Taking hold everywhere, the oldest, most proven energy storage technology, pumped hydro, is ramping up once again in the energy transition. Compressed Air Storage is a newer tech, but equally easy to understand. Abandoned mines offer opportunities for both.
Stories here from all over.
Worth remembering that we will be doing much less mining in a renewable world, but for those communities that have been left behind with abandoned or tapped out mines, there very well can be a future.
These sites already have most of the necessary industrial site permitting, as well as good access to electrical transmission infrastructure, and there are thousands of them in the US and worldwide. Here, stories from Australia and two corners of the US.
Below, Australian Engineering Firm Mott MacDonald produced this piece describing conversion of an abandoned Gold Mine in Australia to pumped storage.
Roman Sedortsov of Michigan Tech discusses recent research on viability of metallic mines across the Northern US.
Just discovered this interview with Dr Sedortsov and a colleague, discussing specific advantages of siting pumped hydro in old mines.
Interesting idea, hope it gets further study. I’ve been aware of Ludington over on the other side of Lake Michigan from me, but also aware of the impact of hydrological processes on underground and open-pit mines affecting ground and surface waters.
This approach would have to lead with very solid site-specific studies of the potential impacts of metals, radioactives, acid production and possible escape of any of the water through processes beyond evaporation.
If this deals with open-pit mines, dealing also with acidic surface water issues like at the Berkeley Pit in Montana makes it sound like using former open pit hard-rock mines would be touchy.
One possibility that would be interesting would be the purpose-building of upper/lower cavities in the many deep salt beds under a lot of the central US. Relatively easy to create the cavities at needed scale (and expand) and then just add water and the machinery built for saline conditions.
good points. Worth noting the acidic mine runoff is a problem at many abandoned mines, and designing an energy storage facility as a way to monetize a creative solution makes sense from that perspective alone.