Re: Even the New York Times withholds the address

[Vadim Antonov <avg () exigengroup com>]

Just to keep it off-topic :)  The kinetic water-based accumulating
stations actually do exist, though they use elevated reservoirs to store
the water.  The water is pumped up during off-peak hours, and then
electricity is generated during peaks.  This is not common, though,
because most energy sources can be throttled to save fuel, or to
accumulate in-flowing water naturally.  However, I think we will see more
of those accumulating stations augmenting green energy sources (wind,
solar, geothermal, tidal) which have erratic performance on shorter time
scales, unless things like very large supercapacitors or hydrolizers/fuel
cells become a lot cheaper.

In some cases accumulating stations are useful in places remote from any 
regular power sources because they can minimize energy loss in long 
transmission lines (it is proportional to current squared, while delivered 
power is linear to the current).

--vadim

On Tue, 19 Nov 2002, blitz wrote:

> One last addition to this idiotic water idea.. since the water doesn't get 
> up there to the reservoir on the roof by itself, add your costs of huge 
> pumps, plus the cost of pumping it up there, and a less than 100% 
> efficiency in converting falling water to electricity. Also, add heating it 
> in the winter to keep it liquid instead of solid, decontamination chemicals 
> (cant have any Leigonella bacillus growing in there in the summer) Its all 
> moot, as the weight factor makes this a non-starter.