Why are things so heavy in the future?
April 26, 2023 10:39 AM Subscribe
Gravity batteries are a means of storing and using energy by raising and lowering mass. They are being put into production.
What they lack in energy and cost advantage over pumped hydro, they gain in attraction to investors.
These are batteries are powered by capital, not gravity.
posted by angelplasma at 10:53 AM on April 26, 2023 [20 favorites]
These are batteries are powered by capital, not gravity.
posted by angelplasma at 10:53 AM on April 26, 2023 [20 favorites]
I see limited potential
posted by Glomar response at 11:00 AM on April 26, 2023 [46 favorites]
posted by Glomar response at 11:00 AM on April 26, 2023 [46 favorites]
Wait isn’t pumped hydro just a kind of gravity battery? *reads article*.
I would still say so but no they’re talking about something else which they claim is cheaper to make at least in certain places (like if you already have a big hill that makes pumped hydro easier)
posted by aubilenon at 11:18 AM on April 26, 2023
I would still say so but no they’re talking about something else which they claim is cheaper to make at least in certain places (like if you already have a big hill that makes pumped hydro easier)
posted by aubilenon at 11:18 AM on April 26, 2023
I'm completely shocked that all of these schemes involve crazy custom weights, carriers, and elevators. Ships have been raising and lowering tonnes of anchor chains for hundreds of years. Surely that would be easier/cheaper?
posted by Popular Ethics at 11:23 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Popular Ethics at 11:23 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
You just know they'll be digging too greedily and too deep.
posted by whuppy at 11:30 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by whuppy at 11:30 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
I think about the chamber at the bottom of the mineshaft beneath that huge weight, the "mineshaft gap," so to speak. I think it's imperative that there be a set of stone doors leading into that chamber, and some mystic artifact on a pedestal there that, when lifted off its stand, locks the doors and lowers the weight. I'm generally in favor of ways that life can be made more like Dungeons & Dragons.
At least the dangers are entertaining. I feel for the poor spouse and children left by the first electrical squishing accident, but it is an objectively funny way to go.
posted by JHarris at 11:32 AM on April 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
At least the dangers are entertaining. I feel for the poor spouse and children left by the first electrical squishing accident, but it is an objectively funny way to go.
posted by JHarris at 11:32 AM on April 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
Pumped hydro has some ecological disadvantages. When demand occurs and you let loose all that water through the turbines usually it exits into a river (from which the water is also pumped up the hill in low demand periods). That creates a lot of sloshing and havoc in the river and erodes the riverbank. It's like a little spring flood every day. In my neck of the woods, it makes the Connecticut River run backwards for miles upstream, which is not a Good Thing.
posted by beagle at 11:34 AM on April 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by beagle at 11:34 AM on April 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
I suppose the trick would be to look for something heavy and containerisable that already needs storage space. Combination gravity battery and grain silo? Library? Car park? Self-storage units? Capsule hotel? (It was cold last night, so my 18th-floor room is on the ground floor this morning...)
But most things aren't heavier than water, and this does sound a lot less reliable than pumped storage.
posted by offog at 11:35 AM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
But most things aren't heavier than water, and this does sound a lot less reliable than pumped storage.
posted by offog at 11:35 AM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
I knew I'd heard about this years ago, so I dug up a couple of contrary opinions.
A short video with a critical take on Energy Vault [youtube]
Another longer one [youtube]
posted by allegedly at 11:36 AM on April 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
A short video with a critical take on Energy Vault [youtube]
Another longer one [youtube]
posted by allegedly at 11:36 AM on April 26, 2023 [7 favorites]
In my neck of the woods, it makes the Connecticut River run backwards for miles upstream, which is not a Good Thing.
"If you wait long enough by the river, you will see the bodies of your enemies float by." -Sun Tzu
"Also if you keep waiting, they'll come back, then float down again, lol what" -Sun Tzu (attributed)
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:43 AM on April 26, 2023 [29 favorites]
"If you wait long enough by the river, you will see the bodies of your enemies float by." -Sun Tzu
"Also if you keep waiting, they'll come back, then float down again, lol what" -Sun Tzu (attributed)
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:43 AM on April 26, 2023 [29 favorites]
Without actually looking at the links yet, why do I get perpetual motion vibes?
posted by njohnson23 at 11:45 AM on April 26, 2023
posted by njohnson23 at 11:45 AM on April 26, 2023
I suppose the trick would be to look for something heavy and containerisable that already needs storage space.
I like the idea of a gravity battery made of chemical batteries.
posted by Foosnark at 11:49 AM on April 26, 2023 [11 favorites]
I like the idea of a gravity battery made of chemical batteries.
posted by Foosnark at 11:49 AM on April 26, 2023 [11 favorites]
You could 'mine' existing mountain ranges with this technology once it’s developed.
I wonder how long the Rockies could meet US energy needs before we exhausted all the exploitable elevation differences.
posted by jamjam at 11:53 AM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
I wonder how long the Rockies could meet US energy needs before we exhausted all the exploitable elevation differences.
posted by jamjam at 11:53 AM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Without actually looking at the links yet, why do I get perpetual motion vibes?
Maybe you should look at the links first?
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:55 AM on April 26, 2023 [18 favorites]
Maybe you should look at the links first?
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:55 AM on April 26, 2023 [18 favorites]
Without actually looking at the links yet, why do I get perpetual motion vibes?
It isn't perpetual motion. My understanding is that when electricity is plentiful they use it to raise the weights converting the electricity into potential kinetic energy. Then when there isn't enough electricity being generated the weights are lowered converting that kinetic energy back to electricity. There will be losses in the process but even in a perfect theoretical system the best you're doing is getting back the energy that was put into it.
I like the idea of gravity batteries because you aren't dealing with chemical ones that will degrade over time and don't always recycle well. But it would be better if the gravity batteries could be doing useful work at the same time.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:57 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
It isn't perpetual motion. My understanding is that when electricity is plentiful they use it to raise the weights converting the electricity into potential kinetic energy. Then when there isn't enough electricity being generated the weights are lowered converting that kinetic energy back to electricity. There will be losses in the process but even in a perfect theoretical system the best you're doing is getting back the energy that was put into it.
I like the idea of gravity batteries because you aren't dealing with chemical ones that will degrade over time and don't always recycle well. But it would be better if the gravity batteries could be doing useful work at the same time.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:57 AM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I suppose the trick would be to look for something heavy and containerisable that already needs storage space.
