Two massive gravity batteries are nearing completion

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Had to google it but I like where you're going ... I think it would make it harder to harvest the energy though

originally posted by: bounder
OKay, the highest PRACTICAL method, since you have embrittlement with hydrogen and apparently deisel has some other drawback or we'd be using in everything. a reply to: AllAnIllusion

You don't actually get embrittlement with gaseous hydrogen so it's not a factor that would need to be considered at the point of storage.

The problem for diesel is the high compression levels needed for ignition/combustion requiring strengthened ICE components which is why it works better at large scale and you don't see 50cc diesel mopeds. (That's if we just plain ignore the particulates).

I don't want to take your Gasoline away from you and there's more to the world that cars and bikes, I'm simply looking at the bigger picture and how a mix of novel technologies could benefit all of us.

I'd rather not drift the thread any further away from the gravity battery if we're ready to move on.

I used to work at a large steel manufacturer here in California. I was in charge of the corporation during swing shift for several years. My company was one of the largest electricity consumers in the valley. We had our own powerlines and a step down transformer station. In the summer when it was hot, I would get emergency phone calls from Tracy switching station. It was called TESLA. They would demand I shut down the whole corporation immediately, which I always did.

Back then I was told about a similar set up to what bis described in this article. It involved a mountain with a cone shaped lake in the top of it. In an emergency situation where brown outs could occur, the water was released down the mountain through a hydroelectric turbine and generator to help meet the peak electrical needs. That was some very expensive electricity, because after each use, the water was pumped back up to the top of the mountain.

a reply to: visitedbythem

They would demand I shut down the whole corporation immediately

I wonder if that meant it was about to have a serious overload to the point of explosion... Or some sort of regulation in place...

It involved a mountain with a cone shaped lake in the top of it. In an emergency situation where brown outs could occur, the water was released down the mountain through a hydroelectric turbine and generator to help meet the peak electrical needs.

I learned through this thread that what you described is the old way of doing it. The problem is this can only be achieved with the right terrain (the mountain and valley set up). So this method is very limited. This new gravity batteries (cities) can be placed anywhere, and be built on and built on. The old crane method is a thing of the past now with the gravity batteries. Now it's skyscraper style blocks, or cubed shaped buildings that go very high up in elevation to achieve the necessary gravity to produce the "potential energy."

originally posted by: F2d5thCavv2

A surplus of power, owing to sunlight or wind, is utilized to power a mechanical crane to lift the blocks 35 stories into the air.

Wow. I wonder if the power companies will develop attractive exteriors to mask the cranes. I would think they would want the cranes shielded from weather in any case.

Cheers

They will be cubed shaped, not cranes. That was an old method. They've moved to the cubes.

One video I saw was showing that they would build housing complex around the battery itself. The gravity battery would be in the center of say, a skyscraper city/apartments/whatever else a family would need to survive, and never really needing to even leave that building. 🤔

Look towards Saudi Arabia I think. I believe they are the ones building a meca wall city. I see these batteries involved in the near future with that project.
mezha.media... 🤔🤔🤔

originally posted by: BodhisattvaStyle
a reply to: visitedbythem

They would demand I shut down the whole corporation immediately

I wonder if that meant it was about to have a serious overload to the point of explosion... Or some sort of regulation in place...

It involved a mountain with a cone shaped lake in the top of it. In an emergency situation where brown outs could occur, the water was released down the mountain through a hydroelectric turbine and generator to help meet the peak electrical needs.

I learned through this thread that what you described is the old way of doing it. The problem is this can only be achieved with the right terrain (the mountain and valley set up). So this method is very limited. This new gravity batteries (cities) can be placed anywhere, and be built on and built on. The old crane method is a thing of the past now with the gravity batteries. Now it's skyscraper style blocks, or cubed shaped buildings that go very high up in elevation to achieve the necessary gravity to produce the "potential energy."

If we didnt shut down they would have had brown outs or black outs. Possibly sagging lines and fires.


The problem with these gravity methods, is you get les power out then you put it to lift the weights, or pump the water to the mountain peak. Its only good to use in emergency situations. Its produces expensive electricity

originally posted by: visitedbythem

originally posted by: BodhisattvaStyle
a reply to: visitedbythem

They would demand I shut down the whole corporation immediately

I wonder if that meant it was about to have a serious overload to the point of explosion... Or some sort of regulation in place...

It involved a mountain with a cone shaped lake in the top of it. In an emergency situation where brown outs could occur, the water was released down the mountain through a hydroelectric turbine and generator to help meet the peak electrical needs.

I learned through this thread that what you described is the old way of doing it. The problem is this can only be achieved with the right terrain (the mountain and valley set up). So this method is very limited. This new gravity batteries (cities) can be placed anywhere, and be built on and built on. The old crane method is a thing of the past now with the gravity batteries. Now it's skyscraper style blocks, or cubed shaped buildings that go very high up in elevation to achieve the necessary gravity to produce the "potential energy."

If we didnt shut down they would have had brown outs or black outs. Possibly sagging lines and fires.


