www.bbc.com
The energy density of these schemes is atrocious.Can gravity batteries solve our energy storage problems?
Could a cutting-edge technology that harnesses one of the universe's fundamental forces help solve our energy storage challenge?
Use surplus electricity to lift giant weights, release them to spin generators during periods of peak demand. Interesting.
As are nearly all alternatives compared to hydrocarbon, hydroelectric, and nuclear. Engineers of each of those technologies didn’t end up on those choices because they were the cheapest or easiest to implement. It was because of the massive energy potential and it being well-suited to transportation & generation schemes.
Remove governmental imposed barriers to entry to include not in my backyard from the same people that want fossil fuels gone- and you will see huge private investments in nuclear power, and likely huge holistic private investment in electric vehicle charging centers.
Nukes are a little it different, because their initial funding was all government; they ended up in submarines, and then the companies who worked with government on their development saw the potential and went to take them public.
This massive structure is rated for 25MW and 100MWh, no price figure that I can see, it's the pilot in China:
The situation you describe is an absolute pipe dream for anyone currently old enough to post on BITOG. We will never see those conditions exist during our lifetimes where “renewables” generate more than the current ~15PW usage of the planet; maybe never, and certainly not at a cost that challenges the current big 3 sources: hydroelectric, hydrocarbon, and nuclear.
It’s clear to me that the people pushing these projects have no grip of physics, math, or both; or, it’s purely a money-grabbing scheme they know will fail, and then they will claim they need even more control and money to “make it work”. It’s the same sad story we hear from communal nuts… “well, we haven’t ever been able to try the REAL methods we need” even though every single trial has resulted in much suffering and destruction. This is stuff is the same path.
Yep, as soon as VRE installed capacity hits the wall of self-cannibalization, building more capacity stalls, look at California, when they removed the lucrative NEM program in favour of paying people market value for the electricity, uptake collapsed:
There are several of those, the largest in North America is Raccoon Mountain, owned and operated by TVA, which is used to compliment their nuclear assets.
not entirely a new idea....Can gravity batteries solve our energy storage problems?
Could a cutting-edge technology that harnesses one of the universe's fundamental forces help solve our energy storage challenge?
Use surplus electricity to lift giant weights, release them to spin generators during periods of peak demand. Interesting.
Don't forget the NASA space programs and all the technological advances they spawned into the general economy including digital computer chips.
newsroom.edison.com
There are things that start in the military, to give the country better capabilities than its enemies (and sometimes friends too). Then, after the military has developed it for THEIR use and benefit, it sometimes filters down to the civilian markets (thermal and night vision are two more). That’s completely different than the government forking out money for untested, civilian-first technologies that are competing against already-existing, well-established technologies. I’m referring to wind and solar mainly. There’s ZERO military advantage to those technologies. They are developed to force people from more abundant, more efficient energy sources.