You probably shouldn't use my brother, then, because he ain't heavy. That babe I want so bad it's driving me mad, on the other hand.
posted by indexy at 11:58 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
You probably shouldn't use my brother, then, because he ain't heavy. That babe I want so bad it's driving me mad, on the other hand.
posted by indexy at 11:58 AM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
I suppose the trick would be to look for something heavy and containerisable that already needs storage space.
Heavy and modular? how about trains? One proposal uses trains going uphill and downhill.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 12:00 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Heavy and modular? how about trains? One proposal uses trains going uphill and downhill.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 12:00 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
A startup called ARES (Advanced Rail Energy Storage) got some press in 2016 for a similar project they wanted to construct in Pahrump, NV, basically a huge railyard dragging trainloads of cement up an inclined grade. That specific project is far behind schedule, but this Vox article has a handy diagram. It seems like a good idea to be able to store hundreds or thousands of megawatt-hours without a commensurate amount of volatile battery storage in the desert. There's a lot of adjacent solar, and the amount of capacitance required to spread that power across the day is non-trivial. (on preview: too slow!)
posted by duende at 12:08 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by duende at 12:08 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Related, the world's largest electric vehicle doesn't need to be charged due to its load pattern (heavy on the way down, light on the way up)
posted by true at 12:20 PM on April 26, 2023 [20 favorites]
posted by true at 12:20 PM on April 26, 2023 [20 favorites]
When demand occurs and you let loose all that water through the turbines usually it exits into a river (from which the water is also pumped up the hill in low demand periods)
Seems like you could pump the same water back up so long as there's enough space for it at the bottom to collect.
I could see using closed mines for this, too. But, at that point maybe simpler to just have big concrete blocks that go up and down a hillside track (or the mineshaft).
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:24 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Seems like you could pump the same water back up so long as there's enough space for it at the bottom to collect.
I could see using closed mines for this, too. But, at that point maybe simpler to just have big concrete blocks that go up and down a hillside track (or the mineshaft).
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:24 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
I thought this was thoroughly debunked.
Yes, gravity batteries work, in theory. You can store potential energy this way. That's the easy part.
But the idea breaks when you look at total costs of wear and tear on moving mechanical parts, and if you're using concrete in large quantities it stops being green or carbon neutral in a hurry because producing concrete is one of the largest energy using and GHG producing industries out there.
With the blocks, tower and cranes idea there are serious mechanical energy losses both in raising weights and dropping them.
Putting aside the ecological drawbacks of pumped hydro related to water movement and discharge, one of the reasons that it works at all is that it's mechanically relatively simple and using existing water as a mass doesn't require building huge concrete weights and huge industrial scale heavy lift moving parts. Water is very heavy but it flows relatively easily up hill with a simple pump and pipe, and to draw power out it just reverses this cycle.
If I was going to do a gravity battery I would be looking at pumping water in a closed cycle. I would also be looking at direct mechanical power pumping from, say, wind turbines by running a drive shaft from a wind turbine's gearbox directly to a pump. But it may be cheaper to use an electrical pumping scheme because of the difficulties and material costs of transferring mechanical power over these kinds of large distances.
I am also curious about an electro and/or mechanical gravity battery on much larger scales. Instead of moving a lot of small blocks around and relying on cranes to keep moving and stacking them around, think really big yet simple, like one very large mass that can be raised and lowered. I mean like lifting a small mountain kind of loads.
But the drawbacks to this are known, too. Like even if you lifted a small hill or mountain to some height it doesn't necessarily mean you can easily draw power out of it at the rates and duration that you want and need, which is also a problem with the blocks and tower cranes idea.
There are also huge challenges to gravity batteries being useful to the grid at all because of how the grid and power generation currently works.
When something like a hydroelectric plant comes online not only does it have to synchronize to the grid and frequency before it can add power to the grid, it has to have some amount of excess bleed or bypass mechanical power to overcome loading in the generators so they don't stall or fall out of sync.
So if you had traditional generators on a tower crane and block gravity battery that's directly connected and synced to the grid it's going to have dynamic values of how much resistance and mechanical load is happening in the generators which will likely cause issues with speed changes, as in you could be lowering a block the last few inches or feet and if demand suddenly dropped then it would suddenly fall faster and likely crash.
Turbine plants in particular have a number of ways to deal with this, but one of the ways is they deal with it is purely mechanical. The turbine is just a hot gas generator. The power turbine is not mechanically linked to the gas generator and uses the exhaust to create mechanical force which then turns a generator. As loads vary the power turbine is free to change RPMs in response to loads independent of the gas generator turbine so it doesn't stall or blow up from stresses.
All that being said, some of these solutions could be useful as peaking plants instead of firing up a turbine peaking plant but every scheme I've seen so far isn't very efficient or carbon neutral to build or run.
posted by loquacious at 12:28 PM on April 26, 2023 [21 favorites]
Yes, gravity batteries work, in theory. You can store potential energy this way. That's the easy part.
But the idea breaks when you look at total costs of wear and tear on moving mechanical parts, and if you're using concrete in large quantities it stops being green or carbon neutral in a hurry because producing concrete is one of the largest energy using and GHG producing industries out there.
With the blocks, tower and cranes idea there are serious mechanical energy losses both in raising weights and dropping them.
Putting aside the ecological drawbacks of pumped hydro related to water movement and discharge, one of the reasons that it works at all is that it's mechanically relatively simple and using existing water as a mass doesn't require building huge concrete weights and huge industrial scale heavy lift moving parts. Water is very heavy but it flows relatively easily up hill with a simple pump and pipe, and to draw power out it just reverses this cycle.
If I was going to do a gravity battery I would be looking at pumping water in a closed cycle. I would also be looking at direct mechanical power pumping from, say, wind turbines by running a drive shaft from a wind turbine's gearbox directly to a pump. But it may be cheaper to use an electrical pumping scheme because of the difficulties and material costs of transferring mechanical power over these kinds of large distances.
I am also curious about an electro and/or mechanical gravity battery on much larger scales. Instead of moving a lot of small blocks around and relying on cranes to keep moving and stacking them around, think really big yet simple, like one very large mass that can be raised and lowered. I mean like lifting a small mountain kind of loads.
But the drawbacks to this are known, too. Like even if you lifted a small hill or mountain to some height it doesn't necessarily mean you can easily draw power out of it at the rates and duration that you want and need, which is also a problem with the blocks and tower cranes idea.
