Scottish Scientist

A cost-effective 100% renewable energy electricity solution for New Zealand.

The solution to dry years is more wind power generation, not more storage capacity with no energy to power the pumps.

Norway's hydro storage is mostly from snow melt & rain, some pumped hydro but crucially Norway has excess hydro generation power 30+GW to power pumping, unlike NZ which needs wind.

New Zealand’s Battery Project: Onslow pumped hydro is too big, too expensive and too stupid Dry years problem solved, more wind power, North Island pumped hydro – New Zealand 100% renewables without Onslow New Zealand exports hydroelectric power from the South Island to the North Is…

Onslowsaurus WASN'T a solution. So what is?

ISLAND South❌🆚North✅
ENERGY STORED 5,000GWh❌🆚<50GWh✅
STORAGE TIME inter-year❌🆚intra-week✅
POWER 1GW ❌🆚up to 3GW✅
COST $16 billion❌🆚a few $ billion?✅
scottishscientist.wordpress.com/2023/04/12/n...

Marc Daalder blocked me on Twitter in April 2023, so that's before Twitter was renamed to X.

Thanks. It was a shame when this guy was so quick to block me on X.
It really was his job to report the full range of scientific opinion on the Onslow project. There seemed to be a government-led group think where dissenting opinions were suppressed.

The study was barking up the wrong "inter-year" energy storage tree when only INTRA-WEEK energy storage is needed and indeed inter-year energy storage that you can never recharge even in the wettest of wet years because of insufficient renewable generation is pointless.
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New Zealand’s Battery Project: Onslow pumped hydro is too big, too expensive and too stupid Dry years problem solved, more wind power, North Island pumped hydro – New Zealand 100% renewables without Onslow New Zealand exports hydroelectric power from the South Island to the North Is…

It's wasteful/expensive not to store energy surpluses but NZ's pumped hydro need is -

ISLAND South❌🆚North✅
ENERGY STORED 5,000GWh❌🆚<50GWh✅
STORAGE TIME inter-year❌🆚intra-week✅
POWER 1GW ❌🆚up to 3GW✅
COST $16 billion❌🆚a few $ billion?✅

NZ 100% renewable energy electricity
tinyurl.com/NZ-RE100

New Zealand’s Battery Project: Onslow pumped hydro is too big, too expensive and too stupid Dry years problem solved, more wind power, North Island pumped hydro – New Zealand 100% renewables without Onslow New Zealand exports hydroelectric power from the South Island to the North Is…

NZ's pumped hydro options -
Lake Onslow extravagance🦕🆚 Economic pragmatism📈

ISLAND South❌🆚North✅
ENERGY STORED 5,000GWh❌🆚<50GWh✅
STORAGE TIME inter-year❌🆚intra-week✅
POWER 1GW ❌🆚up to 3GW✅
COST $16 billion❌🆚a few $ billion?✅

NZ 100% renewable energy electricity
tinyurl.com/NZ-RE100

New Zealand’s Battery Project: Onslow pumped hydro is too big, too expensive and too stupid Dry years problem solved, more wind power, North Island pumped hydro – New Zealand 100% renewables without Onslow New Zealand exports hydroelectric power from the South Island to the North Is…

See my blog post advising against the Lake Onslow project - and see my comment at the foot of the post advising against nuclear power for NZ.
scottishscientist.wordpress.com/2023/04/12/n...

Wave energy is a scam “Aberdeen-based ZOEX Ltd, the UK’s only female-founded wave energy company, has secured £531,000 in funding to support the next stage of its clean technology development.” – Water…

But the unsurmountable challenge for wave energy has got NOTHING to do with "salt water".🙄

The problem for wave energy is that that the economics of wind energy are so much better that wave energy can NEVER compete.

Wave energy is a bankrupt scam.
scottishscientist.wordpress.com/2025/05/29/w...

Existing tidal energy has developed adaptations for salt water which can be adopted for sea-water pumped hydro.

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You WILL forgive them for cancelling Lake Onslow / NZ Battery, just as soon as you have read this.

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The energy transition to renewables should be New Zealand's plan A but the Lake Onslow project was a planning fail.
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The Lake Onslow project was misconceived and would be of NO use for New Zealand's energy transition.

Megan Woods was captivated by the hydrologist whose bad energy idea Onslowsaurus was.

