The demonstrator plant in the video: 15 meters height of the tower looks like the 50 tons weight only can move around 11 meters? That means that this system that cost £1 million to build can store 1.5 kWh! I hope you are all very impressed by this cutting edge technology. A li-ion battery with that capacity weigh less than 10kg and cost $200! So even if the 50 years claimed life of the tower comes true, it will still be 1000 times more expensive than a single Li-ion battery you can carry with one hand. This is a scam to trick investors that for some reason didn't pay enough attention in school during science class. So can it be used for short bursts of power then?: The "fast" drop, shown in the video, the weight drops at around 1m per second, so it can supply a burst power of 491kW for 11 seconds. However the claim in the video says that peak power is only 250kW, so that means there are losses of around 50% in the system, which is both ways btw, i.e. for going up and going down so in reality, a 5 kg $100 Li-ion battery is enough to replace this device and the tower has a combined cycle efficiency of only 25%, like Hydrogen fuel cell energy storage, but you don't even have waste heat here as a byproduct!! That is maybe still enough to make this useful at a local electricity distributer to mediate fluctuations, however to deliver 250kW for an hour, you'll need a weight 327 times heavier and the company is even suggesting a 20MW system running for 8 hours which would mean 327*8*80=208,000 times bigger than the demonstrator plant and it would need 4 times the amount of energy in, as you can recover per cycle, so highly wasteful, as I already mentioned. To continue the "number of homes" analogy in the video, it would mean 3 towers like this per home!. UA-cam commenters and politicians alike: if you ever hear about this again, dismiss it immediately, it is a scam, in the literal sense, not only meaning sketchy or overly optimistic. This company knows very well that this can't possibly work. They are only out to pocket public money, to then just disappear when they get them!
Better gravity storage already exists using water. Lake Geneva (90 billion tonne) could regulate the power supply for Europe on a 24 hourly cycle. Need to be able to raise and lower at least 10 million tons through a height range of 200 metres to store useful amounts of energy.
It is a prototype. They for sure did the math on this. The advantage of this system is that it doesnt reducenits generation or storage capacity, meaning that it works way better than a battery
The amount of maintenance required for a mechanical system like this is an absolute nightmare. Just ask any elevator technician. Pumping water back up to an elevated reservoir only has 1 moving part per pump.
the maintenance standards required for lifts that carry people would be much more stringent than some concrete blocks in an enclosed vertical column ... they replace wire rope that is only 10 % worn out
The impeller itself may be technically a single moving part but that impeller needs bearings, shafts, coils, valves, sensors, etc. and must work in concert with pipes, gates, transformers, breakers, and so forth. The analysis would certainly need to consider the whole system.
if you power the system by geothermal or hydro it doesn't really matter. The dams are phased anyways due to demand. this would increase demand and therefore cancel out the negatives.
if you power the system with hydro you only increase the speed that you use up the potential energy, you don't actually use any additional energy. the cost is always the same.
Sorry. This cannot work. I ran the numbers a few months ago in a discussion forum. Here is what I posted last April: The issue is the achingly low energy density per foot print unit area or construction cost. Digging a shaft would either have to be done through very sturdy soil (costly) or require bracing so that the pit does not collapse (also costly). If you compare with a well known hydro facility like the Hoover dam, and consider the figures, you can see how off the whole concept is. Hoover dam water head: 180 m Flow: 3300 tonne per second Installed power: 2 GW Active capacity: 19.554 km³ Reservoir area: 640 km² Cost: $49 million in 1931; reportedly the equivalent of $684 million in 2020 dollar This means, in the absence of replenishment, that Hoover dam could produce those 2 GW for about 6 million seconds, or almost 70 days, before the level gets too low. For the record, Los Angeles reportedly consumes 22000 GWh of electrical energy per year, which roughly translates to an average of 2.5 GW (but seemingly would peak at 7.8 GW) The largest solar farm in the world is in India, and has a 2.2 GW capacity (and covers over 56 km²) This happens to be a nice figure because it is essentially the same as Hoover dam. So, assuming that one does not have anything besides a very poorly flowing river but with a 180 m head, but with adequate reservoir capacity both uphill and downhill (about 10 km² area, if scaled from the lake Mead) and the equivalent of the Hoover dam power station that can be reversed to pump up the water, one would have a pair of solar farms of ~2 GW, one to power the actual day consumption, one to power the reversible hydraulic system during ‘charging-up’, and rely on the hydro reservoir to provide the power during night time, for an essentially constant 2 GW power production. (Of course, there are variations during a day, more power needed at certain time than others, but let’s just assume that it is regulated and balanced for simplicity’s sake). The final footprint for such an installation is around 132 km², 85% of which is solar farm. Interestingly, Los Angeles, as a city, covers 1302 km². Evidently, putting installations covering 1/10 the surface area of a city to power it will likely be done by finding suitable locations, which could be somewhat distant; high power transmission lines can allow the solar farm from not even be located close to the “hydraulic battery”, nor to the city itself. Now, let’s scale this down to this ‘crane and weight’ scheme. They were talking about 7000 blocks 30 tonnes each. They want to have a 100 m head. They want to use this operating for 8 hours (too low in my opinion, but let’s use their numbers). That means they would be dealing with 7.3 tonnes per second. 100 m 7.3 t compared with Hoover dam’s 180 m and 3300 t. So, their concept would be 0.123% of Hoover dam capacity, and you would need 814 such installations to compare. The cost for the structure of a building is reportedly between $35 and $50 per square foot - this value is for building that actually gets built, probably having somewhat distributed floor weight; this gravity battery would on the other hand be top heavy when fully charged, that probably means it would cost more, structurally, but let’s go with $50 and call it optimistic for now. The cost for digging a basement is reportedly $10 to $20 per square foot - but since a basement is only partly underground, the cost for a deeper well will be more expensive, as machinery will have to be lowered and soil brought up, etc. Interestingly, googling “cost for digging deep foundations” brings something that mentions ‘between $25 to $50 per square foot’, so apparently it costs essentially as much going up as digging down. So, you have this tower (or underground shaft) that will be housing 210000 tonne of blocks, and move them over 100 m height difference - the equivalent of 30 stories. Assume that you have 30 stories used as storage (i.e. story 1 blocks would be stored at level 31 when ‘high’, and blocks low at 30 would be hoisted to level 60) and we have a 60 story building. 7000 blocks distributed over 30 stories means 233 blocks per level, or 7000 tonne per level. Soil has a density of 2.65; concrete is 2.4. Let’s assume the density of the blocks would be around 2.5, as we have to take into account overall gaps, and the machinery to move them around, the tracks and so on. 7000 tonnes therefore mean 2800 m³. With 3 m height, we have 933 m² ‘foot print’ - essentially 10000 square feet. Time 60 ‘stories’, we have an equivalent of 600000 square feet. At $50 per square feet, that is $30 million. Only for the structure. To scale this back to Hoover dam proportion, we multiply by 814 - $24.4 billion. 35 times the cost to build Hoover dam. Again, only for the structure. No tracks, no lift, no power system. It does not matter if it is made part of an existing building or stand on its own; it would require its own structure to keep that weight up. That is why this project is ridiculous. It can never be cost competitive.
Truth is: Most innovations have had experts that "guesstimated" and calculated that they would never work. Until they eventually figure out a way to make them work. It's a recurring pattern.
