After reading Jim Bates letter of April 7 I felt compelled to find Karl Meyer’s March 16 letter if only to read the allegedly hilarious “mumbo jumbo and mashing of words” and “personal opinion masquerading as facts.”
I found quite the opposite. I’ll let the environmental allegations of Meyer’s letter stand on their own merits and address Bates’ retort.
He started by getting some facts out of the way. Waaay out of the way. Out of the ballpark.
Because the pumped storage facility cannot produce a single watt of its own power, efficiency must be calculated by multiplying the pumped storage conversion efficiency (about 76 percent under ideal conditions) by the efficiency of the original source of that electricity used to pump the water up the mountain. What is our fuel source in this region? Mostly fracked methane, commonly known as “natural” gas.
Efficiency? About 33 percent. Overall efficiency after pumped storage? About 25 percent. Roughly the same as the best solar panels on the market today.
But the 75 percent of energy “wasted” by solar panels? Sunlight! The 75 percent of energy wasted by using gas-fired generators to pump water up a mountain and run a river backwards? Fracked methane.
Is this a smart way to use our resources? You decide.
John Ward
Gill