Tram Town
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
| Category: Energy Miranda Devine crossed the Tasman over Easter and found herself in the beautiful country of the Otago peninsula. It turns out the Kiwis have discovered the secret of perpetual motion. Pump water up into a dam and then use it to generate hydro electricity. And what powers the pumps, you might ask. The electricity, I suppose. But what about energy loss in the process, you might also ask. Easy, cover that with subsidies funded by carbon credits. I have my man on the ground down Otago way on the job as we speak. Expect updates. UPDATE: from my MOTG: Well, I suppose it is possible that the pumping is only over a short rise to provide water to an existing power station making use of a greater fall than the rise required to get the water there. The article did say that it made little commercial sense and that it seemed beneficial only after the convoluted system of carbon credits and so on were applied. There is also the possibility that the "pumping" would involve using slave labour to carry the water bucket by bucket and then, as everyone knows, the cost is zero.I admit I had considered that the pumping might be only over a little distance but with far from perfect efficieny in the pumps and the fact that any energy used to pump the water up has to discount the value of the process I think this is idiocy in the extreme. |