@@BlackandWhitecustoms It really comes down to who gets the credit for coming up with an idea or making it work. Lots of critical thinking is fueled by the hope that others wont succeed, just so their egos remain intact and they can say "See, I told you so"
@@Sn0w1981 Good luck finding people willing to build if *for free*, since this is what it would require. The structural material also would need to be donated. You go right ahead a figure out a way to make that half baked idea work.
@@vincentgoudreault9662 I see you have become convinced of your theory on this. But there is no way you can "run the numbers" and rule out every possible variation for a fairly new concept to become viable in the future. Technology is ever evolving, necessity and costs are ever changing. Creative minds have proven many neigh-sayers wrong in the past. My point is: Critical thinking is admirable, when doing so constructively and keeping an open mind.
A promising alternative is bouyancy power. Instead of lifting something in the open air, lower a bouyant object like a big baloon in liquid. Releasing the object makes it float up and that force can be used. It allows for using a lot less space.
Good idea.. ❤️ Subject for improvement by reducing the shape and inflating it through a pump under water deep down.. there must be some calculations around the power needed for a certain air volume AND how it suits the Archimedes push to have a power gain. 🤔😉
As soon as I saw your comment, a combination buoyancy, gravity battery system appeared in my mind. Thank you for that 🙏 it was a very satisfying rush of mental design 👌
You make a very good point about buoyancy power, and going upwards to generate that power, but I'm wondering if maybe instead of utilizing a big balloon in liquid, that maybe teeth gear notches going all the way up the mine/coal shaft walls, and some type of metal doomed cap with notched teeth on the vertical sides of the doomed cap, that generates power as it rises up the mine shaft via the lifting force of the lifting force of the lighter that air gas.
Only issue i dislike about compressed air or buoyant systems is, as you store more energy in the form of compressed air, the energy demand increases exponentially as pressure increases, say you need 1 KWh at 100 PSi to get to 200 PSi, at 200-300 you’d need more than 2 KWh to compress the air, ik my example isnt accurate representation of the power needs but i am just using it as an example.
Tidal Flows are the answer for unlimited free energy. It is like the tried and proven hydroelectric plants but works in both directions and is not dependent on rainfall or snowmelt. It can be much wider than a river and placed in hundreds of times more areas around the world. It is 100% dependable and cycles several times per day. It can easily be made safe for wildlife. You are using the power of the moon's gravity and the ocean and does not require storage of energy. You can create inland areas connected to the sea to increase the overall control and safety factor if necessary.
I thought of this 40 years ago told a lot of people the big money power company’s blew me off. You could drill dry wells and do the same thing for individual homes.
Everyone blew me off for an idea I had as well.. combining the fridge and hot water system for homes.. Because of all the heat pipes and heat generated by the use of refrigerators, it's insane to me that we then have a second system for heating water.. Why not have a series of interwoven pipes that go all up and down slowly in lines across the back of the heat pipes, but with water flowing inside the pipes, so it functions better as a cooling system for the fridge on the outside while drawing heat away and into the pipes to heat the water which then flows into a small collective tank for later use. With a recycling pipe connected to the tank so the water continuously flows again through the pipes to keep the water at hot enough temperatures. Instead of paying double, to cool something down by generating heat then just wasting the heat behind the fridge and another damn heating system for water, just use the heat/electricity already generated from the first device... 🤔
Another example of younger generation redefining words to make it sound like they thought up something new. Another example: string theory is just nonsense.
As others have mentioned, just pump water instead of lifting weights. Turbines placed at the bottom of mine shafts would generate the electricity. Pumps would get the water back up to the surface. Mine shafts could have curves in them, but appropriately sized pipes would snake their way down to the turbines and pumps. All you need is the desired height. Also, pumped water shafts are somewhat impervious to ground water infiltration since you would already have the pumps at the bottom of the shaft. Appropriate lining, as required for sections of the shaft would keep water infiltration rate under control. At the surface, place a large pond to accumulate all the pumped water. Above that water, place your solar panels. This could be an opportunity for profitable cheap hilly land in Pennsylvania, with lots of conveniently placed abandoned coal mines and mine shafts. Valleys in those mountains would become the ponds for storage. Solar and wind turbines, if appropriate, would span the tops of the hills. GitRDone!
Water introduces a series of problems that have to be dealt with. Filtering it, keeping it bacteria free, rust, leakage, etc. Steel\Lead is heavier than water and has none of water's design issues.
Too bad all the people and wildlife that live in those valleys would have to lose their home. And what of places without convenient hills or mine shafts? At least this method can be used anywhere
Agreed with Mike. + Water evaporation would be a huge problem too. I think Mike meant that there are other denser* materials we can use instead of water.
the issue is, Einstein, that you need specific locations for pump storage...like a large supply of water and a nearby incline with the desired slope. the gravity technology in the video is exciting because it can be built anywhere.
Water bag batteries are my favorite. You use excess power to pump water into a giant bladder, when you need power, you open a valve in the bladder and use a combination of having a slope and progressively smaller tubes leading to a tiny nozzle that shoots the water into a turbine , which spins and generates power. Its basically a different kind of gravity battery
That's a really interesting concept! Gravity battery systems like the one you mentioned are definitely game-changers. Speaking of power solutions, have you checked out the Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series? It's a versatile powerhouse with massive capacity, fast recharging, and comprehensive protections. It's perfect for outdoor enthusiasts and family camping trips. Plus, it's built with Segway's waterproof technology, so you can take it on any adventure, rain or shine! Just thought it might be something you'd be interested in.
I work in the electricity industry on policy issues and it always shocks non-technical people that we are never more than 0.2 seconds from a full grid blackout. They never really understand the way the traditional grid depends on multiple layers of security margin and how intermittent renewables reduce that dramatically. We desperately need storage as that is the only way that grid can be truly carbon free. The only issue is how much it will cost.
The way I see it, the burning of fossil fuels will end someday, so the only questions are when and what humans will do. Nobody knows how far into the future this will be and how many humans there will be at that point. But my guess is it will be an ugly situation, a collapse in the human population. We should be putting massive amounts of resources into developing renewables now, stop wasting money on sending people to Mars ect. It doesn’t really effect me, I’ll be dead, but I hate to think what future generations will think of our wasteful, decadent consumption.
if only we could all have solar and turbines and just generated power for everyone without paying. oh well, that shit will never fly in the US, pun intended
Sorry, but 0.2 seconds and entire grid blackout don't compute. Rolling blackouts sure, but grid blackout, if that's that's the best you can do, we need new people in charge. (it's really funny seeing you explain how hard it is to keep hydrocarbon controlled based power working, but then jump right to intermittent power generation) So, how much storage do you need for a 100% renewable energy source? In December, we don't see the sun here, and the wind doesn't blow, and all our reservoirs are at winter pool. And they've been trying to install a main transmission line here for 25 years, no success. Now you have to put in a 100% base load capable hydrocarbon generating capacity, to back up all your renewable and batteries. So capital investment sounds like it's about 4X (renewable/storage/hydrocarbon) what a simple hydrocarbon system with 10% redundancy would cost. Don't forget your wind/solar needs to have average generating capacity of at least 2X base load, so you have something left over to charge the batteries with. Show me what a GigaWatt-Month continuous system would cost per KWhr to the home owner. None of this makes sense, and I think Germany has already proven me correct on this.
let's say we need to store enough energy to then produce 50 MW for 12 hours (at night). probably enough for a small town. 50 MW * 3600 * 12 = 2160 GJ - we need to store such energy. Now let's calculate the mass of the load if the lifting height is, say, 100m. E = mgh , h = 100m, then m = Е(g * h) = 2160 ГДж/(10 m/s^2 * 100m) = TWO MILLIONS TONS ... For a rough estimate - this is about a cube concrete 100 x 100 x 100 meters :)
@@silver_surfer88 since 25=100/4, then you only have (1/4*1/4*1/4) of the energy stored, say to produce with a power of 50/64 MW, roughly 0,8 MW. Despite this cube is still a monster, the mechanical transmission to make it to descend 100 m in 12 hours will absorb an important amount of the energy, say 1/2 with an an efficiency of 50%. As this efficiency also applies during uplifting, it will need an extra power of 50% more. So the system is good for nothing. Please make the calculations. If you don't know, please ask.
