If you run out of land, build it in the ocean...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/11/energy_island/

......Then the interior of the circuit would be dredged out to create a 50m-deep, roughly 6 x 10 kilometre reservoir.......

50 meters deep. That is a substantial excavation, on DRY LAND. Just keeping formation water from upwelling and blowing out the bottom would be a formidable task. Never mind the pressure from the soft ooze on the sidewalls. Do they have any environmental restrictions on modifying the sea floor there ?? Probably not, eh ??

......Then the interior of the circuit would be dredged out to create a 50m-deep, roughly 6 x 10 kilometre reservoir.......

50 meters deep. That is a substantial excavation, on DRY LAND. Just keeping formation water from upwelling and blowing out the bottom would be a formidable task. Never mind the pressure from the soft ooze on the sidewalls. Do they have any environmental restrictions on modifying the sea floor there ?? Probably not, eh ??





I guess it all comes down to how badly we need it. The Germans were able to figure out how to turn coal into oil and ramp that process up very quickly. Their oil supplies were getting cut off and they had to do something. They were desperate.

We are now on the exact opposite of that extreme motivation. Oil prices are dropping and have recently dropped below $40 / barrel. Many people have relaxed and went to sleep on the problem. I'm guessing we will need a few more kicks in the head to change our fossil fuel burning ways.

let's for example say that the Middle East gets pissed off at the West and cuts off most oil shipments (bombs the export infrastructure). We would then be in deep ****. We only have a few months of reserve and we would then be in a war-like panic mode. That would not be fun and we would probably see some dramatic events including starvation and death of a percentage our citizens. It would immediately result in war and our bombs would be falling all over the Middle East.

So, what do we do? After staring at each in dead silence we would have to come up with a plan. How the heck are we going to keep our transportation fleet and economy running, even in disaster mode. We are lucky! North America has vast resources of everything from energy to arable land. We would have to change just about everything but eventually we could do it, even if our population was cut in half or worse. The motivation to change as fast as possible would be very strong as we would hear about our citizens dying every day for lack of food. There would be no capital available because the financial markets would have long collapsed.

In this crazy and desperate environment it just might make sense to use underground or underwater pumped storage hydro technology. It's very low tech because it just needs two reservoirs of water at different heights. It might be just the right solution to balance our demand and supply of energy.

I can even envision tunnel boring machines being used to create the underground / underwater volume. Imagine a subway tunnel bored deep underground and one of equal volume bored closer to the surface. You just need a two-way turbine connecting the two and you have the potential for unlimited and invisible energy storage. Hey, we might be in World War III at the time and need bomb proof electrical energy storage. You never know! ;)

I do know one thing for sure, underground / underwater pumped storage hydro technology would work perfectly. It's not a science project.

1. Hydro is bad. It builds evil dams and causes native fishes to be ejected from their homeland and become like palestinians, angry roaming Fish terrorists. :mad:

2. Much to your chagrin, a very economically feasible way of making glass sealed mass underground cavernous excavations is through the use use of engineered nuclear explosions. :)

2. Much to your chagrin, a very economically feasible way of making glass sealed mass underground cavernous excavations is through the use use of engineered nuclear explosions. :)


ahhahaahah
:rolleyes:

Glad someone can get a chuckle around here. Actually I read that years ago as it pertained to making petroleum storage resevoirs. The angry fish are nothing to sneeze at.

Can't we just bring the moon a little closer when we need it and use the tides?:)

Not to make light of a serious problem but we've got to keep our sense of humor.

Heat, batteries (EV aftermarket), pumped hydro...intermittent renewables will probably need them all as well as non-renewables for a long time.