What will they think of next?

Up down, up down

What if you could generate electricity by filling trucks with water at the top of a long hill, then using the trucks' breaks to charge a powerful battery on the way down? A short description:

We propose a more flexible alternative for hydropower that features electric trucks. The proposed system consists of using existing road infrastructure that crosses mountain ranges to transport water down the mountain in electricity truck containers, transform the potential energy of the water into electricity with the regenerative braking of the truck and use this electricity to charge the battery of the truck. The ideal configuration of the ETH system is in mountainous regions with steep roads, where the same electrical trucks can be used to generate hydropower from different sites. This increases the chances that there will be water available to generate hydropower and thus increases the capacity factor of the system. 

Another benefit of the system is that only a small barrier is required to abstract water from the river, there is no requirement for reservoirs to regulate the flow of the river. The reservoirs of this system are containers parked close to a river stream on the mountain, which are filled up with water extracted from the river. After the container is filled up, it is ready to be transported down the mountain and to generate hydropower. When the truck reaches the base of the mountain range, the container is parked close to the river, and the water in the container is slowly returned to the river to minimise the impact on the aquatic life.

Read all about it.

I pass this along, not because this scheme is a be-all and end-all suggestion for clean power generation and stream life sustainability, but because the mere idea is a reminder of the ingenuity which people all over the world are using to challenge our dependence on fossil fuels. Oil and gas make us a dirty, dependent society; the technological possibilities for breaking the stranglehold of our corporation overlords are wider than we might imagine. And such imaginings are our best path to a stable climate, peace, prosperity. Go modern garage mechanics!

Via Dr. Volts.