Gravity powered cable cars

[TheBigSquash]

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/09/w...rains.html

This seems like a technology ideal for the wet side of Hawaii. Two rail cars are connected by a cable. One goes up when the other goes down. The whole system is powered by filling a water tank on the upper car to make it heavier, thus pulling the lower car up the hill.

A little of this, a little of that, pretty soon it's a farm.

[Carey]

Low tech, but high energy for the west side. For low energy, like the Fribourg car, you need high head/consistant flow like the east side streams (utilizing sluice gates like the Wailuku hydro plants....

But that, and any future run of the river hydro generators in Hawaii are highly doubtful to get the approval...so this would leave high cost pumping on high value land....

[pslamont]

I still want to see turbines placed in the channel between Maui and the Big Island. It is a unidirectional flow and is a no brainer for very low cost electricity for all. Sheesh!

I want to be the kind of woman that, when my feet
hit the floor each morning, the devil says

"Oh Crap, She's up!"