Despite this cube is a monster, the mechanical transmission to make it to descend 100 m in 12 hours will absorb an important amount of the energy, say 1/2 with an an efficiency of 50%. As this efficiency also applies during uplifting, it will need an extra power of 50% more. So the system is good for nothing.
I still did not heard in this animation movie how exactly making weights solid instead of just pumping water makes it cheaper? Heavy lifts/elevators generally are quite expensive machines, while a water container is much simpler device, with the pump and pipes being the elements which require most service.
Yeah this is a dumb idea. It’s would be so much simpler to build a tower to hold a bunch of water and just pump it vs all the moving parts needed to lift and lower objects. Drilling rigs do this very thing all day everyday. The info to show us how much maintenance is needed for this already exists but those questions for some reason (I’m being sarcastic here) never get answered.
I thought of exactly this when I was a little kid ... Then I went to school and realised that yes, it can work but that still doesn't mean it's a good idea. It's truly sad and hilarious at the same time that people keep wasting time and money on shit like this. Like, for real these ppl know they are just trolling "investors" out of their money right?!? Don't tell me they actually believe this can go anywhere??
Energy density and specific energy i.e. energy per unit volume and energy per kg mass for water is lesser than for a solid concrete. The potential energy in 1 ton of solid block will need much large volume of water at the same height.
@@PMLighthouse Yes, density of concrete is about 2x more than density of water. So you just need a 2 times larger container for the water. Still, I don't see any argument why building and maintaining heavy elevator would be less expensive than pumping water through a pipe.
Use tidal energy to raise water to a height...and let it out all day and night... ( Tidal is available only at specific times)..the water stored at a height can be continuously tapped.
yes Tidal power systems are massively UNDER utilized...its basically a vast reserve of energy just waiting to be harnessed...You could have control flow points and place turbines on the flow points...it could totally be done ...not much different from a Traditional Hydro system..
Here is another idea: Abandoned strip mines can be half a mile deep. They look like an upside-down cake. The deep part of the mine is narrow. The part of the mine at the surface with the earth is wide. So, put turbines and pumps at the bottom of the mine. An appropriately sized catch water basin for the pumps at the bottom. Build a "pool" structure towards the top of the cake close to the surface. That pool is supported on a foundation around the circumference of the bottom of one of the top layers of the cake. The pool is as many feet in depth as you want for your potential energy storage. Solar supported and placed above the pool. At the center of the top circle of the cake, you build a cone section that goes lower than the bottom of your pool. That is to set up a center of gravity for all that weight of water. A column structure going down to the bottom of the mine supports that center of the pool. In the space between the bottom of the mine and underneath the pool structure you put your electric power plant and underground high voltage transmission out. Now, drop water to the turbines, pump it up for storage. Rinse and repeat. But, actually, there is a cheaper way to do the above with strip mines. You can spend a lot less money in the building of the pool of water over the mine. That is, that pool that is just hiding the previously ugly carved out strip mine. It could just be very shallow. The reason for that is that it would limit the weight that you would need your structure to support. For energy production, you're just interested in the height of the water column from the surface of the pool to the bottom of the strip mine. Then, if you have land adjoining your strip mine, dig appropriately around the mine to build a pond/lake to any volume you desire for your "water battery". That additional adjoining pond is cheaper, since the land itself supports that water weight. That section of water is also connected to the shallow part over the strip mine. By doing so, not only do you get a nice new lake for lake front living, but you have energy storage in the form of potential energy between the lake and the turbines and now you don't have to look at the ugly strip mine on your land. P.S. I'm a retired Electrical Engineer. All we need in this world is some imagination. Come on people. Get it done. There is always a way.
PD3045, Many Open Cut Mines are in Remote Locations. Some of these are Not Connected to a Grid. Therefore in Some Cases Better to Build Highrise Gravity Batteries Near an Existing Small Town so as to Create Energy Storage and Enhance the Small Town Economy. Two Positives instead of One Positive.
@@ore4619 Absolutely. Potential energy storage from a water reservoir on the surface of the earth when using deep mines for energy storage from that water is relatively cheap. But, you do need either a deep cavity deep in the mine, where your turbines are placed to capture the water after power generation. Alternatively, you would need an underground natural water flow that you could dump the surface water into, the sink.
If only there was a material which can go uphill on it's own, easily storable, and can have other uses besides a random weight. Since solids are harder to deal with and store, a liquid or gas would be best. If only this planet had a prevalent amount of liquid that naturally flows downstream, and has a natural cycle which bring it back upstream. Also, it would be nice if all this liquid organized itself into trails when it flows downstream, so that we could use a large body of this liquid or river to hold it then release it. The answer is water, not giant blocks which inefficently store weight, and have to remain stable while releasing energy. Hydroelectric power is much better than this scam version of a weight battery.
It's far from being scam. Of course hydropower storage is better but as the video mention, hydropower storage can't be built everywhere so this can be an alternative in that situation.
@@greenleafyman1028I just think using salt water n encapsulated insulated and corrosive resistant materials too use the old volta stack inside salt water pools with things such as hemp n plant carbons too make your design that is able too just sit half in salt water so it doesn't short n connect....plant carbon salt and metal on a simple build but scale up not down I mean it's not like we are short off land or sea water or land (islands) on sea water
Suffers from the same problem that wind and solar suffer from. It doesn't rain all the time. Sometimes your reservoir is reduced. Also evaporation is actively against you at all times. The problem is the duck curve of power generation vs usage. You've got to understand the basics first.
@@SecularMentat No, not a reservoir nescessarily, but a metal tank for water storage, doubling as a way to generate power, but also a place to store water with little to no evaporation. If worried about rust, use plastic, fiberglass, or a rust proof metal alloy.
You mean the liquid that seeps through cracks, evaporates, is in high demand both industrially and biologically, randomly replenishess, randomly disappears, requires large areas of land and has massive ecological impacts, surely you can't possibly be thinking of the absolute worst energy storage method compared to those in the video...
Law of thermodynamics teaches us "you can't even break even" so the less you convert energy from one form to another the better. So rather than rely so much on intermittent sources of power, find more consistent and scalable sources, like, say the virtually unlimited natural gas at our disposal!