There are also huge challenges to gravity batteries being useful to the grid at all because of how the grid and power generation currently works.
When something like a hydroelectric plant comes online not only does it have to synchronize to the grid and frequency before it can add power to the grid, it has to have some amount of excess bleed or bypass mechanical power to overcome loading in the generators so they don't stall or fall out of sync.
So if you had traditional generators on a tower crane and block gravity battery that's directly connected and synced to the grid it's going to have dynamic values of how much resistance and mechanical load is happening in the generators which will likely cause issues with speed changes, as in you could be lowering a block the last few inches or feet and if demand suddenly dropped then it would suddenly fall faster and likely crash.
Turbine plants in particular have a number of ways to deal with this, but one of the ways is they deal with it is purely mechanical. The turbine is just a hot gas generator. The power turbine is not mechanically linked to the gas generator and uses the exhaust to create mechanical force which then turns a generator. As loads vary the power turbine is free to change RPMs in response to loads independent of the gas generator turbine so it doesn't stall or blow up from stresses.
All that being said, some of these solutions could be useful as peaking plants instead of firing up a turbine peaking plant but every scheme I've seen so far isn't very efficient or carbon neutral to build or run.
posted by loquacious at 12:28 PM on April 26, 2023 [21 favorites]
I like the idea of a gravity battery made of chemical batteries.
When they figured out carbon fiber "structural batteries" my mind immediately went to a flywheel energy storage / battery combo for an ebike (also battery as frame). Even if it couldn't be efficient it'd be interesting.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:36 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
When they figured out carbon fiber "structural batteries" my mind immediately went to a flywheel energy storage / battery combo for an ebike (also battery as frame). Even if it couldn't be efficient it'd be interesting.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:36 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Pumped hydro has some ecological disadvantages. When demand occurs and you let loose all that water through the turbines usually it exits into a river (from which the water is also pumped up the hill in low demand periods). That creates a lot of sloshing and havoc in the river and erodes the riverbank. It's like a little spring flood every day. In my neck of the woods, it makes the Connecticut River run backwards for miles upstream, which is not a Good Thing.
You can do closed-loop pumped hydro (basically pumping water back and forth between low-elevation and high-elevation reservoirs), but you still have all the environmental and cultural impacts of massive infrastructure projects. This High Country News article about a proposed pumped storage project in Washington and its relation to tribal sovereignty is worth reading.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:36 PM on April 26, 2023 [9 favorites]
You can do closed-loop pumped hydro (basically pumping water back and forth between low-elevation and high-elevation reservoirs), but you still have all the environmental and cultural impacts of massive infrastructure projects. This High Country News article about a proposed pumped storage project in Washington and its relation to tribal sovereignty is worth reading.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:36 PM on April 26, 2023 [9 favorites]
Apparently the new design with elevators and an enclosed building is to conform to international building codes. Maybe also reducing the cost by locating them near load, instead of in a remote mineshaft.
posted by credulous at 12:53 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by credulous at 12:53 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm an engineer and partner in a climate technology venture capital fund. It's my professional role to assess new technologies to see if they are investible. My professional opinion on gravity-based energy storage is... not this shit again. For fuck's sake.
We know how much this costs. It's too much. We know how much energy this can store per dollar invested. It's not enough. There is no secret sauce to get these costs down by the amount that they would need to come down to make this worth bothering with.
Anyone with a clue can do a basic cost analysis and conclude that other energy storage technologies are cheaper.
All this proves is that $380m worth of VCs didn't do their homework and have wasted their investors' money.
Even EnergyVault, who are promoting this stupid idea, are backing away from it to use fuel cells and batteries.
posted by happyinmotion at 12:56 PM on April 26, 2023 [36 favorites]
We know how much this costs. It's too much. We know how much energy this can store per dollar invested. It's not enough. There is no secret sauce to get these costs down by the amount that they would need to come down to make this worth bothering with.
Anyone with a clue can do a basic cost analysis and conclude that other energy storage technologies are cheaper.
All this proves is that $380m worth of VCs didn't do their homework and have wasted their investors' money.
Even EnergyVault, who are promoting this stupid idea, are backing away from it to use fuel cells and batteries.
posted by happyinmotion at 12:56 PM on April 26, 2023 [36 favorites]
how about trains?
The IORE trains in Sweden produce 5 times the power that they use.
posted by fairmettle at 1:05 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
The IORE trains in Sweden produce 5 times the power that they use.
posted by fairmettle at 1:05 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Why are they not being raised by gyms full of sweaty people on ellipticals, stair climbers, weight benches, hamster-wheel-style treadmills, and (my preference) rowing machines?
Anybody who wants to build this, meet me in Greensboro.
posted by amtho at 1:08 PM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
Anybody who wants to build this, meet me in Greensboro.
posted by amtho at 1:08 PM on April 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
The videos critical and dismissive of Energy Vault are a few years old. But it looks like they are now actually building these things--in fact they are almost done. (This article gives a bit more detail). So, I guess the proof is in the pudding. I wish them luck.
posted by eye of newt at 1:23 PM on April 26, 2023
posted by eye of newt at 1:23 PM on April 26, 2023
Why are they not being raised by gyms full of sweaty people
At that point, why not put the people in pods, feed them the illusion that they’re living regular lives, and tap in to the electricity that their brains generate?
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:23 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
At that point, why not put the people in pods, feed them the illusion that they’re living regular lives, and tap in to the electricity that their brains generate?
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:23 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Anyone with a clue can do a basic cost analysis and conclude that other energy storage technologies are cheaper.
In the arena of big, dumb bulk energy storage project ideas, do any of the thermal storage ideas look like they might have a chance to be cost effective at grid scale?
posted by Zalzidrax at 1:31 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
In the arena of big, dumb bulk energy storage project ideas, do any of the thermal storage ideas look like they might have a chance to be cost effective at grid scale?
posted by Zalzidrax at 1:31 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
as long as we're resurrecting ideas for mechanical batteries, can i interest anyone in my plans for a flywheel large enough to kill god?
posted by logicpunk at 1:34 PM on April 26, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by logicpunk at 1:34 PM on April 26, 2023 [11 favorites]
logicpunk: I think SpinLaunch may beat you to that one.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:41 PM on April 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:41 PM on April 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
In the arena of big, dumb bulk energy storage project ideas, do any of the thermal storage ideas look like they might have a chance to be cost effective at grid scale?
