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But in some countries there are large areas of undeveloped land, so lots of space to store energy.
by cubefox 3y ago
But in some countries there are large areas of undeveloped land, so lots of space to store energy.
- AndrewDucker 3y ago1,000kg by 1m is about 3Wh. A Tesla Powerwall is 13.5 kWh. So you either need 4,500 tons by 1m, or 1 ton to be raised 4.5km, or 67 tons by 67m. To match a single home's battery backup. Doing that for cheaper than $2,000. Which is what a battery that size costs in large quantities. That sounds pretty unlikely.
- cubefox 3y agoDam reservoirs can reach a pretty massive volume. The Hoover dam holds 35.000 km^2 of water (that's 35 billion tons if I'm not mistaken) according to Wikipedia. I'm not sure how much of that can be raised by how much.
- AndrewDucker 3y agoOh yeah, water works well, because you can raise it very efficiently. It's a very well worked through technology. Moving billions of tons of concrete vertically is a lot harder. (Most dams also supply their own water. Hydro storage is trickier, and needs you to build pumping systems, and sometimes to hollow out mountains)
- falserum 3y agoHydro dams prove that it’s possible, but they require being blessed by geography/topology.