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Why not lift super heavy but cheap objects like rocks or dirt and then let gravity be your battery?
by ck2 2y ago
Why not lift super heavy but cheap objects like rocks or dirt and then let gravity be your battery?
- samcheng 2y agoThey definitely do that with water. It's called "pumped storage" and there are megawatt-scale installations all over the world.
- ninju 2y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectric...
- time0ut 2y agoA company called Energy Vault[0] is (was?) working on this. I think it is relatively capital intensive compared to what the company in the article is doing. Of course storing underground requires particular geology. I also remember reading about a system that moved dirt/rock up a mountain on a train. Can’t find a link, but that also seems capital intensive and requires different geology. There is also pumped hydro storage that works via gravity. That’s been around a while. My dad worked as an engineer on one in the 80s [1]. [0] https://www.energyvault.com/ https://www.energyvault.com/ [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms_Pumped_Storage_Plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms_Pumped_Storage_Plant