this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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To make solar power viable, we need a solution for overnight energy storage.

Batteries are complicated.

Do you know what isn't? Water go up. stonks-up

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

yeah but in this case it's just a pipe and a turbine it's gotta make move

And you'd still need to make a saltwater lake somewhere uphill.

water tanks tho

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

Saltwater damages turbine blades very fast. Using saltwater would require some very different engineering for the turbine blades, which might not be worth the benefit of being able to use saltwater.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Turbines are precision machines. And if we're talking utility scale installations here, we want an upper reservoir measured in thousands of cubic meters, not liters.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

The pipe and turbine would break so fast it's basically useless. Also, tanks are waaaay more expensive than digging a hole in the ground.

There's good reasons why freshwater open reservoirs are used. If tanks and brine were usable, people already would be using them.