[DrBazza]

I'm just cynically generalising - the rest of world compared to the UK has typically less stringent planning requirements, and more mountainous terrain. To store energy in other countries (except perhaps Holland..!) you build a hydro dam, and pump water into those dammed lakes using excess electricity to store it up for later release.

We have mountains (Wales, Lake District, Scotland), but the likelihood of creating lakes for hydro use is close to zero. And you would need many, many, flywheels to substitute for one lake.

[sloucher]

> the likelihood of creating lakes for hydro use is close to zero

Yes, because they'd be lochs, not lakes :-)

We already have some (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruachan_Power_Station) and are talking about building more (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-445...).

[flohofwoe]

Also, pumped-storage plants are massively big and expensive projects. E.g. the pumped-storage plant near my home town [1] (which I think was the biggest in Europe for a while) took two decades from planning to running [2].

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@50.514101,12.8731705,3067m/data...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markersbach_Pumped_Storage_Pow...

[jimnotgym]

There are two pumped storage stations in Wales that I know of. Dinorwig (where the power station is inside the mountain, as a student I got to go in there) and Ffestiniog. Wales has a long history of having dams built to provide water to English cities, see the Elan Valley, Llyn Vyrnwy, Llyn Clewedog and many more. The displacement of people and 'theft' of water even spurned a terrorist organisation to stop it called the Free Wales Army!

[pbhjpbhj]

>Wales has a long history ...//

Or to put it another way, Britain has a long history of building water capacity for British cities.

Scandalous! /s

[kitd]

Cofiwch Dryweryn!