I'd say yes.
First up, thermal is great for storing heat for industrial processes. That's a massive market that is currently served by burning gas or coal. Aout 35% of gas and about 20% of coal is used for heat. Those fossil fuels can be replaced by renewable electricity with thermal storage smoothing out the variable generation.
If that's all thermal storage does then that'd be a huge win.
For electricity, it's not yet clear which technologies will win out for medium-term storage. Lithium is dominating fast response and short storage, like milliseconds to a couple of hours. Hydro can't be beaten for weeks-long storage. But the big new market in most grids is four-eight hours, coz that's what you need to match the midday solar generation peak with the evening demand peak.
For four-to-eight hours, thermal has much lower build costs than lithium, doesn't need elements that are in short supply, and doesn't wear out over a few thousand cycles. Lithium also isn't coming down in price because the demand for battery electric vehicles means we can't build batteries fast enough. Then again, getting electricity back from thermal storage involves making steam then running that through a turbine. The round-trip efficiency is only thermal is 45% coz thermodynamics, so you get less electricity out than you put in. But that's ok, what matters is the price of the electricity out and the price is competitive.
The other current best options for four-to-eight hours are compressed-air storage, or flow batteries, or zinc-air batteries. Can thermal beat them?
In some cases, I think it can, to the extent that we're putting our investors' money into MGA Thermal. This is latent heat stored in small particles of aluminium in graphite blocks. The great thing about latent heat is that you get the energy back at a constant temperature. For aluminium it's 550 C, which gives you steam perfect to feed into an existing turbine. So you can take an existing coal- or gas-fired power station, remove the fuel-burning part, plug in your thermal storage and re-use the existing turbogenerators. Again, that keeps the cost down and makes it competitive.
Am I right about this? MGA are trialing their technology at a 200 MW gas-fired power station in Australia so we'll know pretty soon.
posted by happyinmotion at 2:10 PM on April 26, 2023 [21 favorites]
I'd say yes.
First up, thermal is great for storing heat for industrial processes. That's a massive market that is currently served by burning gas or coal. Aout 35% of gas and about 20% of coal is used for heat. Those fossil fuels can be replaced by renewable electricity with thermal storage smoothing out the variable generation.
If that's all thermal storage does then that'd be a huge win.
For electricity, it's not yet clear which technologies will win out for medium-term storage. Lithium is dominating fast response and short storage, like milliseconds to a couple of hours. Hydro can't be beaten for weeks-long storage. But the big new market in most grids is four-eight hours, coz that's what you need to match the midday solar generation peak with the evening demand peak.
For four-to-eight hours, thermal has much lower build costs than lithium, doesn't need elements that are in short supply, and doesn't wear out over a few thousand cycles. Lithium also isn't coming down in price because the demand for battery electric vehicles means we can't build batteries fast enough. Then again, getting electricity back from thermal storage involves making steam then running that through a turbine. The round-trip efficiency is only thermal is 45% coz thermodynamics, so you get less electricity out than you put in. But that's ok, what matters is the price of the electricity out and the price is competitive.
The other current best options for four-to-eight hours are compressed-air storage, or flow batteries, or zinc-air batteries. Can thermal beat them?
In some cases, I think it can, to the extent that we're putting our investors' money into MGA Thermal. This is latent heat stored in small particles of aluminium in graphite blocks. The great thing about latent heat is that you get the energy back at a constant temperature. For aluminium it's 550 C, which gives you steam perfect to feed into an existing turbine. So you can take an existing coal- or gas-fired power station, remove the fuel-burning part, plug in your thermal storage and re-use the existing turbogenerators. Again, that keeps the cost down and makes it competitive.
Am I right about this? MGA are trialing their technology at a 200 MW gas-fired power station in Australia so we'll know pretty soon.
posted by happyinmotion at 2:10 PM on April 26, 2023 [21 favorites]
Every time I crunch the numbers I'm convinced that I've crunched the numbers incorrectly.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, please. The first article mentions a 15m high tower with two 25 tonne weights.
2 * 15 m * 25 * 1000kg * 9.8m/s^2 = 7350000 joules
Now, that looks like a shit-load of joules, right?
It's about 2 kwh. That's... not a lot. My Model 3 has about 50kwh of batteries in it.
Sure, serious systems scale up the weights and the height and that gives you better numbers, but holy crap, people.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 2:34 PM on April 26, 2023 [9 favorites]
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, please. The first article mentions a 15m high tower with two 25 tonne weights.
2 * 15 m * 25 * 1000kg * 9.8m/s^2 = 7350000 joules
Now, that looks like a shit-load of joules, right?
It's about 2 kwh. That's... not a lot. My Model 3 has about 50kwh of batteries in it.
Sure, serious systems scale up the weights and the height and that gives you better numbers, but holy crap, people.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 2:34 PM on April 26, 2023 [9 favorites]
The nimbys will never allow it. Imagine it! Acres and acres of high-rise pile-drivers.
posted by notyou at 2:48 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by notyou at 2:48 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
The phase-change tech that was being promoted a few years ago as a form of thermal storage seemed interesting, but I'm not sure what scales it's meant to be feasible on. Some kind of material that melts and solidifies. I think the application that was being promoted was domestic water heating. The more pie-in-the-sky talk was about insulating buildings with the stuff, and recovering waste heat from various sources operating inside, as well as storing solar energy or timeshifting grid power.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:53 PM on April 26, 2023
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:53 PM on April 26, 2023
Am I imagining it, or do I remember someone having a scheme for pumped hydro in Appalachia, repurposing/remediating the elevated craters left by old mountaintop-removal* mines?
I suppose the trick might be where the excess power comes from.
Someone's gotta build a Sonora-to-Shenandoah transmission system?
(*got a mountain with coal inside? why tunnel in sideways, when you can just blow the entire top off and scoop it out with trucks? but it leaves a toxic crater, you say? who cares, it's West Virginia!)
posted by bartleby at 3:07 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I suppose the trick might be where the excess power comes from.
Someone's gotta build a Sonora-to-Shenandoah transmission system?
