3 ms·
I'm pretty naive about this stuff, but wouldn't an easy solution for storing energy to be, just use energy to lift something very heavy into the air, and then e
by beaner 8y ago
I'm pretty naive about this stuff, but wouldn't an easy solution for storing energy to be, just use energy to lift something very heavy into the air, and then extract energy when it's lowered?
- lkb2k 8y agoThat is one of the ideas being explored: https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surprisingly-efficient-way-to-store-energy/ https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surpris...
- wyattpeak 8y agoThat's an avenue that's also being pursued, but it's not obviously superior to other storage plans. You've got lots of moving parts under high load, you need enough structural support to ensure that the top-heavy structure is stable. It also doesn't contain a huge amount of energy - 1 ton of liquid NaCl contains about 700MJ of usable energy, you'd have to lift 700 tons of material 100m to contain the same in gravitational potential.
- calebbrown 8y agoDinorwig Power Station in the UK pumps water to store 9.1Gwh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station