3 ms·
So, let's look at doing this in a distributed manner: giving every household their own gravity battery. A 1 m3 cube of concrete weighs 2400 kg; moving this over
by isoprophlex 6y ago
So, let's look at doing this in a distributed manner: giving every household their own gravity battery. A 1 m3 cube of concrete weighs 2400 kg; moving this over 6 meters yields (mass * gravity acceleration * height) = 140 MJ, = 39 kWh. Lets say 34 kWh after accounting for energy losses.
A european household uses approx 3500 kwh/year; americans use upwards of 10000 kwh/year.
Clearly such a slab of concrete will comfortably allow buffering an entire day's worth of power, and then some.
Edit: fuck me I'm dumb. Off by a factor 1000. 39 watthour in that cube, not 39 kWh. Ignore everything I said.
- _ph_ 6y agoAn European household rather uses 10-20kWh/day, usually closer to 10. The question is, what is cheaper, to build a 6 M tower that can lift 2 tons of concrete or a nice Lithium battery pack which uses a lot less volume too?
- isoprophlex 6y agoConsidering that i messed up by a factor 1000, a battery pack is probably cheaper than a 6 km high tower...
- prof-dr-ir 6y ago140 kJ, not MJ [0]. So you'd need a thousand of these cubes for 39kWh. But you can also just raise your single cube by 6km. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=2400+kg+*+10+m+%2F+s%5E2+*+6+m https://www.google.com/search?q=2400+kg+*+10+m+%2F+s%5E2+*+6...
- isoprophlex 6y agoO wow. Off by only three orders of magnitude. How embarrassing, thanks for the correction!