Turning Canada into a Giant Battery

Y2Kyoto 39 Comments

The potential energy contained in the waters of the Great Lakes amounts to approximately six thousand terawatt hours, enough to supply the US and Canada with electricity for an entire year were the lakes to be drained to sea level. This of course will never happen, but there may be potential for partial utilization of the resource. A pumped hydro system that uses Lakes Huron and Michigan as the upper reservoir and Lake Ontario as the lower could theoretically generate 10 terawatt-hours, or more, of seasonal energy storage without changing lake levels significantly. The most likely show-stopper is the increased likelihood of flooding in the lower St. Lawrence River during pumped hydro discharge cycles.

The pumped hydro storage potential of the Great Lakes
4085873136_deb8e5dfa0_o.jpg
Niagara Falls run dry in 1969

39 Replies to “Turning Canada into a Giant Battery”

  2. Great idea. Will never happen
    Environuts will block it because some non-descript bony fish will be harmed, and they will sue, sue, sue.

  3. That picture coincides with the time they shut the AMERICAN Falls off on Purpose…to shore up the massive erosion of the underlying rock. It wasn’t as intimated…run dry. That was a two – three year project if I recall correctly..?
    Anyone..?
    I was there in summer of 69 as a 17 yr old Air Cadet taking the 6 week Senior Leaders Course at CFB Borden. 111 Squadron YVR
    ON a weekend tour to Niagara, I and a couple of my Cadet buddies watched as a woman – she wore clothing that looked like a Local Cafeteria server or Restaurant server uniform (CDN side), slid under the railings about 50 M upstream of the CDN Falls, looked around, turned and jumped/fell into the water…We Saw her go over the falls – and were totally freaked out.!!! We ran to a cop, told him what had happened and he calmly told us it happens 4-5 times per week…we were literally stunned at that revelation.
    Yea, I remember that day clearly ….and the And the American Falls were shut down.

  4. Last I heard the existing pumped storage on the Canadian side of Niagara is mothballed, and Niagara itself is shut down on windy days so that wind operators can merrily overcharge us all for electricity. Because smart liberals know you can only save the world by shutting down practically free power from a water fall that doesn’t even require a dam to flood the area. And wind power is free too, that’s why they have to charge so much for it. Liberal logic 101.
    So while all this is an interesting theoretical exercise, what source would it replace?

  5. This is soviet-style thinking.
    Massive environmental damage is obvious but because it doesn’t involve fossil fuels it is Green.

  6. It’s a truly absurd idea, as outlined well in the main article and comments. 10 TWh is a paltry amount, and all this to do nothing more than balance unneeded wind and solar. As a reminder of scale, 10 TWh is nothing more than the annual production of just two Bruce or Darlington nuclear reactors. Particularly important is one of the article comments noting quite accurately that the system will have about 40% friction losses, making it only 6 TWh.
    Economically it’s nonsense as well. Given the tunnel construction cost, it would be many times the cost of the entire Darlington station. And it won’t actually produce any power at all. It merely stores up to 6 TWh for use at other times. Finally please note that this system would be a cost ADDITION to the renewable energy cost of producing power in the first place.
    What Roger Andrews’ excellent thought experiment demonstrates is that green power renewable schemes are complete stupidity beyond a certain scale.

  7. As Niagara Fall hydro is run of the river – no storage – turning off the turbines for any reason is a complete waste of money.

  8. “Adding 44 billion m³ of water to Lake Ontario…could increase its level by well over 2 metres. The implications would be undesirable to say the least.”
    Speak for yourself, kemosabe. Destroying the Toronto and maybe taking out a few hundred thousand leftist voters is far from “undesirable” in my books.
    Let the Eastern Bastards freeze/boil/drown in the dark.
    GGG

  10. That’s why it makes my blood boil, the stupidity of the Ontario liberal governments of McGuinty and Wynne is beyond mind boggling. I doubt there is a better source of energy in the entire world, but we shut it down regularly. As I noted above, we also don’t use the pumped storage at all, after spending millions to build and more recently refurbish it. Excess power from the falls at night used to fill the reservoir which then supplied peak power during the day – now not even used because of agreements with wind generators (coincidentally many of whom have liberal connections)

  11. When do the government run hearings start? … 2030? and so long as it’s only union built, we won’t have to worry about any implications of having this completed in our lifetimes.
    The Republic of Western Canada / Cascadia will be well on it’s feet by then.