(*got a mountain with coal inside? why tunnel in sideways, when you can just blow the entire top off and scoop it out with trucks? but it leaves a toxic crater, you say? who cares, it's West Virginia!)
posted by bartleby at 3:07 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
How about combining this gravity thing with that space elevator thing?
posted by njohnson23 at 3:29 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by njohnson23 at 3:29 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure I'm ready to trust the local Edison with orbital bombardment. Their collection practices are already shady enough.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:33 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:33 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Methane gathered from sewage treatment facilities is used to generate power in several places. I remember reading about such a plant in Japan using that power in residential areas. Other plants, for example in Arizona, have built similar facilities, but I don't belive they are in use in residential areas.
If we blockheaded humans insist on being full of shit, why not make it count for something?
posted by mule98J at 3:53 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
If we blockheaded humans insist on being full of shit, why not make it count for something?
posted by mule98J at 3:53 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I used to ride this little "Mountain Train Car," up to the Opelbad in Wiesbaden, Germany. The Opelbad was fed by springs. They filled a cistern under the train car at the top, and the weight, pulled the lower car up the hill, they passed in the middle. Then, either the water was pumped back to the top, or released into a stream at the bottom, but the cistern filled and unfilled for every ride. It was quiet, and charming, riding up through an area of vinyards and beautiful houses.
posted by Oyéah at 4:21 PM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 4:21 PM on April 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
amtho, apparently somebody wants to sell you everything but the rowing machine.... while saying "making electricity through human power is not a money-maker" right there on their website lol.
And 5 short years ago, a gym in Sacramento was apparently using the same idea to cut their electric bill.
There's also "bike powered USB chargers" and a blender and I thought this solar-powered website had a bicycle backup, but I can't find proof of that anywhere right now.
posted by adekllny at 5:38 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
And 5 short years ago, a gym in Sacramento was apparently using the same idea to cut their electric bill.
There's also "bike powered USB chargers" and a blender and I thought this solar-powered website had a bicycle backup, but I can't find proof of that anywhere right now.
posted by adekllny at 5:38 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
This idea as a product is a way to separate money from people with a lack of understanding to those who can put together a sales pitch.
A fine demonstration of the idea that markets know things and we should listen to the markets is hokum. Or a sucker list based on who's putting in money.
posted by rough ashlar at 6:16 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
A fine demonstration of the idea that markets know things and we should listen to the markets is hokum. Or a sucker list based on who's putting in money.
posted by rough ashlar at 6:16 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
An experienced but casual cyclist in good shape can barely put out about 150-250 watt peaks, but sustained output once underway is a whole lot less than that.
World class professional cyclists (especially track racers and sprinters) can sustain about 250-750 watts and peak at over 1000 watts. And note these bike watts are just estimates of the human power and effort before mechanical losses, not power to the road or wheels.
My DIY ebike can sustain 1000 watts basically indefinitely until the battery dies or the motor overheats, and peaks at over 2000 watts.
They make low mechanical resistance hub dynamo generators for bikes for charging lights or phones, but these are generally 1-2 amps at 5 volts, aka USB 2 grade power, which is roughly 10 measly watts. It's not much power at all and could take all day or multiple days of riding to charge a modern cell phone.
This is fine if you're commuting a lot or a bike tourer where stopping to charge things can be a waste of time and money, but you're not going to be charging a large USB battery bank from flat very fast with a hub dynamo.
I've also participated in a "bike powered sound system" kind of thing with a very small sound system pulling maybe 500-1000 watts average/RMS and 2kw peaks for bass and loud noises.
To generate enough power to actually power the system and start recharging the deep cycle lead acid battery that was really providing the watts as baseline it took something like 6-8 strong, healthy riders pedaling at full tilt like they were sprinting up a hill and really getting a work out.
And you could feel the load and resistance changing with load, especially if the music playing had a good bass kick and beat in it, you'd feel the beat kicking back at you through the friction drive shaft to your wheels and pedals.
A 3 bedroom house with a just a few lights on, a full sized fridge running and a small space heater and maybe a a modern laptop computer and phone charging can easily push the total house load to 2000+ watts/hour, and that's in a frugal house with most of the lights turned off.
Make it a modern house with the AC or central heat going, multiple fridges, laundry going, TVs, maybe a gaming console or desktop computer or two, lots of wall wart plugs sitting around plugged and too many lights on and you're quickly looking at 10-20kwh or even more.
People generally have no scale or scope how much electricity they're using all the time or how that all translates directly to tons of fossil fuels burned to support those power needs.
Figures vary but a single 100 watt light bulb is something on the order of 500-1000 pounds of coal per year.
posted by loquacious at 8:30 PM on April 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
World class professional cyclists (especially track racers and sprinters) can sustain about 250-750 watts and peak at over 1000 watts. And note these bike watts are just estimates of the human power and effort before mechanical losses, not power to the road or wheels.
My DIY ebike can sustain 1000 watts basically indefinitely until the battery dies or the motor overheats, and peaks at over 2000 watts.
They make low mechanical resistance hub dynamo generators for bikes for charging lights or phones, but these are generally 1-2 amps at 5 volts, aka USB 2 grade power, which is roughly 10 measly watts. It's not much power at all and could take all day or multiple days of riding to charge a modern cell phone.
This is fine if you're commuting a lot or a bike tourer where stopping to charge things can be a waste of time and money, but you're not going to be charging a large USB battery bank from flat very fast with a hub dynamo.
I've also participated in a "bike powered sound system" kind of thing with a very small sound system pulling maybe 500-1000 watts average/RMS and 2kw peaks for bass and loud noises.
To generate enough power to actually power the system and start recharging the deep cycle lead acid battery that was really providing the watts as baseline it took something like 6-8 strong, healthy riders pedaling at full tilt like they were sprinting up a hill and really getting a work out.
And you could feel the load and resistance changing with load, especially if the music playing had a good bass kick and beat in it, you'd feel the beat kicking back at you through the friction drive shaft to your wheels and pedals.
A 3 bedroom house with a just a few lights on, a full sized fridge running and a small space heater and maybe a a modern laptop computer and phone charging can easily push the total house load to 2000+ watts/hour, and that's in a frugal house with most of the lights turned off.
Make it a modern house with the AC or central heat going, multiple fridges, laundry going, TVs, maybe a gaming console or desktop computer or two, lots of wall wart plugs sitting around plugged and too many lights on and you're quickly looking at 10-20kwh or even more.
People generally have no scale or scope how much electricity they're using all the time or how that all translates directly to tons of fossil fuels burned to support those power needs.