The problem with these gravity methods, is you get les power out then you put it to lift the weights, or pump the water to the mountain peak. Its only good to use in emergency situations. Its produces expensive electricity

What would be another "potential use" for this now extra expensive electricity; and I mean beyond the obvious. Is there anything else that "extra power" could go to, or be used for?

Hypothetically speaking, of course. For free thoughts sake...

a reply to: BodhisattvaStyle

China is going to complete their battery after us. The reason is that they can't complete it until they steal the rest of our blueprints.

a reply to: BodhisattvaStyle

It depends on when you need the boost of power. Usually it is when people come home from work and start turning on their air conditioners. If you were able to do the gravity set up with low cost wind power, or solar power during the early part of the day, that might be an advantage. During the peak time solar, wind, nuclear, and fossil fuel will already be in use to keep up with demand. As more people come home from work and plug in their EVs and Hybrids, there is likely going to be more demand. As the government tries to phase out natural gas appliances, that will create even more electrical demand.

This is partly why I set up a solar powered battery bank and inverters at my home, and multiple generators, because the government doesn't seem to be making logical moves. I won't depend on them.

I had a friend that was in an area a few miles from here that lost grid power for two weeks. People went out and rented all the generators they could find, and many people sat in 100-degree houses in the summer and had to dump everything from their refrigerators and freezers into the garbage barrels. It was pretty bad, with the rotting meat and heat. I can run my freezers 24/7 and two portable AC units to make it through a time like that.

originally posted by: graysquirrel
A tower? Why not run the weights on a track up and down a very steep and very big hill.

Or spin a very heavy plate.

originally posted by: Dalamax

originally posted by: graysquirrel
A tower? Why not run the weights on a track up and down a very steep and very big hill.

Or spin a very heavy plate.

Just spit balling, because I saw a good idea here, but had a thought about the spinning idea. Say something were to go wrong and one of those weights were to come free. If it were all straight up it would come crashing down. If it were spinning then it would be slung outwards.
Either way I see disasters from these.

Interesting post and thread.

I wonder if they could use giant recycled steel balls in a large vertical tube.
The balls take in air at the bottom and then are floated up high where they are then sunk at the top in water or filled with water and dropped.a reply to: BodhisattvaStyle

a reply to: BodhisattvaStyle

I've been asking for years why this system isn't deployed more. Closest we have so far is hydro electric where water is stored in a pond at the top of a hill. It runs down and goes through turbines causing them to turn and create electricity which is fed onto the grid. During the night when everyone is supposed to be asleep, the electricity is used to pump water up from lower pond and into the upper pond ready for use the next day.

The same could happen with wind generated electricity. During the night the pwoer would be used to lift a heavy weight up a tower, so that it would fall during the day to create power.

Grandfather clocks are a form of this where the weight moving down drives the clock. The user lifts the weight up again whenevr it gets to the bottom

Put your spinning disc in a hole and put a lid on it.

a reply to: BodhisattvaStyle

Something like this Gyroscope bus. But for energy production.

en.wikipedia.org...

I wonder if gyroscopes could be used in tall buildings to help alleviate the effects of earthquakes. I mean they build nuclear power plants at sea level in earthquake prone areas, so why not?

Speaking of nuclear, surely nuclear power is a safer and more environmentally sound way of producing energy then solar or wind. What’s wrong with nuclear?

I live here in Northern California gold county. We have a lot of abandoned mines. One in particular is 6000ft straight down. Most of the time filled with water. It would be interesting if they take some of our old mines for this type of thing.

originally posted by: BodhisattvaStyle
a reply to: visitedbythem

They would demand I shut down the whole corporation immediately

I wonder if that meant it was about to have a serious overload to the point of explosion... Or some sort of regulation in place...

Regulation and economics. It's normal for extremely large industrial electricity consumers to get discounted rates most of the time, but in return they are required to cut consumption during peak events---heat waves usually which cause either generation shortages, or more commonly now, shutdowns of backcountry transmission lines because of fire risk.

The peak price for electricity can be 100x that of off-peak/normal periods.

I learned through this thread that what you described is the old way of doing it. The problem is this can only be achieved with the right terrain (the mountain and valley set up). So this method is very limited. This new gravity batteries (cities) can be placed anywhere, and be built on and built on. The old crane method is a thing of the past now with the gravity batteries. Now it's skyscraper style blocks, or cubed shaped buildings that go very high up in elevation to achieve the necessary gravity to produce the "potential energy."

Honestly I think electrochemical batteries will be more practical for large scale energy storage. The gravity blocks just doesn't store enough energy and there are higher capital and maintenance costs. Batteries are pretty compact for their energy and power output now.

Pretty soon I think there will be a split between battery chemistries and designs for vehicles, which need high energy density, and for stationary storage, which needs to to be cycleable and most of all, very inexpensive so it can be scaled up the wazoo. I'd look to sodium-ion and then sodium-sulfur batteries for big and cheap energy storage.

