3 ms·
Yeah, if you do the math, it turns out that you need impractically large weights lifted to unreasonable height. Like, suppose you’re lifting 100 ton weight 100
by xyzzyz 6y ago
Yeah, if you do the math, it turns out that you need impractically large weights lifted to unreasonable height. Like, suppose you’re lifting 100 ton weight 100 meters high. That’s a rather large and heavyweight system. How much energy you can store this way? Less than $5 worth of electricity, as it turn out.
This is basically the same as pumped water storage, but instead of immense amount of water you can pump between very large reservoirs, you’re limited to one solid weight that’s too light to store nontrivial amount of energy, but heavy enough to be significant problem from engineering perspective. It just doesn’t make practical sense.
- ecpottinger 6y agoGreat, now calculate how much a flywheel system that stores that much energy will cost vs cheap concrete blocks. Magnetic bearings and large vacuum chambers do not come cheap.
- Mulpze15 6y agoYes, the math does not look good. I remember dreaming about a house that could go up and down like this. Then I went to buy a AAA battery... same. That said, if they can manage to find that 1km shaft in an old mine like they hope, and put some crazy amount of weight and make it work, that would be impressive and cool.
- tchvil 6y agoHow about to retrofit wind turbines? They are tall, strong, and empty inside.
- masklinn 6y ago> How about to retrofit wind turbines? They are tall, strong, and empty inside. It's still basically piss-stakes: the largest wind turbine right now (14MWe Haliade-X) has 765t sitting on top of a 150m tower, so let's say you keep the 150m tower, rejigger it so it can move a 765t weight up and down the shaft without crumpling, and add your weight (a lead weight 4m in diameter and 5.4m tall), how much energy does that store? 250kWh, 2.5 teslas, or a medium-large electric bus battery. And it's not like you can add that to a working turbine: the tower was set up for 765t not 1500, and you need space for the crane.
- ObscureScience 6y agoToo me, pumping water seems like a pretty good solutiuon. If you are located on the coast, and can move let's say a million tons something like 100-200m up, that's not trivial and doesn't seem that impractical.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- labawi 6y agoThat's why you should use trains, which can safely go a few km high in good terrain.