It's going to take the same amount of energy to pump the water back up into to the dams as you would generate with the water....................
Not quite, actually. Due to water turbines [even those designed specifically for purpose] being less than 100% efficient as either pumps or motors, and frictional losses as the water flows through the pipes, it's not possible to retrieve all of the energy input to the storage. The same principle applies to storage batteries, by the way.
Nah, more like desperate, now that the polytickians are looking right down the barrel, at the deficiencies of decisions made by their predecessors...