Figures vary but a single 100 watt light bulb is something on the order of 500-1000 pounds of coal per year.
posted by loquacious at 8:30 PM on April 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
But the idea breaks when you look at total costs of wear and tear on moving mechanical parts, and if you're using concrete in large quantities it stops being green or carbon neutral in a hurry because producing concrete is one of the largest energy using and GHG producing industries out there.
Other power generation methods (hydro, coal, gas, nuclear) convert energy into torque to spin a generator to produce electricity. Surely the wear-and-tear problems are already sufficiently solved..? If anything, gravity batteries should be simpler. Winches are mechanically simpler than pumps, and there are no pressurised fluids to contain.
As for concrete, neither of the linked examples are using concrete for weights. One is using sand and the other is using dirt. Concrete is used in construction for its load-bearing properties, whereas gravity batteries just need something heavy.
posted by swr at 9:21 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Other power generation methods (hydro, coal, gas, nuclear) convert energy into torque to spin a generator to produce electricity. Surely the wear-and-tear problems are already sufficiently solved..? If anything, gravity batteries should be simpler. Winches are mechanically simpler than pumps, and there are no pressurised fluids to contain.
As for concrete, neither of the linked examples are using concrete for weights. One is using sand and the other is using dirt. Concrete is used in construction for its load-bearing properties, whereas gravity batteries just need something heavy.
posted by swr at 9:21 PM on April 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
How about combining this gravity thing with that space elevator thing?
I thought the same thing, and while there don’t seem to be any proposals for that (probably because, boringly, none of the billionaires seem to be trying to make a space elevator), but there were a number of interestingly weird ideas trying to basically integrate a gravity battery into a skyscraper, one proposing that robots turn scuttle enormous weights into the empty apartments and make use the elevator regenerative braking, which I give points for inventiveness for, if not plausibility.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:53 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
I thought the same thing, and while there don’t seem to be any proposals for that (probably because, boringly, none of the billionaires seem to be trying to make a space elevator), but there were a number of interestingly weird ideas trying to basically integrate a gravity battery into a skyscraper, one proposing that robots turn scuttle enormous weights into the empty apartments and make use the elevator regenerative braking, which I give points for inventiveness for, if not plausibility.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:53 PM on April 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ha ha, have they compared the weight of their apparatus vs the weight of a reservoir?
posted by ryanrs at 11:07 PM on April 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by ryanrs at 11:07 PM on April 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
Ha ha, have they compared the weight of their apparatus vs the weight of a reservoir?
This is genuinely the only important question that anybody needs to be asking about these machines.
Personally I like to flip it around: look at the total weight that any given installation is proposing to use, convert that to its water equivalent using the handy fact that a cubic metre of water is about a ton, then divide the result by 2500 to convert that to Olympic swimming pool equivalents. Compared to the size of any existing pumped hydro facility's reservoirs the results are always just farcically tiny.
I see no future for solid-block gravity batteries in a world where sodium-ion chemical batteries already exist.
posted by flabdablet at 11:43 PM on April 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
This is genuinely the only important question that anybody needs to be asking about these machines.
Personally I like to flip it around: look at the total weight that any given installation is proposing to use, convert that to its water equivalent using the handy fact that a cubic metre of water is about a ton, then divide the result by 2500 to convert that to Olympic swimming pool equivalents. Compared to the size of any existing pumped hydro facility's reservoirs the results are always just farcically tiny.
I see no future for solid-block gravity batteries in a world where sodium-ion chemical batteries already exist.
posted by flabdablet at 11:43 PM on April 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
And 5 short years ago, a gym in Sacramento was apparently using the same idea to cut their electric bill.
posted by adekllny
Letting the exercise bikes provide electricity for the gym sounds like a no-brainer. Why isn't everybody doing this? But when I came to this line in the article
“The goal one day is to power a city,” Avina said.
my mind showed me a subterranean hall full of people chained to exercise bikes, with a supervisor cracking his whip.
posted by Termite at 12:34 AM on April 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by adekllny
Letting the exercise bikes provide electricity for the gym sounds like a no-brainer. Why isn't everybody doing this? But when I came to this line in the article
“The goal one day is to power a city,” Avina said.
my mind showed me a subterranean hall full of people chained to exercise bikes, with a supervisor cracking his whip.
posted by Termite at 12:34 AM on April 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
The (very near) future’s looming weight is an irony giving how lightly we’ve been living with energy-dense oil - depending on your calcs. oil gives us a gearing of 48+ times (compared to what a pedestrian human can do alone) e.g. Nikiforuk 2011 You and Your Slaves, yes an odious title but not meaningless in light of the Oil Wars, so doing without oil, yes it’s going to get heavy.
Maybe we really will reap the whirlwind on the way to decoupling from oil.
posted by unearthed at 1:17 AM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Maybe we really will reap the whirlwind on the way to decoupling from oil.
posted by unearthed at 1:17 AM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
In the arena of big, dumb bulk energy storage project ideas, do any of the thermal storage ideas look like they might have a chance to be cost effective at grid scale?
Loads, at least partially because we have lots of things which need thermal energy directly as an input. We're currently evaluating a compressed air project where the heat from compressing the air is stored separately from the air. Lots of opportunities in the longer-than-lithium-ion cycle space to balance renewable generation vs load cycles.
Methane gathered from sewage treatment facilities is used to generate power in several places. I remember reading about such a plant in Japan using that power in residential areas. Other plants, for example in Arizona, have built similar facilities, but I don't belive they are in use in residential areas.
Most post-treatment sludge in the UK goes for anaerobic digestion and the methane is captured for combustion during peak times, obviously there's a feedstock limit but dispatchable generation is like gold-dust in a renewable dominated system.
posted by atrazine at 6:20 AM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Loads, at least partially because we have lots of things which need thermal energy directly as an input. We're currently evaluating a compressed air project where the heat from compressing the air is stored separately from the air. Lots of opportunities in the longer-than-lithium-ion cycle space to balance renewable generation vs load cycles.
Methane gathered from sewage treatment facilities is used to generate power in several places. I remember reading about such a plant in Japan using that power in residential areas. Other plants, for example in Arizona, have built similar facilities, but I don't belive they are in use in residential areas.
Most post-treatment sludge in the UK goes for anaerobic digestion and the methane is captured for combustion during peak times, obviously there's a feedstock limit but dispatchable generation is like gold-dust in a renewable dominated system.
posted by atrazine at 6:20 AM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ha ha, have they compared the weight of their apparatus vs the weight of a reservoir?
