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A comment on Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?. Parent comment

Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast? by manfredo on Thursday December 03, 2020 @01:40AM (#25286166)
Pumped hydroelectricity is geographically dependent - you need a valley or mountain that you can dam up to build pumped hydro. While it may be great for South Australia, the region examined in your linked paper, it's wrong to assume that this availability is uniform.
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Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast? by nl on Friday December 04, 2020 @01:26AM (#25299618)
The available isn't uniform, but it sure is widespread!

"The perception has been there are limited sites for pumped hydro around the world, but we have found hundreds of thousands."

https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu-finds-530000-potent...

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Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast? by manfredo on Friday December 04, 2020 @03:19PM (#25307253)
This paper just ran an algorithm over a heightmap, and pinpointed potential reservoirs. This is a far cry from actually identifying feasible sites. The massive density of hydroelectric storage in the Himalayas, for instance, is far too remote to be developed at anything approaching reasonable cost. Not to mention, it still leaves swathes of places like Central north America, and much of Northern Europe without access to hydroelectric storage.
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Re:Why did renewables become so cheap so fast? by nl on Saturday December 05, 2020 @12:00AM (#25311909)
The European electricity market is already very interconnected, so I doubt that would be a problem there at least.
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