Woods is retiring from politics. Let Onslowsaurus retire with her.
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1️⃣ "Pumped storage hydropower operation for supporting clean energy systems"

This Review looks at how can power systems balance supply and demand using pumped hydro storage facilities:

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

STOP Swinney before he gasses Scots like pigs Scotland is now paying £2 million for First Minister Swinney’s batshit crazy plan to pipe poisonous concentrated carbon dioxide gas through eastern Scotland! When this CO₂ pipeline leaks, Sco…

"Scotland's future is in .. carbon capture"

The deadly CCS scam's future is mass poisoning disasters killing more people than Bhopal UNLESS CCS is banned.

STOP Swinney before he gasses Scots like pigs
scottishscientist.wordpress.com/2024/07/22/s...

"Natural gas-fired power plants provided 35% of the state's total net generation."
www.eia.gov/state/print....

You way will not get that down to 0% Mark. Biomass could.

Onslow is more like 1 man locked up in an empty vault big enough to store a year's supply of nuts on the South Island where nuts get delivered from the North Island for cracking & return.

The solution is 3 men each with a nutcracker based on the North Island. Cheap, fast, sane.

The near future alternative to biomass for backup power is to keep using fossil fuels.

The far future alternative to burning fuels for backup power is a building a sufficiency of wind, solar & energy storage.

Meanwhile, turning your nose up at #RE100 net-zero biomass equals excusing fossil fuels.

The Impact of Environmental Regulations on Power Generation Air pollution regulations have affected the design and economics of the world’s power generation fleet, resulting in many innovative control technologies.

For many years, air pollution control (APC) rules and regulations have governed the design and economics of the world’s power generation fleet. These rules have had a tremendous impact, improving air quality even while the fleet’s capacity has increased significantly
www.powermag.com/the-impact-o...

Was this your first time of tweeting a sentence including the word "wildfires" while discussing air pollution?

Would you care to elaborate as to why you seem reluctant to address air pollution from wildfires?

Is it a topic which causes you professional discomfort?😁

Particulate air pollution from wildfires is far worse than a properly emission-controlled biomass power station. You can legislate and regulate power stations but not wildfires. You can only prevent wildfires by commercial forestry.

To build a 100% renewable energy system, using solar and wind farms, the grid needs batteries which are rechargeable from the grid, using excess wind and solar power.

Pumped hydro or electric batteries can do that.
Convention hydro can't.

"Batteries" are rechargeable from the grid, from any power source.
So pumped hydro is a battery. But conventional hydro, with NO pumps isn't rechargeable, except by rain or melting snow, so that "hydro" is not really a "battery".
Scotland has both types of hydro.
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Fossil fuels lead to more horrible wildfire pollution than do biomass.
Biomass approaches net zero emissions as fossil fuels are phased out of every phase of the industry.
Fossil fuels have horrible CO2 emissions.
Please don't pretend that all scientists agree with your prejudice against biomass.

NZ RE100 grid energy storage needs 30+GWh (energy) / 3GW (power).

Batteries are cost effective & fast build for the 3GW of power.

NZ may choose N.I. pumped hydro for most of the 30+GWh of energy storage capacity but kicking the Onslow political football isn't a solution.
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How to convert old coal-fired power stations for the transition to renewable energy Options to convert coal-fired power station generating units for renewable energy operation – biomass back-up power hot-salt thermal energy storage and regeneration rotational inertia grid st…

The UK has been unlucky with bad free-marketeer governments who neglected the national interest to nationalise & convert coal-fired power stations for energy storage, not let them be vandalised after company accountants were left to do the adding up.

scottishscientist.wordpress.com/2022/04/27/o...

Scotland has enough for the whole UK.
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New Zealand’s Battery Project: Onslow pumped hydro is too big, too expensive and too stupid Dry years problem solved, more wind power, North Island pumped hydro – New Zealand 100% renewables without Onslow New Zealand exports hydroelectric power from the South Island to the North Is…

There are much better NZ pumped hydro projects than Lake Onslow.

Lake Onslow Project🆚 Economic alternatives
ISLAND South❌🆚North✅
ENERGY STORED 5,000GWh❌🆚<50GWh✅
POWER 1GW ❌🆚up to 3GW✅
COST $16 billion❌🆚a few $ billion?🤔

NZ 100% renewable energy electricity
tinyurl.com/NZ-RE100