This is genuinely the only important question that anybody needs to be asking about these machines.
That, and how much land area would be needed for a facility -- that will determine how easy or difficult it would be to permit and build this at a utility scale. Battery storage can be colocated with a wind or solar facility (i.e., not really taking up any more land) so those are a no-brainer in terms of being able to implement. Pumped hydro is tried and tested and works very well, but it's hard to find locations that don't present serious land-use, biological, or cultural problems. (If we were in a for-real energy crisis, those objections would get overruled instantly, but we aren't and therefore pumped hydro is hard to implement in most cases.)
It's great to have more options and ideas being developed, but none of the ones in the article seemed quite ready for primetime.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:30 AM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
This is genuinely the only important question that anybody needs to be asking about these machines.
That, and how much land area would be needed for a facility -- that will determine how easy or difficult it would be to permit and build this at a utility scale. Battery storage can be colocated with a wind or solar facility (i.e., not really taking up any more land) so those are a no-brainer in terms of being able to implement. Pumped hydro is tried and tested and works very well, but it's hard to find locations that don't present serious land-use, biological, or cultural problems. (If we were in a for-real energy crisis, those objections would get overruled instantly, but we aren't and therefore pumped hydro is hard to implement in most cases.)
It's great to have more options and ideas being developed, but none of the ones in the article seemed quite ready for primetime.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:30 AM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
logicpunk: I think SpinLaunch may beat you to that one.
Wow. I just... Wow. This is so magnificently bonkers I can't actually be sure it's real. Is it real? I hope it's real. You go, monkeyboys. You go to space.
posted by The Bellman at 7:26 AM on April 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Wow. I just... Wow. This is so magnificently bonkers I can't actually be sure it's real. Is it real? I hope it's real. You go, monkeyboys. You go to space.
posted by The Bellman at 7:26 AM on April 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think the application that was being promoted was domestic water heating.
Yep, phase change domestic heat storage (for water and radiators) is generally available in the UK, where overnight electricity prices can be negative on windy nights.
Not saying every heating engineer will fit you up with one to go with your heat pump (the fossil fuel boiler lobby are especially strong at FUD towards installers here), but if you want a system, you can find an installer and they can get it off the shelf anywhere in the country.
posted by ambrosen at 7:35 AM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yep, phase change domestic heat storage (for water and radiators) is generally available in the UK, where overnight electricity prices can be negative on windy nights.
Not saying every heating engineer will fit you up with one to go with your heat pump (the fossil fuel boiler lobby are especially strong at FUD towards installers here), but if you want a system, you can find an installer and they can get it off the shelf anywhere in the country.
posted by ambrosen at 7:35 AM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Trains as gravity batteries have been in use for decades on the London Underground. The Victoria Line stations are on "humps" in the line, and... that's it. Trains coming in to the station go slightly uphill, which slows them down, converting kinetic energy into gravitational potential (and reducing wear on the brakes). When the train leaves the station, they go slightly downhill, converting gravitational potential back into kinetic energy. I read somewhere that it reduces energy use by about 5%. For something so simple, that's a pretty big win.
posted by swr at 8:30 AM on April 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by swr at 8:30 AM on April 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
Methane gathered from sewage treatment facilities is used to generate power in several places. I remember reading about such a plant in Japan using that power in residential areas.
Increasing numbers of dairy farms are installing big anaerobic digesters to turn the vast amounts of manure they generate into methane.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:09 AM on April 27, 2023
Increasing numbers of dairy farms are installing big anaerobic digesters to turn the vast amounts of manure they generate into methane.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:09 AM on April 27, 2023
Other power generation methods (hydro, coal, gas, nuclear) convert energy into torque to spin a generator to produce electricity. Surely the wear-and-tear problems are already sufficiently solved..? If anything, gravity batteries should be simpler. Winches are mechanically simpler than pumps, and there are no pressurised fluids to contain.
The pressures involved for hydro aren't that big compared to stuff like high pressure hydraulic systems. One of the benefits of pumping water is it doesn't require any sort of high precision movements involved like picking up and moving blocks around and its really heavy. You can just pump it into a holding pond or lake and water naturally self-organizes and flows to fill the volume of the charge and discharge lakes.
Pumping water doesn't really need advanced software controls to pick and place blocks
There's way more moving parts with less mass and potential energy with moving stuff around on winches or cranes, and more places for things to wear or break. Stuff like chains or wire ropes, pulleys and so on.
The main issue here between hydro or steam turbine plants and using weights on winches is more about energy density per total cost of operations per unit of energy.
Hydro turbines in particular can run for years or even decades without major shutdowns. As I understand it one of the ways hydro turbines can function for so long is because they can use some of the water pressure as a hydraulic bearing support so the full load of the dynamo and turbine has less metal to metal contact and wear because you can design them to basically float on water pressure.
As for concrete, neither of the linked examples are using concrete for weights. One is using sand and the other is using dirt. Concrete is used in construction for its load-bearing properties, whereas gravity batteries just need something heavy.
The original Energy Vault design proposes concrete blocks, with hints of using rammed earth or dirt for blocks instead because of the CO2 emissions.
Using rammed earth or sand in containers has its own challenges if they degrade or fall apart during handling or weathering.
The large single mass and a shaft or pit design looks a lot better than that weird tower crane and block stacking idea, which has a lot of really big engineering issues.
posted by loquacious at 11:56 AM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
The pressures involved for hydro aren't that big compared to stuff like high pressure hydraulic systems. One of the benefits of pumping water is it doesn't require any sort of high precision movements involved like picking up and moving blocks around and its really heavy. You can just pump it into a holding pond or lake and water naturally self-organizes and flows to fill the volume of the charge and discharge lakes.
Pumping water doesn't really need advanced software controls to pick and place blocks
There's way more moving parts with less mass and potential energy with moving stuff around on winches or cranes, and more places for things to wear or break. Stuff like chains or wire ropes, pulleys and so on.
The main issue here between hydro or steam turbine plants and using weights on winches is more about energy density per total cost of operations per unit of energy.
Hydro turbines in particular can run for years or even decades without major shutdowns. As I understand it one of the ways hydro turbines can function for so long is because they can use some of the water pressure as a hydraulic bearing support so the full load of the dynamo and turbine has less metal to metal contact and wear because you can design them to basically float on water pressure.