To power a house for 12 hours a day (5 kWh), you would need to build a concrete cube with 2-meter sides and lift it 91 meters-for each house. There's no way this is profitable.
Cables, motors, generators, bearings all will need replaced way before the 50 year service life stated. Using old coal mines bring a list of other problems and issues. Methane, oxygen, water, roof and rib supports all will have to be maintained due to maintenance requirements on your gravity battery. It won’t be cheap.
@@bigmikesexcellentadventure6702 I don't know for sure, but coal has one distinct problem that weights don't have, and that's toxic ash that needs disposing of, and has an associated cost that needs to be figured into the cost of coal burning. Solar energy produces no waste products.
*True. There is not enough cheaply mine-able Lithium to service the worlds people. They predict $80.00 per pound for Lithium by 2035 and $270.00 a pound by 2050. Get it while you can!*
who's to say it has to be completely vertical? It could be down a mountainside on a slope, the potential gravity energy wouldn't be as high but the material costs would be lower and it would be more easily serviceable
That would take up a lot of space. I think if you get like how the oil drillers do it but with a bigger hole you can go down 30,000 feet and you can fill up a plastic container full of water or something dense that you wouldn't mind losing at the bottom and since you start at the surface of the earth the first drop would be free in the sense that it would generate a lot of the profit by putting power into the grid at peak times that by the time it got to the bottom and you started housing it up at bottom pricing for electricity in the grid it might cost less to hoist back up as it produced to drop and you collect the profit. Biggest expense would be digging the hole and lining it in a way that lasts so you don't have to do it again, and also hoping it generates more falling than it costs to haul back up. You could make several right next to each other and set it up to be basically autonomous except for maintenance once in a while. If one material becomes cheaper than other you can swap out whatever it on the platform to heavier weights with stronger pullies and bigger electric motors that produce more electricity on drop and can haul a heavier weight. If you can dig a hole straight down way far deep the first drop of the weight could generate some money
Not an engineer, so everything is totally IMHO: I don't think that storing energy in anything related to moving parts would ever be reliable and cost effective enough to scale it up to where we need it. Besides that, there is already that system where you pump up water and harvest that energy by running it through a turbine. Not even in the alps where you wouldn't have to build a structure for that simple task is it possible to run that on a profit. And thats way simpler than moving weights.
@@faustinpippin9208 I thought your calculation must be wrong as I'm currently using about 50kwh/day to heat my house and this will only increase as Winter progresses. But I checked and you're correct! Seems astonishing I'd need to raise perhaps 3 or 4 100 tons to that height just to heat my house! But Gravity is actually a very weak force so I think much larger masses have to be used - like the water in reservoirs to make this practicable.
If the top of the tower was able to rotate and you placed a vertical sail or blades atop it, the wind could gently rotate the weight array and add even more potential energy via centrifugal force.
nice fantasy but I think your way of getting the weight upwards is not the one with least friction. Downwards or centrifugal are just directions of the gravity force. I see no added value in spinning a weight because you want centrifugal force tot harvest electricity. Keeping it simple up and down seems the least chance of friction and other mechanical losses. Actually the whole idea in this video seems still way more expensive then using water pumping up in a hilly surrounding and use the streaming back down to generate electircity. The only reason to chose lifting blocks is to avoid transportation of electricity. But as todays world is already a massive web of transporting electricity, the gravity method is best used with pump-lakes in mountain areas.
My comment below is appropriate for mine shafts or other underground installations. But, it also applies to above ground setups. Instead of spending money on concrete or some other manufactured weight, just use water. Empty tanks are suspended up on the towers, just like the discussed concrete or other weight. Such water tanks get lifted up there empty. Now, pump the water from ground reservoirs up to the empty tanks up high. That's your store of potential energy. Then, when you need power generation, let gravity do its thing with the tanks full of water. Once the tank is at ground level, it empties its load of water at practically zero potential energy. Use some energy once again to pull the empty tanks up to the top of the structure. True, concrete has about twice the density of water, so that would affect the volume, but the cost may be less. But, actually, you don't have to be lifting things over and over again anyways. Just build the structure to support the weight that you want, pump the water up there and let it fall down pipes. You would probably make the storage tank cone shaped so the center of gravity of all that stored water is on an appropriately sized support column in the middle for all that weight. Then, pipes come down the outside of the support column. In the end, all you really care about is the Head pressure of water for the turbines at ground level.
At 5:17 the narrator compares gravity batteries with lithium-ion batteries as "two times cheaper." This is, of course, absurd. One time cheaper would be free. Whatever unit of cost you use, cost - 1 x cost = 0 x cost. The only way this comparison would make sense is if there were some unit of "cheapness" of which gravity batteries possess twice as much.
I was thinkoing about that way to store energy for a long time... I find it still promising, but I think the biggest problem is the massive load gears are exposed to. Moving Parts need constant maintenance and replacement. The storage facility can work for decades, yes. But only if you keep replacing some components. Imagine what happens if whatever the load is attached to starts to rust...
@@donalain69 You could pay for money to feed people, and then you could pay these people to turn a generator wheel with their hands. Technically, this would work, however, it would be a dishonest scam to say that storing energy inside people can be economically feasible. Likewise, it is a dishonest scam to say that storing energy in mechanical weights will ever be economically feasible. It is less efficient and more costly, by orders of magnitude, than systems which pump water into elevated lakes. It will never be economically feasible to use mechanical weights. So yes, it is more complicated. The complications prevent it from being economically feasible. The only way to believe that it can be feasible is if you don't understand reasoning. If you don't understand reasoning, then you should listen to people who do understand reasoning.
@@networkedperson sorry. i think the problem is we don't define "gravity battery" the same way. I include elevated water powered turbines in that term, even if the water isn't pumped up mechanically using solar power. (it basically is moved there by solar power anyway, just the natural way) For me the principle is the same, and where i come from (Switzerland), it's one of the main sources of energy for decades. But regardless of that... I'm not so sure if pumping up water really requires less power than lifting a weight using multiple pulleys while lowering it again without them.
@@donalain69 we have the same definition, however we are considering the costs differently. Comparing solid battery to liquid battery, the cost and efficiency of momentary operation could perhaps be similar, after all, 1kg of water stores the same potential energy as 1kg of anything else. However, the cost of construction and maintenance will be different. Consider for example Nant de Drance, in which 25 million m^3 of water are stored 425 meters above the generator... The construction cost was 2.2 billion Swiss Franc.... A water system is the least costly system that can store any useful amount of energy. The cost to build 25 billion kilograms of solid weights attached to 425 meters of cables will be exponentially more than 2.2 billions Swiss Franc... Meanwhile, the cost of maintenance for the cables and wheels will be exponentially higher for solid weights compared to the maintenance cost for Nant de Drance.
Imagine this system with two balanced loads which collect atmospheric moisture at the top, then drain it at the bottom. It seams that a system like that could function with no artificial energy input and provide a lot of energy for a long duration.
@@1mlister atmospheric moisture is very high in some places. If the lift locks at the top until it it’s full, and then descends, it could dump its load at the bottom and the ascend once it’s empty.
