latent state, until it is needed, then releasing it to a lower, dynamic state to extract its energy and generate electricity on demand. Both systems have been tried, tested and are in daily use to this day. But there is a potential new kid on the block: High Density Pumped Storage, which looks set to up the renewable game to the next level, taking a known and time-tested technology and giving a twist to make it twice as effective as the existing systems.

The technology of liquid-based electricity generation systems is relatively simple, relying on the kinetic energy of stored water at a high level being released at a lower level through the action of turbines and generators. This much is known, as is the relatively benign impact of such technologies on the environment, the long working life and subsequent favourable return on investment ratio of them, and again, a relatively benign eventual decommissioning, should they need to phased out. Granted, hydro comes with a massive infrastructure investment cost, and the projects that have been successful - and are still in use, decades later - have come come with a pretty scary set of initial overheads. All this is known, but the return on investment is still extremely large, considered against the false dawn of nuclear energy, still being touted as the only credible alternative to fossil fuels - which are still being disproportionately lobbied for by our government. Nuclear is a high initial cost, low return & short-lived technology, with a decommissioning period that is unconscionably protracted [in reality, thousands of years].

The vested interests of the fossil and nuclear lobbies are plain to see, but their arguments against renewables are just plain tosh, and have been demonstrated as such. My country of Wales has been in the vanguard of renewable energy generation for decades now, with hydro, pumped storage, solar and wind generation accounting for a significant proportion of our energy generation. Compare that with the ailing and frankly ridiculous nuclear plants and plans we have for them here, at the behest of outsiders, and there is no contest. A new generation of High Density Pumped Storage systems will hopefully lead the way to a creative, environmentally-friendly, and in the long term cheaper, form of energy generation and storage that will hopefully get us to a net zero world; and let's face it, the alternative to that is unimaginable...