As for concrete, neither of the linked examples are using concrete for weights. One is using sand and the other is using dirt. Concrete is used in construction for its load-bearing properties, whereas gravity batteries just need something heavy.
The original Energy Vault design proposes concrete blocks, with hints of using rammed earth or dirt for blocks instead because of the CO2 emissions.
Using rammed earth or sand in containers has its own challenges if they degrade or fall apart during handling or weathering.
The large single mass and a shaft or pit design looks a lot better than that weird tower crane and block stacking idea, which has a lot of really big engineering issues.
posted by loquacious at 11:56 AM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Coal mountain top removal leaves essentially flat mountain tops, not craters, so it's not useful for pumped storage.
Here in the middle of the USA, there's not many good places for pumped storage reservoirs. I can see these would be effective in some areas of the country. But do we really want to flood high valleys?
There's lots of experimental tech with cheap, heavy sodium batteries and some other ideas for batteries that should have a lot of cycles before they need to be retired. Those usually aren't energy dense enough for cars, but are cost effective for stationary uses.
posted by jjj606 at 12:31 PM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Here in the middle of the USA, there's not many good places for pumped storage reservoirs. I can see these would be effective in some areas of the country. But do we really want to flood high valleys?
There's lots of experimental tech with cheap, heavy sodium batteries and some other ideas for batteries that should have a lot of cycles before they need to be retired. Those usually aren't energy dense enough for cars, but are cost effective for stationary uses.
posted by jjj606 at 12:31 PM on April 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Coal mountain top removal leaves essentially flat mountain tops, not craters, so it's not useful for pumped storage.
That's more a result of typically short-sighted extractive industry project design than anything like a law of nature, though.
posted by flabdablet at 12:41 PM on April 27, 2023
That's more a result of typically short-sighted extractive industry project design than anything like a law of nature, though.
posted by flabdablet at 12:41 PM on April 27, 2023
why not put the people in pods, feed them the illusion that they’re living regular lives, and tap in to the electricity that their brains generate?
Woah!
posted by CynicalKnight at 3:51 PM on April 27, 2023
Woah!
posted by CynicalKnight at 3:51 PM on April 27, 2023
This is a pretty neat idea, although hardly ground-breaking, given it's really just an adaptation of pumped hydro. There are a lot of heavy mechanical parts, though and that's going to translate into a lot of maintenance and replacement of parts such as cables and pulleys. Even the weights themselves, in a system that shuttles weights around, are going to have a finite lifespan as they get bumped and dropped.
There are a lot fewer moving parts in a single large mass being raised and lowered and, using gearing, a huge mass wouldn't need to be moving very fast to spin a generator at any speed that would be useful. The idea of using mines removes a lot of the construction costs and visual pollution that a tower creates. Taking the concept of using something already created but now redundant, would nuclear waste be heavy enough to serve as that huge mass? The idea of that scares the shit out of me, but at least it's recycling, right? Not really serious, this seems like a bad idea in so many ways.
posted by dg at 4:53 PM on April 27, 2023
There are a lot fewer moving parts in a single large mass being raised and lowered and, using gearing, a huge mass wouldn't need to be moving very fast to spin a generator at any speed that would be useful. The idea of using mines removes a lot of the construction costs and visual pollution that a tower creates. Taking the concept of using something already created but now redundant, would nuclear waste be heavy enough to serve as that huge mass? The idea of that scares the shit out of me, but at least it's recycling, right? Not really serious, this seems like a bad idea in so many ways.
posted by dg at 4:53 PM on April 27, 2023
Here in the middle of the USA, there's not many good places for pumped storage reservoirs.
posted by jjj606
This is the main limitation with pumped hydro. Finding suitable places to do it. Basically depends on the vagaries of geology. Not exactly a widespread and scalable option.
There's lots of experimental tech with cheap, heavy sodium batteries and some other ideas for batteries that should have a lot of cycles before they need to be retired. Those usually aren't energy dense enough for cars, but are cost effective for stationary uses.
posted by jjj606
Storage tech for stationary applications is one of the few things in all this that I am quite optimistic about. Chances are good that we will soon have, and may already have, workable and scalable solutions, at least enough to get us out of serious trouble. If we can implement them in time.
posted by Pouteria at 5:26 PM on April 27, 2023
posted by jjj606
This is the main limitation with pumped hydro. Finding suitable places to do it. Basically depends on the vagaries of geology. Not exactly a widespread and scalable option.
There's lots of experimental tech with cheap, heavy sodium batteries and some other ideas for batteries that should have a lot of cycles before they need to be retired. Those usually aren't energy dense enough for cars, but are cost effective for stationary uses.
posted by jjj606
Storage tech for stationary applications is one of the few things in all this that I am quite optimistic about. Chances are good that we will soon have, and may already have, workable and scalable solutions, at least enough to get us out of serious trouble. If we can implement them in time.
posted by Pouteria at 5:26 PM on April 27, 2023
Also, I can highly recommend the Engineering with Rosie YT channel for a solid practical engineering take on energy issues by somebody who works in the industry.
She has a video on gravity storage.
(Make sure to check both the Videos and Live sections on her channel, as a lot of her stuff is done live.)
posted by Pouteria at 5:43 PM on April 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
She has a video on gravity storage.
(Make sure to check both the Videos and Live sections on her channel, as a lot of her stuff is done live.)
posted by Pouteria at 5:43 PM on April 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
This got me wondering if building seismic (and harmonic) mass dampers could be used to store/harvest energy.
Scholar: "tuned mass damper"|"harmonic absorber"|"seismic damper" "energy storage"
^ top of first page;
Rafique et al. 2012 Experimental validation of a novel smart electromechanical
tuned mass damper beam device "this ... device holds the potential of simultaneous energy storage" [link doi: Elsevier .pdf 3Mb], has several citations,.
Makes far more sense if you can stack system function, then maintenance more likely to happen, and investment & cost can be spread.
posted by unearthed at 6:11 PM on April 27, 2023
Scholar: "tuned mass damper"|"harmonic absorber"|"seismic damper" "energy storage"
^ top of first page;
Rafique et al. 2012 Experimental validation of a novel smart electromechanical
tuned mass damper beam device "this ... device holds the potential of simultaneous energy storage" [link doi: Elsevier .pdf 3Mb], has several citations,.
Makes far more sense if you can stack system function, then maintenance more likely to happen, and investment & cost can be spread.
posted by unearthed at 6:11 PM on April 27, 2023
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