To make solar power viable, we need a solution for overnight energy storage.
Batteries are complicated.
Do you know what isn’t? Water go up.
Wait, I’m confused, where’s Saddam Houssein?
I’ve also seen a version of this that uses an electric locomotive that moves a big weight up and down a slope.
Personally I think we should put big weights on pulleys in every high rise, like a grandfather clock.
Personally I think we should put big weights on pulleys in every high rise, like a grandfather clock.
How big? Seems like you would need quite a bit of weight to store any useful amount. Using this calculator: https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/physics/gravitational-potential.php and assuming my values are right, if you had something the size of a bus (16,000 kg) pulled up through something as tall as the Empire State Building (380 m roof height), you’d get about 16.56 kWh, which isn’t all that much. I think a typical EV battery size is about 40 kWh in comparison. With hydro storage on the other hand, you can store a shit ton of water in a reservoir without any major constraints besides the overall size, which is massive.
How To Make Buildings Into Batteries
That link isn’t working for me:
Got error: “Sign in to confirm that you’re not a bot”
Edit: is it this one? https://youtu.be/oCv3ygvEjFo
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Could the weight be integrated with a tuned mass damper?
It’s fine for places that have a lot of water and hills
For places without water, what’s wrong with importing a bunch once? Evaporation suppressors exist to help with hotter climates.
You’re probably right about the hills. Building a water tower that can hold an entire lake seems inefficient.
you can use saltwater for it though, doesn’t need to be fresh water or treated in any way, just a physical medium to make turbine go brrr
Machinery and saltwater generally don’t mix very well. And you’d still need to make a saltwater lake somewhere uphill.
yeah but in this case it’s just a pipe and a turbine it’s gotta make move
And you’d still need to make a saltwater lake somewhere uphill.
water tanks tho
You don’t really need huge volumes of water, a 5GW hydro storage proposal in Australia will require 38 gigalitres, or 0.038 cubic kilometres. At a depth of ten metres, that’s a 2km circle (or rather, two ~1.5km circular reservoirs).
Arizona uses ~8500 gigalitres a year to put that in comparison.
Pumped hydro is a fantastic technology. It is unfortumate that we live under capitalism where development operates according to profit and not overall human benefit, so hydro dams are planned regardless of impact on indigenous communities or environmental and population harms. Countries rum by socialists will do a better job with this, particularly China, where pumped hydro dams are even sometimes combined with aquatic solar farms. While imperfect, these developments are far better than anything you’re in fully capitalist countries.
There are actually many examples! A recent one with good English copy is here: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3225408/china-worlds-largest-hybrid-solar-hydro-plant-produces-electricity-tibetan-plateau
It’s good. Like hydro power, the viability is going to be highly site-specific. But it’s a bunch of well known parts, so if some geological engineers say a particular pumped hydro installation makes sense, I’m going to trust them.
I think battery and synthetic fuel technologies will continue to improve, and the range of places where pumped hydro is the better choice will shrink over time. But in the best sites, I expect it’s probably going to stay the most efficient choice for a very long time, the same way the biggest hydro power plants dwarf the biggest nuclear plants.
