5 ms·

Water pumps.

• taneq 11y ago
  You need very particular geography for pumped hydro, plus in hot dry climates your stored energy literally evaporates.
  • cnlevy 11y ago
    A more general solution: just use weights https://www.gravitricity.com https://www.gravitricity.com
    • ps4fanboy 11y ago
      Be interesting to see how you could build this on a smaller scale for home use, using something very heavy but cheap like lead.
      • yincrash 11y ago
        On a very small scale: http://gravitylight.org http://gravitylight.org
      • tsomctl 11y ago
        Lead is actually not that cheap. Lead ingots are $6/pound (at McMaster), while steel is $.50/pound (from Alibaba, but that's a minimum purchase of 1 ton). Scrap lead is around $.40/pound, versus steel at $.02/pound. The cheapest thing would probably be rock/concrete, or water.
        • ps4fanboy 11y ago
          By cheap I meant not having to dig a tunnel, by using lead, which I think is the cheapest dense metal?, you avoid having to have a very long tether, say compared to water/concrete.
        • cellularmitosis 11y ago
          A clip and pulley system which could hook onto a barbell or kettle bell would be great. Hrmm, perhaps this isn't so feasible. Performing a clean & jerk of 95 pounds to a height of 7 feet would yield about 900 watt seconds of potential energy. So even if you had a very efficient laptop (15 watts) and perfect energy conversion, you'd have to perform a clean & jerk every 60 seconds to keep computing. Even if you were in good shape, you probably couldn't keep that up for more than a hour. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/gpot.html http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/gpot.html
    • mineshaftgap 11y ago
      "to get the amount of energy stored in a single AA battery, we would have to lift 100 kg (220 lb) 10 m (33 ft) to match it. To match the energy contained in a gallon of gasoline, we would have to lift 13 tons of water (3500 gallons) one kilometer high (3,280 feet). It is clear that the energy density of gravitational storage is severely disadvantaged." http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-stor...
  • beemoe 11y ago
    Then how about sewage pumps For a combined energy storage and water distillation facility?
  • beemoe 11y ago
    Then how about sewage pumps For a combined energy storage and water distillation facility?