[ RadSafe ] Pumped Storage Issue ---Was: Re: Salsman warning

Fri Apr 9 02:10:56 CDT 2010

Hello all,
Some comments on the narrow issue of "pumped storage" as a supposed cheap electric generating source vs. some other sources mentioned by some earlier posts from Mr. Salsman.

Pumped storage is simply a way of primarily  taking baseload generated power [from large coal or nuclear stations] to pump water up from some height to something higher during offpeak hours thus storing potential energy.  Pumped storage can also take electricity from any source other than large baseload stations that is not needed at the time of its generation. This would also pertain to excess wind or solar or any source of generated electricity that was not need by the grid when generated. 

So pumped storage is a form of load leveling/energy storage. Once the water is pumped up it can sit there for as long as it needs to until demand dictates that more power must be put into the grid. Rather than fire up peaking stations like gas turbines [which are much more expensive to run than baseload stations and take some time to get up to speed to equal a big spike in power demand] grid operators will generally prefer to open a few valves and let water fall to power a water turbine. Remember that when a baseload plant [like a 1,000 MW[e] nuclear or coal plant trips offline, the instantaneous demand of the grid must be met within seconds, or the grid becomes unstable.  So grid operators have things like pumped storage facilites, or many small 10 or 15 kW water turbines that are kept spinning at low speed ready to be brought to full power within a few seconds. For any one portion of a grid, there has to be enough capacity very quickly available
 to equal the generation capacity which might be lost essentially instantaneously.

 Large generating plants [like nukes or large coal stations] do not work well being cycled up and down and cycling costs $. As an example of a big pumped storage facility there is the Bear Swamp facility in near Rowe, MA, [site of the former Yankee Atomic Electric NPP for about 40 years]. Bear Swamp facility takes water from the Deerfield River and pumps this water up 770 feet from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir.

Bear Swamp can generate a maximum output of about 600 MW[e] for about 6 hours if the upper reservoir were filled to maximum capacity. But, the process LOSES ENERGY. Electricity [from whatever source] powrs pumps to pump water up when the electricity is surplus. Then the water can be allowed to fall when demand is up and the twin water turbines can go from 0 power to a full power output 600 MW[e] in about  3 minutes when electricity is needed. However, you get LESS electricity out when the water falls from the upper reservoir, than it took to pump that water up to the upper reservoir.

So clearly "pumped storage" is NOT a source of newly generated electricity but a recovery of some large fraction of stored excess or baseload electricity [with unavoidable losses] from any of many primary sources of generation.  The cost of a kilowatt hour out from a pumped storage facility, will always be higher than the cost of the initial generated kW-hr which powered the pumps to drive a huge volume of water up to storage.

Stewart Farber, MSPH
Farber Medical Solutions, LLC
Bridgeport, CT 06604

[203] 441-8433 [office]
http://www.farber-medical.com
farber at farber.info

==========================

--- On Thu, 4/8/10, AnaLog Services, Inc. <AnaLog at logwell.com> wrote:

From: AnaLog Services, Inc. <AnaLog at logwell.com>
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Salsman warning
To: "James Salsman" <jsalsman at gmail.com>, radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Date: Thursday, April 8, 2010, 11:39 PM

Salsman has mentioned pumped storage hydroelectric a couple of times in the last few days.  Unless I am crazy, that is not a true generation technique, but more equivalent to a battery as a way to shift demand / generation from other sources.  Assuming I am not out of my mind, pumped storage hydroelectric cannot therefore be compared to nuclear or coal fired power plants.  The more appropriate comparison would be hydroelectric dam installations (which are not pumped storage).

As for Salsman defending his complaints to list members' employers, the entire notion of such a course of action is beyond belief, and his defense thereof is even more bizarre.  It is absolutely, positively the most dispicable thing I have seen in my several years on the RadSafe list.  We would not permit a list member to use violence against another list member to gain acceptance of his nutty theories, and what Salsman did was not much different from violence.  Mr. Salsman should be ejected from this list just as any abusive flamer would be (not for his crackpot views, but for trying to get a list member fired).

Syd H. Levine
AnaLog Services, Inc.
Phone:  (270) 276-5671
Telefax:  (270) 276-5588
E-mail:  analog at logwell.com
Web URL:  www.logwell.com

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