My idea spent time working on this idea. Because you need a huge amount of weight, my research was on making houses themselves be the weight. In particular this is appropriate for houses that are in high wind areas subject to storms, because their weight makes them safer than lightweight wood houses. And along the coast where you need to raise them to avoid flooding, so having the mechanism to raise and lower also make the house safer. To increase raised height, you want to lower them below ground at base height. A full very thick two story concrete house could store about 3 days of energy, maybe more if you conserve how much time computers are on watching youtube videos.
This is not storage - it is moving energy with energy. It still take a source to move the energy. And there are limitations COPS rating for places that need more are lower
So you're suggesting that the ropes and pully systems which obviously are moving parts, will last for 50 years without any maintainance or even replacements? And what about earth quakes? It will be devastating to see big ass metal chunks weighing in the tons fall out of a friggin tower.
I want something like this in my back yard. I would lift weights and carry them up the stairs into a large bin. I'd get a workout and also get some free electricity.
Speaking of workouts: Converting gyms to harness power from human workouts. Individual athletes could get 'rewards' for their generated energy and bragging rights....
Some railroad trains have functioned as gravity batteries for a century. Descending or slowing, electric braking energy is transferred to a third rail or overhead wire and used by another train elsewhere.
This is the more advanced concept after hydropower plant. Water may be evaporated and smeared out to soil and its specific gravity is only 1. If we use concrete with 2.5, then it saves space much. Also this system is more controllable in frequently varying power condition. However it may be more expensive than the hydro power plant in large scale.
Sink a large tube vertically offshore, pump out the water in the tube with excess power, and later use the water outside the tube to fall to generate hydropower. Another way to store energy is to use a large heavy weight falling while spinning inside the tube hanging from a cable on a spool. A motor spinning a dead weight at high speed will store even more energy
Here's what I'm thinking... I think my 1000ft^2 home consumes an average of about 27kwH per day(electricity only). To store that amount of energy within a 100ft tall column, it would take 325,405Kg assuming a 100% conversion of potential energy. That's essentially 358 tons(feel free to double check my math) Heavy duty! Not sure exactly how much my energy usage compares to an Industrial facility, but I'm left wondering.... is this practical, or pipe dreamz?
Yeah, when you put it that way it seems like a dumb idea. Without doing an exact calculation such as you did here, a ton of water is about a cubic meter. So your house would need about 360 cubic meters to fall 100 ft at 100% efficiency - or about a 7 meter sided cube (about 25 ft). That's just your one relatively small house. But my much larger (but efficiently run house) uses about the same kWh in the summertime (much less in the winter). I doubt mechanical batteries are a very good way to go. Better to use energy for some sort of chemical reaction process in much less space. Like hydrolysis of water to obtain hydrogen. But hydrogen is a real pain in the ass fuel - so something similar. Something with much higher energy density than anything purely mechanical such as this.
9:37 I like the fact that gravity battery has a working lifespan of fifty years which is ideal. If lithium battery has a working fifty years lifespan then that will be ideal but currently they are not. We need more innovation like these that has significant lifespan and it is effective. Lithium battery is not Even recyclable which is such a disadvantage. A ten year lifespan is not good enough considering that our raw resources is limited in quantity and it is not recyclable or renewable. Plus we have to dig enormous crators or holes in the earth to find limited resources and this digging changes the environment massively. 😎💯💪🏾👍🏾
Since 1991 I am using gravity battery of my own design, transforming solar and wind energy to potential energy of the concrete brick of 1200 kg weight. Must say, it is flawless and works without any expenses at all ( few bearings and grease so far) but efficiency is not that high. I hoped it would be about 30% but it is lower.
Very interesting comment!! Would love to watch a video about your experience. I think your percentage loss is actually comparable to other mechanical systems of storage such as pumped water.
@@Ebuilt You can imply from his statement, "I hoped it would be about 30% but it is lower." Tvset was disappointed that the efficiency wasn't higher than 30%, but lower than 30%.
Pumped storage (call it whatever fancy name you want) has been around almost 100 years, it's simple easy to build and works. It does not have the highest efficiency, but has very low maintenance compared to almost anything else. It's already proven scalable.
I really like the principle. There are losses, however in the lifting and falling process. Friction, motor/generator coupling, it's the same for water systems. But I like the fact that you could build a tall skyscraper in a city that would take up very little ground space and produce no pollution. I think they would be more convenient than water systems. Combine with a Solar/wind setup and you have a winner. I also like flywheel systems. Magnetic bearings in a vaccum. I'm not keen on huge Li-ion battery packs. I think the best place for Li-ion is in cellphones and laptops. EV'S are over the top because, when they battery wears out, you have to replace it and that's an arm and a leg. But I think Li-ion bikes have got something going for them. And then there's good old lead-acid. Easy to make, easy to recycle. People don't talk about them much these days. They are used extensively in mines. I think homes and busses have a place for lead-acid. Anything big-ish that has floor space and easy access to recharge. Everything doesn't have to be small and compact. Replacing lead-acid doesn't cost an arm and a leg and you can maintain them for many years if you know what you're doing.
Look up how much the 'skyscraper' able to keep that weight up would cost to build. I ran the number (I am an engineer) and there is no way this can be cost effective.
What they didn't mention here is that LiOn batteries can switch from full power storage to full power supply in milliseconds. LiOn battery farms employ software that allows them to monitor the constantly changing spot prices of electricity in real time, and switch back and forth (store when the price drops below a certain amount, supply when it goes above a certain amount) instantaneously, giving them a means of financial arbitrage that can make the company that owns them a lot of money. This has greatly offset the cost of LiOn and in some instances they show a net profit. Gas turbine generators take 25min to startup from cold if you're going to use them to try and sell into a high cost market, even an idling gas turbine can take several minutes to spin up, and idling a turbine while waiting for the right price is expensive. Pumped hydro can take even longer to switch from storage to supply, and even these gravity weight lowering systems take several minutes to reverse to make sure the cables aren't overstressed. LiOn batteries are first in to sell power before the price drops as other generators come online to sell, and first out when the price drops too low. And in a distributed marketplace like electricity, this is a big advantage.
@@glibsonoran And where they are in the 'up' position, they hover in mid-air, unsupported, maybe? Figure out how massive the structure needed to support the blocks in the up position, and you will have your answer: it cannot work, period. (And do not try claiming that they are supported by other blocks, since those would be, by definition, on the ground, hence would serve no purpose other than support. Then you look at the pyramid in Egypt and see how quickly the top layer need to taper)
It is essentially a battery that stores energy. You could easily build something like this yourself. Seems like it could be a better investment than batteries because batteries eventually wear out and you have the chemicals, disposal and environmental concerns of a battery. This is just a weight with some pulleys and a generator. Generators can last a very long time and are easily repaired. You could build the same system in your backyard and lift the weight with your exercise bike while you're getting healthier.
