To make solar power viable, we need a solution for overnight energy storage.
Batteries are complicated.
Do you know what isn't? Water go up. 
To make solar power viable, we need a solution for overnight energy storage.
Batteries are complicated.
Do you know what isn't? Water go up.
you can use saltwater for it though, doesn't need to be fresh water or treated in any way, just a physical medium to make turbine go brrr
Machinery and saltwater generally don't mix very well. And you'd still need to make a saltwater lake somewhere uphill.
yeah but in this case it's just a pipe and a turbine it's gotta make move
water tanks tho
Saltwater damages turbine blades very fast. Using saltwater would require some very different engineering for the turbine blades, which might not be worth the benefit of being able to use saltwater.
Turbines are precision machines. And if we're talking utility scale installations here, we want an upper reservoir measured in thousands of cubic meters, not liters.
The pipe and turbine would break so fast it's basically useless. Also, tanks are waaaay more expensive than digging a hole in the ground.
There's good reasons why freshwater open reservoirs are used. If tanks and brine were usable, people already would be using them.