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A comment on Why Is Hydroelectricity So Green, and yet Unfashionable?. Parent comment

Re:Why Is Hydroelectricity So Green, and yet Unfashionable? by crote on Friday October 28, 2022 @04:50AM (#33369123)
In theory, yes. But I do not believe an oil field would be suitable.

Hydro relies on a pressure difference. This means you want the turbine located at the lower reservoir, which is going to be tricky with an oil well. Oil fields are not a hole filled with oil but instead are just porous rock, which greatly limits the flow rate you can achieve from a single well. Oil fields are already pressurized, so you'd actually need to put in energy to get water in there.

And of course you'd be contaminating the water with oil and gas, which makes the upper reservoir a bit of an issue.

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Re:Why Is Hydroelectricity So Green, and yet Unfashionable? by 01100011 on Friday October 28, 2022 @12:37PM (#33373763)
Sounds like oil fields are better suited to compressed gas storage. I wonder if salt caverns would work though? To solve the pump location issue, you could perhaps pump down air to get the water to come up.
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