Just to keep it off-topic :) The kinetic water-based accumulating stations actually do exist, though they use elevated reservoirs to store the water. The water is pumped up during off-peak hours, and then electricity is generated during peaks. This is not common, though, because most energy sources can be throttled to save fuel, or to accumulate in-flowing water naturally. However, I think we will see more of those accumulating stations augmenting green energy sources (wind, solar, geothermal, tidal) which have erratic performance on shorter time scales, unless things like very large supercapacitors or hydrolizers/fuel cells become a lot cheaper. In some cases accumulating stations are useful in places remote from any regular power sources because they can minimize energy loss in long transmission lines (it is proportional to current squared, while delivered power is linear to the current). --vadim On Tue, 19 Nov 2002, blitz wrote:
One last addition to this idiotic water idea.. since the water doesn't get up there to the reservoir on the roof by itself, add your costs of huge pumps, plus the cost of pumping it up there, and a less than 100% efficiency in converting falling water to electricity. Also, add heating it in the winter to keep it liquid instead of solid, decontamination chemicals (cant have any Leigonella bacillus growing in there in the summer) Its all moot, as the weight factor makes this a non-starter.