[HN Gopher] New England's Largest Battery Is Hidden Inside a Mas...
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New England's Largest Battery Is Hidden Inside a Mass. Mountain
(2016)
 
Author : johnobrien1010
Score  : 19 points
Date   : 2022-05-25 21:15 UTC (1 hours ago)
 
web link (www.wbur.org)
w3m dump (www.wbur.org)
 
| juice_bus wrote:
| Tom Scott also did a great video[0] on this
| 
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jx_bJgIFhI
 
| rektide wrote:
| $10m project. What one would expect, pumped hydro:
| 
| > _Northfield Mountain is a naturalist 's wonderland. But if you
| look around, you'll see an unnatural site: a 5-billion-gallon
| battery._
| 
| Energy capacity: 5b gallons * 8.35lbs/gallon * kWh/2,655,220ft-lb
| (pounds raised 1 ft) = 15.6MWh per foot raised or lowered. At
| $10m, that's a ridiculous amount of capacity.
 
  | elihu wrote:
  | $10m is a new state initiative. This pumped hydro facility was
  | built 45 years ago, so not related to the new initiative.
 
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Spoiler: it's a pumped hydroelectric storage.
 
| tshaddox wrote:
| Pumped-storage hydro is cool. I first became aware of it in 2005
| when the catastrophic failure of this one in Missouri made local
| news:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taum_Sauk_Hydroelectric_Power_...
| 
| A section of the upper reservoir's dam wall was overtopped, the
| pumps continued to run, and the section failed, releasing a
| billion gallons of water in 12 minutes. The flow washed away the
| forest and soil down to the bedrock. One home was destroyed and
| its occupants injured, though thankfully there were no deaths.
| 
| The failure had several causes, but the most infamous one is that
| the failsafe gauge had been moved above the top of the dam wall
| to avoid false positives.
| 
| The reservoir was repaired and as far as I know continues to
| operate. I backpacked in the area several times and the dam wall
| has a striking appearance on the horizon.
 
| ge96 wrote:
| I wonder... What if you used a transparent container that
| utilized the sun to add pressure during the day while it's being
| used then pump it at night(cooler). Worth the effort for
| noticeable gain or no?
 
  | macondo wrote:
 
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Since the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant shut down two years ago,
| Northfield has been buying its off-peak operating power straight
| off the grid. But as more solar and wind comes online, Bakas
| believes the pumped storage generating station could one day run
| as a totally climate-friendly supplier of electricity.
| 
| > "I think the goal of our facility would be to look at the
| opportunities to purchase purely green, renewable power and be
| able to supply green power to the grid," he says.
| 
| So right now it's fueled by... gas and coal.
| 
| They could just buy clean, green energy from up north (if
| lobbyists hadn't killed the project). [0]
| 
| [0] https://apnews.com/article/election-2021-maine-hydropower-
| li...
 
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(page generated 2022-05-25 23:00 UTC)