Efficiency and costs are pretty important. I live in Norway where we both have hydropower and a lot of wind and planned offshore turbines. So I guess here pumped hydro will be a greatsolution to store any surplus.
soon they are gonna up with an even GREATER invention, a windmill that raises the weight mechanically,,,, like a windmill grinds wheat ,,thus increasing efficiency ,,i am not a tech wizard or anything like that but i would guess that a wind turbine that produces energy and then uses said energy to lift a weight is allot less efficient that having the wind spinning machine mechanically lift that weight
Why not installing these gravity batteries near sea in Africa and combine them with water desalination plant ? When there's excess of power they can power a sea-water desalination plant to produce more water which in turn irrigates fields. Another suggestion: use some form of construction (i.e. rails along which a load is carried up) when there's excess energy generated a material (of which the before mentioned rails are made of) which creates more tension, and when the load is carried down (to produce electricity) it goes over a construction/rails which produces less tension. Alteratively use some gearboxes or set of pulleys to lift/lower the load at times of different amount of power generated by the gravitional batteries. We might also consider a system that (when batteries generate excess power) add/attach more load to the lift being pulled up and detach the load (when we need more energy) so the load descents faster creating more energy. Another benefit of installing these gravitional batteries in Africa would be ease of access to sand from which we could make a lot of glass, allowing to build greenhouses (tinted of course) where food is grown. Either way, there must be tons of use cases (beneficial to some people) to utilise the excess energy generated during times when gravitional batteries generate too much power.
There is a gravity battery that many are not aware of . Its called a floating city. The city is built in a tidal area and raises with the tide.When the Modules of the city are lowered we create electricity. This power is for the city and excess energy goes to the grid for other use like land based industries . When the tide turns energy is created by the force of the modules displacing the water and being pushed up.
Rising and falling on the tide does no work on the floating object- only if it somehow reacts against a stationary surface can work be extracted. This is physics 101 stuff.
@@r0cketplumber yes it reacts against stationary object . Each module is connected to the bottom of the tidal water. You will have to fill in the spaces otherwise it would be a 500 page concept !
This would be cheaper in the short term but the regular maintenance would actually be high. The draw works that lift and lower the load would have gearboxes that need weekly maintenance, the sheaves would need to be greased daily, the cable would need to slipped and cut every so many ton miles, we do it almost weekly. You’ll have safety system’s that need to be regularly tested to protect the stationary cluster of sheaves and the traveling cluster. They always do this with these videos, they present only the upsides and never consult people who work on these things already. It’s funny these videos don’t get blurbs for misinformation while so many others do.
@@LuisAlbanes Yes, although not any being mass-produced. I did find one individual who is using it for personal use to produce power at their home.. There are several videos with people making small prototype ones aswell Also at one facility i worked, a diaper company. they used compressed air to power many aspects of the machinery The converbelt for example, The lights within the machine where also powered by a small electric generator that was powered by compressed air
@@LuisAlbanes Also, there is a car company using compressed air to power the vehicle engine , it uses the compressed air from the engine to rotate the alternator and produce the electrical power to run lights and other needed electrical components in the same way a gas powered vehicle does
We've had gravity batteries for more than a century, its called 'pumped hydro'. You can store an enormous amount of energy with a one small lake 1000m above another small lake. Let's say the lake is 1000m on a side and the change in depth between charged and discharged is 5m -- how much energy could that store? A lake 1000m on a side will have a surface area of one million square meters and a 5m variation in depth means a volume of 5M m^3. One cubic meter of water has a mass of about 1000kg. OK, we're ready to calculate: 5M m^3 x 1000kg/m^3 x 1000m x 9.80665 = 49TJ or 49 trillion Joules. That works out to 136 billion watt*hours. Or, enough to provide about 1GW for 13.6 hours. I should mention that there is no reason to limit the lake to 1000m on a side, a modest sized lake, about 6 miles by 6 miles or 10km x 10km with a surface area of 100km^2 would be able to store 100X as much energy as the example I provided, or 100GW for 13.6 hours. Actually, the net would be a bit less as the turbines are not 100% efficient, but they are surprisingly efficient, in fact around 92% or even higher. If we account for a, let's say 10% loss, the 1000m on a side lake would be able to deliver 1GW for 12.2 hours and the 100km^2 lake would be able to provide 100GW for more than half a day! That amount of electrical power is more than any state uses including California!
I did some rough calcs on my part and when I compare gravity storage to lithium-ion battery storage, Li-Ion wins by A LOT! At 5:20, can you elaborate where did you get this calculation from? Here's what I did to compare: Epot = m*g*h = 50.000kg * 9,81 m/s^2 * 15m = 2kWh. So, Gravitricitys little port-prototype there can store about 2 kWh of energy, if there's no conversion losses. I imagine costs will be in the 5 digits surely, let's generously assume 60.000€ for the gravity battery. In comparison, the average price of a Li-Ion battery is around 150€/kWh. For a 2 kWh battery plus grid connection you would pay a generous estimate of 3.000€. Now compare 60.000€ to 3.000€ for the same 2 kWh of energy storage. Gravity storage pros: Depending on the motors, probably a lot more power output than the Li-Ion battery. Good for grid stability and fast reaction to load changes in the grid. But, don't we have much better renewable energy storage alternatives for improving grid stability? Like vacuumised flywheels, super capacitors on the uprising, large pumped water storage connected to the grids? Please add to the discussion, I am curious what you have to say about this!
I'm interested in this in the context of moving housing: * Lift 20 shipping container tiny houses up a mountain on a train track, using standard train protocols and mounting the shipping containers sideways so that hydraulic levelers can adjust the angle if the terrain changes or keep the rail at a consistent angle. * Water and sewage could be at the bottom of the mountain and refilled nightly. * The houses could be mounted on a linked train so that there is only one mechanism to drive them up the track with gears on the ground and then generate power with each of those motors going down. * The wind and solar can be mounted on each chipping container as well. * Basically you take the train and live on a train going up and down, rather than have an ugly high concrete structure that does nothing.
Many people are talking about using water only for the gravity batteries everywhere. But the possibility of floods in case the dam is breached due to landslide or heavy rain or earthquake or wear-tear over time also needs to be calculated and kept in mind. Not to forget that in population dense countries, the land itself is much costlier and difficult to procure to extend or create new reservoirs. And the native communities which is displaced because of that since most reservoirs will created in somewhat far-off from cities areas and near forests and hills. Plus with keeping a big chunk of land, the greenery that goes inside water will be rotting and producing huge amounts of Methane, a Green House Gas with a higher capacity to hold the heat causing Global warming. And anyway, dams and reservoirs themselves create a barrier for aquatic species to procreate and survive causing biological degradation. It also affects the farm fields where the finer silt which aids the production of crops doesn't reach and instead gets deposited in the reservoir slowly making it unviable over time. The hydrological solutions cannot be expanded beyond a point without huge ramifications and is not suitable in most countries which need to switch fast to the renewable sources.
Such a clever perspective on environmental issues, which demand the comprehension of countless variables. We just can’t assume water is good everywhere, for big batteries need monstrous reservoirs, which destroy ecosystems besides being really damaging to communities, food security and so on.
This storage never 'leaks', in that once lifted, the potential energy stored does not dissipate. The only loss is in the electrical and mechanical resistance of the system, which is true of any storage system. No added pollution, no exotic materials - you can use sand, rocks, water, cement blocks, or iron ingots. Water can evaporate from reservoirs. Bricks do not.
Saying it never leaks is not entirely accurate. Any material used will decay over time and quickly if left in open air. It is not a very good argument for gravity batteries anyway. Water does not evaporate fast enough for the stored power to go unused as the "battery" is recharged/discharged daily. These system are not built or needed for long term energy storage they just need to store enough energy for a days worth of energy at the most.
