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This is what we're hoping battery-style plants will supplant. I say "battery-style" because it turns out that filling a tank with compressed air, lifting a heav

This is what we're hoping battery-style plants will supplant. I say "battery-style" because it turns out that filling a tank with compressed air, lifting a heavy weight with a crane, or pumping water up into a lake all have excellent energy storage potential while not requiring any kind of esoteric matter or construction techniques. It does remain to be seen if such activities can be profitable or not - but if you're effectively buying power when it's cheap / free / paid to take it, and you're selling it when it isn't, it should be possible....

buckle8017 1y ago
The only large scale energy storage system im aware of that is also cost effective is pumped hydro. However pumped hydro is shall we say extremely environmentally bad. Like casually remove a mountain bad
- hvb2 1y ago
  Norway disagrees, it depends on your environment
- mikestorrent 1y ago
  I suppose it depends where you're doing it. Makes most sense to do these things where natural formations do 99% of the construction and you just build a dam. Honestly, we probably need to do a lot more damming to keep more fresh water in - we lose so much of it to the ocean where it becomes useless salt trash...
  - buckle8017 1y ago
    Virtually all the practical and politically acceptable locations for dams already have one. At least in western countries. There's lots of potential in developing countries.
- pfdietz 1y ago
  What's the environmental downside of off-river pumped hydro?
  - buckle8017 1y ago
    To scale it up requires building very large impoundments of water, typically on the top of a mountain by removing the top of the mountain. Think artificial volcano shape with a tube in the middle.
    - pfdietz 1y ago
      The reservoirs need not be that large, at least for diurnal storage. Look at the illustration for this 1000 MW, 8 hour project: https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage.com/ https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage.com/
      - buckle8017 1y ago
        For solar the storage really need to be seasonal. Think 100 million times the size of that project. 24/8 * 100days * 330000Mw
        pfdietz 1y ago
        Pumped hydro is not appropriate for seasonal storage. It's not an environmental issue, it's a capital cost issue. The capex per kWh of storage capacity is two orders of magnitude too high. See the comparison tables at https://www.orcasciences.com/articles/standard-thermal-copy https://www.orcasciences.com/articles/standard-thermal-copy
        buckle8017 1y ago
        Well yes, but nothing is appropriate. That's why we still burn natural gas all winter instead of storing solar.
        1y ago
lambdaone 1y ago
Lifting heavy weights with a crane (or up a hill with a train) is unfortunately a very expensive way to store energy compared with pumped-storage hydroelectricity, which does effectively the same thing but with far lower cost and greater scalability. This can be seen from the fact that while lifted weight storage is ridiculously easy to build with existing technology - it's a train or a crane, after all! - it has never caught on as an economically fieldable system, whereas pumped-storage hydro has wide adoption.

buckle8017 1y ago

The only large scale energy storage system im aware of that is also cost effective is pumped hydro. However pumped hydro is shall we say extremely environmentally bad. Like casually remove a mountain bad

hvb2 1y ago
Norway disagrees, it depends on your environment
mikestorrent 1y ago
I suppose it depends where you're doing it. Makes most sense to do these things where natural formations do 99% of the construction and you just build a dam. Honestly, we probably need to do a lot more damming to keep more fresh water in - we lose so much of it to the ocean where it becomes useless salt trash...
- buckle8017 1y ago
  Virtually all the practical and politically acceptable locations for dams already have one. At least in western countries. There's lots of potential in developing countries.
pfdietz 1y ago
What's the environmental downside of off-river pumped hydro?
- buckle8017 1y ago
  To scale it up requires building very large impoundments of water, typically on the top of a mountain by removing the top of the mountain. Think artificial volcano shape with a tube in the middle.
  - pfdietz 1y ago
    The reservoirs need not be that large, at least for diurnal storage. Look at the illustration for this 1000 MW, 8 hour project: https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage.com/ https://www.whitepinepumpedstorage.com/
    - buckle8017 1y ago
      For solar the storage really need to be seasonal. Think 100 million times the size of that project. 24/8 * 100days * 330000Mw
      - pfdietz 1y ago
        Pumped hydro is not appropriate for seasonal storage. It's not an environmental issue, it's a capital cost issue. The capex per kWh of storage capacity is two orders of magnitude too high. See the comparison tables at https://www.orcasciences.com/articles/standard-thermal-copy https://www.orcasciences.com/articles/standard-thermal-copy
        buckle8017 1y ago
        Well yes, but nothing is appropriate. That's why we still burn natural gas all winter instead of storing solar.
        1y ago

lambdaone 1y ago

Lifting heavy weights with a crane (or up a hill with a train) is unfortunately a very expensive way to store energy compared with pumped-storage hydroelectricity, which does effectively the same thing but with far lower cost and greater scalability. This can be seen from the fact that while lifted weight storage is ridiculously easy to build with existing technology - it's a train or a crane, after all! - it has never caught on as an economically fieldable system, whereas pumped-storage hydro has wide adoption.