Battery Storage Isn't Backup Storage at All, and Neither Is Pumped Storage. It's All A Balancing Act!
Years ago, I did a fair amount of work in Schoharie County, New York and I was intrigued by the Blenheim–Gilboa Hydroelectric Power Station, a pumped-storage hydroelectricity plant there. It generates no electricity on a net basis. It just reallocates it during the day by pumping water up to a reservoir during the night when demand is low and dropping it back down during the day to generate power when needed. It’s a balancing act.
Pumped storage and, like it, battery storage, simply fill in the gaps and smooth things out with respect to electricity supply and demand. Paul Burgess, at Climate Realism in the UK, has pout two 2-minute videos explaining both very nicely:
The bottom line: battery and pumped storage are not backup storage, but just tools to balance electricity for very short periods. Nothing more, nothing less.
Let’s also remember that one of the very first battles between green elites and energy development was the proposed Storm King pumped storage project on the Hudson River, blocked by the same people now proposing to cover Upstate New York with solar panels and giant wind turbines.
I wrote about this in an article titled “Environmentalism Today Is Infected with Urban Smugness” and if you will find these quotes from an article by William Tucker titled “Environmentalism and the Leisure Class,” which is must reading to understand leisure class and trust-funder environmentalism. I strongly encourage redaers to check out both pieces.
#BESS #BatteryStorage #Electricity #Backup #Balancing
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Beautifully and very succinctly explained.
For those who oppose conventional power generation (coal, gas etc) it's also worth pointing out that when these schemes draw energy from the grid to pump water uphill it may have been generated from conventional power stations anyway.
And of course these schemes always operate at a loss (all storage is inefficient) so every storage scheme is a NET DRAIN on the grid.
In effect PSH schemes could just be wasting energy from conventional power stations, as opposed to the old system where we just had enough conventional power stations and ran them in harmony with grid demands - as they are able to do (unlike renewables).
There are plans in the works to destroy Scotland's most iconic body of water Loch Ness with several PSH schemes being proposed including one colossal scheme. This is despite the fact that the loch feeds a canal and river and the levels that would be drawn out by PSH are greater than what the canal and river can accommodate.
This is on top of the catastrophic environmental damage it will cause to the area and the fragile ecosystems of the water and surrounding moorland.
They are coming after every body of water, even when it is completely unsuitable - as Loch Ness is.
Here is a visualisation of the largest scheme being proposed and where to sign the petition to stop it! HINT HINT :)
https://messingwithnature.substack.com/p/the-proposed-industrialisation-of