  12. I guess Is should note that this post by Roger Andrews is conducted as thought exercise to illustrate the scale of energy storage problems. I calculate that a 1 GW nuclear power plant will generate 8.8TWh in a year (100% load). So the question is this. Would you prefer to have one nuke or thousands of windmills, and Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence river going up and down like a ladies drawers 🙂

  13. Euan, like yours … that was my first reaction to this brilliant article … that unlike here in CA, where we have to DAM wild rivers and fill “little” Yosemite Valleys to generate hydro power … the Great Lakes hydro plan could actually CREATE whitewater rather than destroy it! Brilliant! What could the “environmentalists” possibly complain about? Sorry, nevermind. I got carried-away there for a moment. Screw it. Let’s just build nuclear power plants round the perimeter of every Great Lake with cooling towers every 20mi. …

  14. not such a great idea dumping fresh water for power, when we can generate all the power needed with fossil fuels for about 600 years.

  17. That anyone would even consider the idea of making natural hydro power subservient to the normalization of the unreliables is confirmation of Delingpole’s description of wind farms as Bat-chomping, Bird-slicing “Eco-crucifixes”. The rent seekers continue to mouth the line that solar and wind are becoming so inexpensive but I don’t hear any of them offering to compete by taking on the grid in its entirety. That is always some else’s problem.

  18. In an arena filled with pie in the sky pipe dreams, pumped storage is the worst
    of the lot. The concept is so hideously expensive that it cannot pass the
    laugh test. Pumping huge volumes of water from a lower reservoir to a higher
    one sounds good until you realize the cost to pump the water exceeds the price
    one could sell the electricity for.
    This concept might make sense to cover short-term emergency conditions, but there
    are two major drawbacks; Either the taxpayer gets hosed in the form of government
    subsidies or the customers get hosed in the form of higher peak demand prices.
    This is the environmentalist version of a perpetual motion machine!
    The proposal in this story would easily double existing electricity rates.

  19. ” Let’s just build nuclear power plants round the perimeter of every Great Lake with cooling towers every 20mi. …” That would likely provide enough power for the entire planet but the transmission loss would be prohibitive. Did you not get that just one large Nuke would be equivalent to the theoretical but absurd proposal?

  20. Of course I get it … and clearly understand that one or two nuclear plants would be sufficient for the region … however! I was simply building in some “redundancy”.
    And yes, common sense suggests that pumping the water back upslope would more than cancel out the energy (and $) generates. However, I am certain we could use solar and wind power to push the water back uphill. Then … it would be FREE!!! *snicker*.

  21. @South of34
    Pumped Hydro Storage actually works very well in the UK when paired with nuclear. Every evening when the spot electricity price is low the reservoirs are filled and every day at peak demand (18:00±2 hrs) when the price is high, they are drained. Its a very simple price arbitrage and you make money every day. But with RE it very different. You fill your reservoir when its windy. But then you sit and wait for maybe 3 weeks for the wind to drop before you generate and then you empty your reservoir and its still not windy so you switch on the CCGT that has been standing idle for weeks and hope there’s an LNG tanker close by.

