Posted by wmbjkREMOVE on March 9, 2009, 6:42 pm
wrote:
>But a typical well pump makes a terrible turbine/generator. So do you
>invest in two dedicated pieces of equipment, one for pumping and one for
>generation (twice the maintenance), or a specially designed (expensive)
>combination unit that can do both halves of the pumped storage cycle.
>And let's not forget the duty cycle of a typical well pump is measured in
>mere minutes a day over 10-20 year life. Operate it on a scale of a few
>hours a day and the life is probably going to be less.
>Obviously it is *not* a 'slam dunk' either way. More study is needed.
I don't think it's deserving of much study. The practical
opportunities for home-scale pumped storage might be less than for
home-scale hydrogen generation. Yes, it too *can* be done, as one
poster detailed a few years back. But he was probably what, one in a
million? Say 300 potential installations across the entire country. I
bet there are more people building homes out of dog poop and straw.
:-) No joke, there's at least one that I've heard of. Which reminds
me, that guy was having trouble with the building dept. (who would
have guessed? :-) ) I can only imagine the issues with pumped
storage. Emergency valves for the firemen to use to shut off the flow,
etc. Limitless opportunities for code weenies to have a field day. It
would make lead-acid batteries seem like Legos in comparison.
Wayne
Posted by Eeyore on March 9, 2009, 6:47 pm
Don Lancaster wrote:
> Winston_Smith wrote:
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > How much maintenance do we expect a modest size electric water pump to
> > require?
> A "modest size electric water pump", of course, would only be capable of
> storing a uselessly small amount of energy. BEFORE amortization.
The greens don't understand economics or indeed much of reality.
Their obsession with 'micro-generation' is particularly laughable. In its
right place ( off-grid ) it's great but otherwise forget it.
BTW, came across an interesting article from Reuters a while back. You know
the greens want to punish us for air travel and taking foreign trips ? It
turns out that worldwide, shipping WASTES more fuel than all the airlines
worldwide combined USE !
So who do the greens target ? The airlines of course. There's a danger you
might get some pleasure from your trip !
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS82323+24-Jun-2008+BW20080624
"The figures, from leading maritime technology company DK Group and
backed by United Nations-commissioned research, prove that ships are
wasting the equivalent of more than $140 billion of consumers and
investors money in fuel costs per year and emitting an extra 672
million tonnes of CO2 per year (more than the aviation industry's 600
million tonnes CO2)."
Graham
Posted by Winston_Smith on March 9, 2009, 10:06 pm
>Don Lancaster wrote:
>> Winston_Smith wrote:
>> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> > How much maintenance do we expect a modest size electric water pump to
>> > require?
>>
>> A "modest size electric water pump", of course, would only be capable of
>> storing a uselessly small amount of energy. BEFORE amortization.
>The greens don't understand economics or indeed much of reality.
>Their obsession with 'micro-generation' is particularly laughable. In its
>right place ( off-grid ) it's great but otherwise forget it.
Where except off-grid would anyone even be talking about "modest
size"? It's already been conceded in this group that it can and is
being used on commercial scale operations.
>BTW, came across an interesting article from Reuters a while back. You know
>the greens
You seem to be hung up on this greens thing. In this case to the
point where you defined whatever you had to say out of existence.
I'll bet you are coming at this from a R/D adversary point of view and
not from a technical analysis viewpoint.
Posted by terryc on March 10, 2009, 2:08 am
On Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:47:45 +0000, Eeyore wrote:
> It turns out that worldwide, shipping WASTES more fuel than all
> the airlines worldwide combined USE !
Yawn. Care to publish the comparative tonnages shipped? then divide
wastage by tonnage.
I've done catering and people are always amazed by the wastage until I
ask them to divide it by the number of people here.
Posted by Don Lancaster on March 9, 2009, 9:04 pm
wmbjkREMOVE@citlink.net wrote:
> wrote:
>
>
>> But a typical well pump makes a terrible turbine/generator. So do you
>> invest in two dedicated pieces of equipment, one for pumping and one for
>> generation (twice the maintenance), or a specially designed (expensive)
>> combination unit that can do both halves of the pumped storage cycle.
>>
>> And let's not forget the duty cycle of a typical well pump is measured in
>> mere minutes a day over 10-20 year life. Operate it on a scale of a few
>> hours a day and the life is probably going to be less.
>>
>> Obviously it is *not* a 'slam dunk' either way. More study is needed.
>
> I don't think it's deserving of much study. The practical
> opportunities for home-scale pumped storage might be less than for
> home-scale hydrogen generation. Yes, it too *can* be done, as one
> poster detailed a few years back. But he was probably what, one in a
> million? Say 300 potential installations across the entire country. I
> bet there are more people building homes out of dog poop and straw.
> :-) No joke, there's at least one that I've heard of. Which reminds
> me, that guy was having trouble with the building dept. (who would
> have guessed? :-) ) I can only imagine the issues with pumped
> storage. Emergency valves for the firemen to use to shut off the flow,
> etc. Limitless opportunities for code weenies to have a field day. It
> would make lead-acid batteries seem like Legos in comparison.
>
> Wayne
Let's see.
One horsepower is 550 foot pounds per second. Assume a ten foot
effective minimum storage head, so 55 pounds of water per second. Or
seven gallons per second. Call it ten with highly unlikely inefficiencies.
7 x 60 = 420 gallons per minute per horsepower or about 500 GPM per
kilowatt returned. For eight hours duration 500 x 60 x 8 = 240,000
gallons of water.
About six acre feet per kilowatt or enough water to irrigate an acre
cotton field for an entire season. Three acres if you go drip.
10 kw returned would be 5000 GPM flow, or the typical rating of FOUR
fire engines.
Small scale storage is not deserving of ANY study.
The costs of the pump and the generator are utterly negligible compared
to the cost of the rest of the system.
Again, !!!THERE IS NO STORAGE PROBLEM!!!! Synchronous inversion to the
power grid is a near perfect storage solution here now that will remain
useful for at least 50 years. The grid instantly stores pv by converting
it to coal. Safely, simply and at near zero cost.
http://www.tinaja.com/glib/pvlect2.pdf
--
Many thanks,
Don Lancaster voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml email: don@tinaja.com
Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com
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>invest in two dedicated pieces of equipment, one for pumping and one for
>generation (twice the maintenance), or a specially designed (expensive)
>combination unit that can do both halves of the pumped storage cycle.
>And let's not forget the duty cycle of a typical well pump is measured in
>mere minutes a day over 10-20 year life. Operate it on a scale of a few
>hours a day and the life is probably going to be less.
>Obviously it is *not* a 'slam dunk' either way. More study is needed.