Problem is, the highest demand is during the day and we don't have extra during this period. Pumped storage was designed to collect the extra produced at night when demand is low. Today's renewable energy produces only during daylight and windy conditions. Unless you have an extremely windy nighttime ( which is historically not regular), there is no extra to save. Nuke ,oil and gas are the most reliable and work at night. Renewables will never replace the Nighttime producers. No way, no how, ever. That's the only period that we ever have extra energy. Hydro is a small portion in most markets and environmental groups are getting them commissioned, so it's a declining source.
Too complex, too expensive, too many things to wear out. If you’re going to build a tower to put weights in, why not put a tank on top and pump water up. The pump becomes the only moving part. The only gravity storage I’ve seen that makes kind of sense is to run railroad tracks up a hill. Then use rail cars full of rock. Winch them uphill to store power and let them down again to release it. The components are readily available, thus cheap. You could even use old rail road gear too unsafe for transportation. You are not limited by how high you can build a tower. The rails could be miles long and be a thousand feet high. You could put motor/generators on the cars themselves. Use a third rail to carry power to and from the cars. This eliminates the winch and cable, points of failure and power loss. Need more storage, add more cars to the rails.
The problem I see with these types of gravity batteries are "wear and tear". Using hydro, it's less likely that things are going to go wrong when it's essentially one hole full of water leading to another with the route filled with turbines(A bit more complex than that, but you get the idea). Gravity batteries as shown above however are far more complex and will require more maintenance. With it being such a heavy load in such a small space, you'll need to make sure every part of the equipment is in top condition, or risk the entire thing breaking. Not only that, but put it in the right spot and rain can essentially give free energy to hydro energy storage systems... granted, evaporation can do just the opposite, so it just depends how it's built. It's hard to beat water.
And for the record (I'm not a professional in the area so if I'm wrong please tell me) The smallest PSH (Pumped Storage Hydroelectric) station in the US has a power capacity of 1,065 MW So when numbers are thrown around like 80 Megawatts or when the prospect of 4 Megawatts being generated from the coal mine gravity battery seems like a lot, it's... really not.
@@SharkyShocker Yeah, but the possibility of floods in case the dam is breached due to landslide or heavy rain or earthquake or wear-tear over time also needs to be calculated and kept in mind. Not to forget that in population dense countries, the land itself is much costlier and difficult to procure to extend or create new reservoirs. And the native communities which is displaced because of that since most reservoirs will created in somewhat far-off from cities areas and near forests and hills. Plus with keeping a big chunk of land, the greenery that goes inside water will be rotting and producing huge amounts of Methane, a Green House Gas with a higher capacity to hold the heat causing Global warming. And anyway, dams and reservoirs themselves create a barrier for aquatic species to procreate and survive causing biological degradation. It also affects the farm fields where the finer silt which aids the production of crops doesn't reach and instead gets deposited in the reservoir slowly making it unviable over time. The hydrological solutions cannot be expanded beyond a point without huge ramifications and is not suitable in most countries which need to switch fast to the renewable sources.
I'll need to do some math, but consider that groun-loop heat pumps are becoming popular for residential uses. They require a well--like cylinder to be drilled into the ground. Could the same drilling systems be used to drill for a gravity "battery" system for residential pv energy storage? It seems reasonable.
The problem could be charging power required is pretty fixed. The excess power has to meet the desired power range to lift up the weight. Whereas batteries are convenient to store. I believe having rooftop solar with a 10kWh battery for every house that can communicate with grid demand will be super simple and convenient.
Doesn't sound very convenient at all. You have to mine all that precious metals and equip it on every house. The houses are already wired for electricity you just have to get it to the grid.
@@TheAnnoyingBoss to top it off; 10% - 20% battery degradation within 10yrs, they will not outlast any mechanical system, industrial battery power storage require air conditioning (heat\cooling), any failures can destroy an entire unit by fire, shorts and swelling. Beyond that, their external maintenance is similar to those of gravity based variants. The video does a great job explaining the pros and cons
There are those who say it’s not possible to store sufficient energy this way. I say rubbish why on earth not if we put our minds to it. I’m sure the same people would years ago have said it’s impossible to make light carry data, fibre optic ! This gravity technology is a brilliant idea that could be put to all sorts of use both industrial and domestic, only time will tell but my moneys on it. 😊
Same people say the same thing about hundreds of scam that fool billions from innocent people too. Not every idea can be successful only just because we put "all effort" into it.
Ingénieux ! Réalisable et écologique sur le long terme. Plus besoin de barrage hydro-électrique, ni de centrale nucléaire et ni d'éolienne qui nuisent à l'environnement. Chapeau ! 🙂👍
Nuclear power is still the best solution. Renewable like solar & wind require batteries plus the manufacture of panels & turbines are high & use old power supplies. Then on top the land & sea areas used aren't good for the environment. Whereas Nuxlear once built will have a suitcase sized package, every 20 years, of radioactive material to dispose of. They are safe, cost effective & less damaging to the environment.
Decomissioned missile silos are also a prime candidate for this concept. ICBM fields also tend to be in flat and remote lands that are ideal for wind and solar, so having a close gravity battery to store for high peak or surprise draws is fantastic.
@@LightbringerDesigns About a 1000 ft actually. Some are more. I used to work on the explosive warheads, but never did see the inside of a silo personally. Just know a bit about them. Really gravity batteries will work at any depth but obviously more is better. You just need to be able to lift a weight up and hold it in place until you need to release its kinetic energy later. The beauty of having the weight underground is that if there is an accident, the damage is very contained with little risk to human life.
One thing is wrong. Lithium batteries live more than 5-10 years. In a storage they aren´t used from 100% to 0. They discharge only 20-50% so they live three times longer. And when you use LFP Batteries, they even last longer and don´t burn anymore. And you can recycle them already up to 96%
1kg of mass has about 10J of potential energy for every meter of height. On average a lead acid battery has an energy density of 35Wh/kg or the same as 126,000 J per kg, a lithium ion battery can be 8 times more energy dense. So you would have to lift the lead acid battery about 13km to equal its energy density or in the case of lithium ion about 80km. So it is not really worth the mechanical complexity and investment for an increase of less than .01 percent or less of storage capacity.
Reading the comments, I see most people miss the part about the electricity coming from solar or wind and having an excess of power which is used to lift the weights. Instead of the excess power going to charge batteries, it is used to lift a weight and there is no damage to the environment like from batteries.
Cant they work with companies that build windmills? They can redesign existing windmills so that they can be fitted with one or more of these gravity batteries. I think this is a good idea because of its height and sturdiness. They can store excess electricity to the fitted gravity batteries when the winds are strong then use them when the winds are weak.
The storage of potential energy instead of the electricity itself seems like an amazing and durable way to store the energy we produce. There are all kinds of risks with storing it the traditional way, not to mention the resources needed. Our ever increasing need for electricity needs innovative solutions like this
3:40 50 tonnes 3:45 15 meters 4:00 250kW for a “few seconds” let’s say 6 seconds. 4:15 Proposes that systems can provide 20MW for eight hours. Starting with the time, there are 28,800 seconds in 8 hours, so we are looking at 4,800 “6 second falls.” You would need 4,800 fifty tonne weights dropped from 15 meters to provide 20MW of energy over 8 hours. That is 240,000 TONNES of gravity battery and all the associated hardware to handle all that mass. You might as well put your sky scrapers on lifts and use your buildings as gravity batteries…
Yes, BUT... Pumping water through pipes is inefficent due to friction. A pulley setup is more efficent than that, but there may be better ways to store power. Flywheels don't seem good either.
