Quote:
Originally Posted by The_bluester
.... but aside from the environmental effects of building honking big dams to store the water it is at least relatively benign in operation and uses up less environmentally unfriendly materials.
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Yes, dams aren't as environmentally friendly as many might believe. The discharge of cold de-oxygenated water is the biggest issue I'm aware of but they generally try to mitigate that problem. Of course if the storage is in a disused pit and not on a stream that is a major plus. The other enviro problem of course is the concrete. Making cement produces a lot of CO2. I expect that the CO2 savings of pumped hydro would offset the enviro costs but the calculations should be done and laid out plainly before we proceed.