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Interesting concept but digging a big hole sounds expensive and prone to flooding. I can see how this would have better efficiency than pumped-storage hydro but
by graiz 6y ago
Interesting concept but digging a big hole sounds expensive and prone to flooding. I can see how this would have better efficiency than pumped-storage hydro but I wonder if you couldn't raise and lower weight near cliffs rather than drilling wells.
If it does work, I would imagine the Boring company would be all over this.
- codethief 6y ago> and prone to flooding. and prone to Earth quakes, I would assume.
- syllable_studio 6y agoI can see why you'd suspect that. But it turns out that the oil and gas industry has 100 years of precedent demonstrating how to build such shafts into bedrock. Flooding and earthquakes are all real concerns, but we have well-proven solutions.
- imtringued 6y agoOil rigs only need to drill a hole with the diameter of a pipe. With gravity storage you would want the hole to be as large as possible.
- syllable_studio 6y agoMaybe not as large as possible, but we're looking at about 10m diameter and about 1 mile deep. Here's an example of existing mining tech that meets this capacity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5vAWR7rpco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5vAWR7rpco