  22. spot on steakman.
    I recollect the project well, the successful intent was to ‘tidy up’ the bottom.
    I also remember the big rock teetering, and then one day it was gone.
    and the woman in the restaurant uniform, we lived in St C for 15 yr and found out the suicides are NOT publicized for fear of copycats.
    as far as st lawrence flooding, well that would help clean up the raw sewage the queerbecers dump:
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-city-sewage-dump-1.3860568

  23. *
    fat chance any of this could be implemented…
    the lunatic left in ontario can’t even figure
    out which bathroom to use.
    *

  25. Destroying the environment to save the environment. Sounds about right. It’s just what they do.

  26. When the American Falls was closed off with a Coffer dam across to the Island(s) separating them from the Canadian Falls My Wife and I took a half day Holiday and drove from St. Catharines; Ontario and passed over the bridge to Niagara Falls, New York.
    Parking the car near the small bridge leading to Goat Island the island as I remember to which the Coffer dam was attached from the Niagara River Bank in New York State. My Wife and I walked along the pathway beside the now-dry Niagara river above the American Falls. Our five year old Daughter holding my hand and My Wife following holding onto our two year old Son’s hand.
    As we came closer to what would normally be the Brink of the Falls, now just a Cliff with a great pile of rocks at the bottom of the Cliff. The Talus of rocks was the reason for the American Falls to become dry. It was an American Corps of Engineers Project to determine if it was possible to secure the Brink of the falls collapsing and adding to the Talus; essentially making the American Falls become essentially a large Rapids instead of a Waterfall.
    The Project consited of pouring or forcing various colours of dye(s) through the cracks at and near the Brink.
    being just as dumb then as i am now I stepped over the very low rope at the edge of the pathway and with My Daughter in hand walked out on the dry riverbed. My Wife after making several sensible comments became as intrigued as I and followed me out on the dry riverbed to look over the Brink.
    We checked out the pink and blue dyed areas; pointed out Canada across the Niagara River to the kids and turned around and walked back to pathway on Goat Island. As we walked back there were about thirty or forty other people now walking down the dry riverbed towards the Brink.
    Just as I stepped over the low Rope on to the pathway I could hear several whistles blowing loudly and saw many Niagara Parks Rangers and Police running towards the people walking on the dry riverbed.
    My Family continued walking along the Pathway and returned to our car. A bit of extra excitement added to our standing in the middle of the American Falls one day in the innumerable visits we made to Niagara Falls with Family & Firends over the almost five decades of that day. Naturally Family & Friends have become quite blasé when the tale of the Falls Brinkmanship is retold; ad nauseam; so my Children say.

  28. Turning Canada into a Giant Battery.., in which the aggravated citizens batter some sense into those who cost us.I’m in, the only relief for my boiling blood, could be mass slaughter of useless parasitic morons..
    Oh Wazit..Pumped Hydro???
    Nevermind, stupid this massive is unassailable.
    Enjoy the decline.
    Although the concept has some real unpleasant side effects that would be priceless to see inflicted on Toronto and Detroit.
    I almost hope they would be stupid enough to actually fully attempt such a plan.

  29. Pumping huge volumes of water from a lower reservoir to a higher
    one sounds good until you realize the cost to pump the water exceeds the price
    one could sell the electricity for.
    Pumped storage has been suggested as a way of utilizing any excess output power produced by renewable systems. There are, of course, problems with that as, unless one has a way of keeping the water from freezing, its usefulness in certain climates is rather limited.

  30. i was there with my family, all ready to see the mighty niagra roaring over the cliff and nothin’! it was interesting though…bought some fireworks on the canadian side before we left for home.