As a much younger version of myself who was just out of engineering school many, many years ago I suggested just a system of road/power delivery with what was then Westinghouse Energy Systems. Their reply was that buried cable losses and the significantly higher cost of using insulated cable versus the un-insulated type typically used for power distribution made the proposal not worth the development costs.
But just like fracking and oil sands were not once profitable I believe it is we time to now take another look at such technology since we obviously have long haul power lines spanning the nation that are now aging. At the same time we could heavy-up the systems to ward off some of the effects an EMP might cause.
As an aside and related to the gravity battery thing there are hydro plants that operate similarly; they pump water up to a reservoir during times of excess grid power and operate the turbines during times of need.

a reply to: BodhisattvaStyle

I would advocate for ultra large earth batteries in some of the vast and mostly empty lands run by the BLM and other such governmental types. There would be line losses in bringing the power to metro centers but that is another subject to be worked on.
Perhaps a Tesla like solution might be applicable.


a reply to: mbkennel

originally posted by: amicusbrief
I would advocate for ultra large earth batteries in some of the vast and mostly empty lands run by the BLM and other such governmental types. There would be line losses in bringing the power to metro centers but that is another subject to be worked on.
Perhaps a Tesla like solution might be applicable.


a reply to: mbkennel

What are your thoughts on compressed air like in a Trompe?



Surely something like this could be used in an urban setting, attached to domestic/industrial water supply, to power a generator or machinery? (or even just to cool down an area)

originally posted by: beyondknowledge2

It is as useful as plugging a power strip into itself. Too many energy loses in the process.

Actually he says the concept of using gravity to store energy works great as long as you use water instead of concrete blocks to do it, and the losses using water are claimed to be far lower than one might expect.

I don't know if he ever actually says the concrete blocks won't work at all, but he does point out a lot of technical challenges that would have to be overcome to make the process economical and feasible. For example, one of his objections to a specific technology is that exposed cranes can't operate in 30 mph winds near wind farms yet that's the application the developer shows. That objection doesn't really apply directly to alternative implementations inside closed facilities that are shielded from the wind.

My interpretation of the video is, use water if you can, which requires at least hilly terrain or disused mines, where you can store water at two different elevations. Otherwise, you better analyze all the economics and technical challenges involved very carefully. It might still be worthwhile to do in some cases where all you have is flat terrain and water isn't an option, even if it's not nearly as cheap as doing it with water.

originally posted by: visitedbythem
Back then I was told about a similar set up to what bis described in this article. It involved a mountain with a cone shaped lake in the top of it. In an emergency situation where brown outs could occur, the water was released down the mountain through a hydroelectric turbine and generator to help meet the peak electrical needs. That was some very expensive electricity, because after each use, the water was pumped back up to the top of the mountain.

That should have been less expensive electricity if it was done right. The whole idea is to use electricity generated during off-peak hours to pump it back up to the top of the mountain. During off-peak hours, the electric plants are already bought and paid for, but there's not much demand so they can have tons of unused capacity which is why the off-peak rates are the lowest, they want to encourage more use during off-peak when capacity isn't limited.

Actually your story is an example of a successful gravity battery, but one that uses water instead of concrete blocks. It's the concrete (or whatever) blocks that the above video has concerns about.

originally posted by: Dalamax
What are your thoughts on compressed air like in a Trompe?

Surely something like this could be used in an urban setting, attached to domestic/industrial water supply, to power a generator or machinery? (or even just to cool down an area)

Compressed air energy storage pre-dates electric power, but the efficiencies I've seen are in the 40-60% range which is not that great compared to a gravity battery using water which is probably 70-80% efficient and I've seen lots of efficiency claims well over 80% though I'm not sure if they are accurate.


Compressed-air energy storage

Citywide compressed air energy systems have been built since 1870.[23] Cities such as Paris; Birmingham, England; Dresden, Rixdorf and Offenbach, Germany; and Buenos Aires, installed such systems. Victor P (opp constructed the first systems to power clocks by sending a pulse of air every minute to change their pointer arms. They quickly evolved to deliver power to homes and industries.[24] As of 1896, the Paris system had 2.2 MW of generation distributed at 550 kPa in 50 km of air pipes for motors in light and heavy industry. Usage was measured by cubic meters.[23] The systems were the main source of house-delivered energy in those days and also powered the machines of dentists, seamstresses, printing facilities and bakeries.

The first utility-scale diabatic compressed air energy storage project was the 290 megawatt Huntorf plant opened in 1978 in Germany using a salt dome with 580 MWh energy, 42% efficiency.

Compare that 40-60% efficiency to a 70-80% efficient "gravity battery" using water, aka Pumped-storage hydroelectricity:

The round-trip energy efficiency of PSH varies between 70%–80%, with some sources claiming up to 87%. The main disadvantage of PSH is the specialist nature of the site required, needing both geographical height and water availability. Suitable sites are therefore likely to be in hilly or mountainous regions, and potentially in areas of natural beauty, making PSH susceptible to social and ecological issues. Many recently proposed projects, at least in the U.S., avoid highly sensitive or scenic areas, and some propose to take advantage of "brownfield" locations such as disused mines.