Comment by johanyc
20 hours ago
You need a reliable source for energy. Pumped storage is not. They are mostly good for dealing with the fluctuations of energy supply and demand. It crucially requires water to operate. You can't do much when there's a drought. Also, did some googling. The world’s largest pumped‑hydro storage plant (Fengning, China) stores nearly 40 GWh, delivering 3.6 GW for about 10.8 hours when full. Thats not even a day.
There are really three options for reliable baseload: coal, gas, nuclear. Pick your poison.
You're looking for the biggest which isn't all that important. Norway has just 78TWh[1] in storage like that. Which is 2000x your biggest example
And yes, I realize how well positioned Norway is for this. But you can put these wherever you have a stream and a big reservoir
1: https://energifaktanorge.no/en/norsk-energiforsyning/kraftpr...
Gas doesn't imply natural gas fwiw