  31. naturally, if such a system was ever to be engineered, it would NO LONGER be just ‘surplus’ electricity, but morph into PLANNED generating intended to feed the storage system. to of course, *justify* the cost overruns, bla bla bla.
    Im not an engineer but suspect the permutations and possible ways it could go sideways are even bigger than the con, er, CONcept.
    I notice no one has said a peep over my posting elsewhere about the horrid financial consequences of the darling CONservative flaherty’s
    meddling in the mtg market to cater to the wealthy.
    can anybody think of a leftist revolution that did NOT follow ghastly, grinding exploitation of the peasantry? conservatives, right wingers *do it to themselves* with their ‘wall street’ ‘greed is good’ view on life. I am in no way defending the leftoids, but pointing out the *opportunities* presented by the rampant generations long grisly, grinding. lethal exploitation SETS THE STAGE for the coup.
    Fwance 1789, russia 1905 & 1917, south america, mehico, china. add your own to the list. there’s plenty examples. one of the reasons S Vietnam fell was the ‘deep state’ endemic and irreversible CORRUPTION of the thieu dictatorship.
    the worst of the right wing rich-get-richer are among the BEST ‘allies’ of the revolutionaries and it it truly pathetic just how rapacious the greed is. take a gander at any episode of ‘American Greed’ for a glimpse into the mind and methods of a kleptocrat.
    it isnt ideology, it is basic. humahn. nature. at work.

  34. Freezing isn’t an issue at all. the volumes of water are far too large for that and the water is usually pumped up and then run back down in the same 24 hour period.
    the big issues are losses due to friction and other inefficiencies. That plus the cost and they generate money only about 4-8 hours per day means that the difference between the purchase price of pumping energy has to be very low (at or near zero) and the sale price – very high 20x or more the pumping energy cost

  36. It’s always interesting to think “outside the box.” But to be of real value, any such exercise needs to at least take some of the practical aspects into account. The following come to mind right off the bat – I won’t bother to elaborate much, but each and every one is significant.
    First, peak electric energy demand in Ontario in the winter isn’t much different from the peak demand in the summer (each around 25,000 MW). My guess is that New York and New England summer and winter peaks are also not that far apart, but with a somewhat higher peaks in the summer. This means that the “seasonal” energy storage problem” that this is aimed at isn’t actually so much of a problem. The real value of pumped storage for Ontario, at least, might be within weekdays (on-peak vs off-peak hours) and within a week (weekdays, weekends), and perhaps from one month to another. This doesn’t exactly fill that bill.
    Second, my gut tells me that the efficiency losses would be far greater than “normal” pumping generating stations simply because of the huge volumes of water and long distances involved. Surely it takes much more energy to pump 5,000 cubic metres per second up 100 metres and then for 100 km than over one or two kilometres.
    Third, it isn’t a “closed system.” The Great Lakes drainage area is around a quarter of a million square kilometres. Snowmelt and rainfall in the spring, dry periods in the summer, declining natural inflows over the winter all contribute to the annual water level fluctuations shown in the graphs. In addition there are fluctuations over periods as long as 10 or 20 years (a number of wet or dry years in a row). So whatever extra “layer” of water is being talked about, over the long run it would be on top of water levels that are naturally high (or below levels that are naturally low).
    Fourth, raising the levels of the upstream lakes would create higher flows down the natural water courses (St. Clair River in the case of Lake Huron/Michigan and Niagara River in the case of Lake Erie). This, in turn, would require additional control structures, without which much of the pumped water would simply do an “end run” around the pumping turbine generators. Effectively, this is another loss of efficiency.
    Fifth, the International Boundary between Canada and the United States runs roughly down the middle of lakes Superior, Huron, Erie and Ontario. Jurisdiction is shared in accordance with a treaty between Canada and the United States (1909 Boundary Waters Treaty). Flow over Niagara Falls for scenic purposes is also legislated and tightly regulated. The environmental impacts alone would take years of studies and huge changes in legislation because there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of property owners around the lakes and downstream on the St. Lawrence River whose properties would be adversely affected. The list of environmental benefits would be very short. Both Plan A and Plan B have tunnels or canals entirely within the Province of Ontario.
    Finally (for these purposes), navigation on the Great Lakes is a multi-billion dollar industry that would be seriously affected.
    So … even though this might be fun to think about, it’s what you might call a “non-starter” in virtually any way you would think about it.

  37. Isn’t the “lower St Lawrence River” in the province of Quebec? I say, isn’t that killing two birds with one stone?

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