Possibly turning an elevator in a common high rise building might also be a viable option for this energy scheme, simular to the way breaking in some electric cars helps return some energy
wow. They also don't have to be made completely of metal. they can be filled with soil or rocks. and they are 100 percent recyclable. this could be the future.
I think we build a big arm that goes high up and off a lift with one big weight tied to the end and then a mega deep hole line the oil industry does. 10,000 feet down. Build 5 in a row and see how much it costs to dig and kind the hole, and then how much money it generates in electricity to drop it down the hole the first time and if it's worth even hoisting it back up and if it's even possible to be profitable. If it is, expand
Interesting idea! What kind of materials will be used to hold all that weight? If this structure is built underground, there will be some resistance, but a compromise can be reached for the benefits. If it is built above ground, the resistance will be ferocious, similar to what we have seen with the placement of wind turbines.
Another way to store energy is by compressing air into stainless steel air tanks for use in off hours. It wouldn't be cheap but it would be way less expensive than gravity systems.
I'm not sure if this would work, but I love this concept. We have a lot of tall buildings in our cities. If you put one gravity battery in one of the elevator's shafts, that battery could basically run the whole building.. maybe more
A lot of the energy banks just seem over complicated, especially when fluids are so much easier and less complicated to pump around a system. What could possibly be the advantage of having concrete blocks being lifted with cable when water can be pumped to a height.
The prototype in Switzerland was called EV1. Today the system is called EVX. The first of these has been implemented and is online in China. The company behind it: Energy Vault.
Gravity batteries don't need to be made of concrete? Can they have steel frames that hold scrap material or resources in long term storage? (Dual puropse. Gives a place to keep things while taking advantage of their weight) Would have to be open air, can't retrieve containers off of structure when they are finally needed down in a mine shaft Water tower gravity batteries?
One thing to watch out for, slavery. I was working on small projects like this at the coffee shop I worked at in the 90s. My original thought came from the friction limiters to keep the doors from swinging wildly, those boxes with the hinged arm at the top of many doors. The energy from opening the door is managed and released as friction heat. I figured why not put the energy to use. I worked up many dorky contraptions to realize the concept, like clocks, fans, and the such. There are many sources of small energy release like this all over human activities. From doorways and appliances, like opening refrigerators and oven, to sound dampening floors, etc… Taken further, I thought, why not boost input, like make doors a fraction more difficult to open to gain the fraction more energy to the small system. Cars could drive over plates to “donate” energy, and the idea flooded, but then it hit me. This sort of idea leads to slavery. Why not just have a gym that uses the gym equipment to generate energy? From here the door to slavery opens up. Kinetic to potential energy devices exist throughout history. But then the thoughts of slavery and misuse of the technology freaked me out.
This technology, now re-coined as gravity batteries is ancient tech. Many slaves throughout history have lost their lives to power such machines. Go with caution. This technology will always lead to slavery.
I did the math. In order to supply 20 MW of power for 8 hours from a so-called gravity battery, you would need a skyscraper that is 1 km tall with 65300 tons of weight at the top. That is if we assume that the efficiency of electric generators is 90%.
It’s the best way to get energy that does NOT degrade over time. In other words, sort of ‘emergency energy’. You lift it - more accurately, hold it at the top of a drilled hole probably - and can park it WITHOUT needing energy etc, using a locked brake situation. A peg, ratchet etc. Trigger the ratchet, and you have exactly the energy out you put in, minus a bit of efficiency loss. It would hold and work if you held it there for a year - this is NOT so for other storage projects like batteries or even water. It needs exploring at scale. I would suggest, filling-in a quarry or other artificially-created edge, is more likely than building a huge skyscraper in plain view. But, make a serious effort at it, somewhere. Needs learning, great idea, one of many.
In most cases, the most successful methods will be those with the least complexity. Pumping fluids and using train cars on a slope are both simple solutions. Where you can use train cars, your highest costs include mostly the grading of the slope. Everything else is off-the-shelf rails, motors and rail road cars. Same with fluids, but your advantage is only needing high spaces and low spaces because your reservoirs can be of flexible shape and location. I think as many have pointed out, the problem is energy density. Any gravity solution must be able to store enough energy at low enough investment to make it worth the effort. In these cases, its either a lot of cars or a lot of water. The solutions also need to compete with hydrogen storage when hydrogen generation is increasing in its efficiency.
Thanks and high respect for my university professor who teached me and other students that one electric tram need energy on uphill and will release this energy back downhill, and this lection was decades ago. Thanks to all my efforts during decades which lead me on an advanced concept which use gravity weight to generate energy on demand but heavy concrete blocks or wagons full with dirt can be lifted and dropped to generate energy when it is needed on so called "stationary gravity engine". The invention is not disclosed and will not be disclosed without partnering with a government which goal is energy independence and clean energy. Let government work now and not complain for energy sanctions. Energy is abundant but need the right technologies.
The demonstrator plant in the video: 15 meters height of the tower looks like the 50 tons weight only can move around 11 meters? That means that this system that cost £1 million to build can store 1.5 kWh! I hope you are all very impressed by this cutting edge technology. A li-ion battery with that capacity weigh less than 10kg and cost $200! So even if the 50 years claimed life of the tower comes true, it will still be 1000 times more expensive than a single Li-ion battery you can carry with one hand. This is a scam to trick investors that for some reason didn't pay enough attention in school during science class. So can it be used for short bursts of power then?: The "fast" drop, shown in the video, the weight drops at around 1m per second, so it can supply a burst power of 491kW for 11 seconds. However the claim in the video says that peak power is only 250kW, so that means there are losses of around 50% in the system, which is both ways btw, i.e. for going up and going down so in reality, a 5 kg $100 Li-ion battery is enough to replace this device and the tower has a combined cycle efficiency of only 25%, like Hydrogen fuel cell energy storage, but you don't even have waste heat here as a byproduct!! That is maybe still enough to make this useful at a local electricity distributer to mediate fluctuations, however to deliver 250kW for an hour, you'll need a weight 327 times heavier and the company is even suggesting a 20MW system running for 8 hours which would mean 327*8*80=208,000 times bigger than the demonstrator plant and it would need 4 times the amount of energy in, as you can recover per cycle, so highly wasteful, as I already mentioned. To continue the "number of homes" analogy in the video, it would mean 3 towers like this per home!. UA-cam commenters and politicians alike: if you ever hear about this again, dismiss it immediately, it is a scam, in the literal sense, not only meaning sketchy or overly optimistic. This company knows very well that this can't possibly work. They are only out to pocket public money, to then just disappear when they get them!
Yep. You evidently know your way around numbers. This thing is a scam.
Yes, this thing it's a SCAM !!! BUSTED !!! 🤬
Yup I was thinking the same thing.
Better gravity storage already exists using water. Lake Geneva (90 billion tonne) could regulate the power supply for Europe on a 24 hourly cycle. Need to be able to raise and lower at least 10 million tons through a height range of 200 metres to store useful amounts of energy.
It is a prototype. They for sure did the math on this. The advantage of this system is that it doesnt reducenits generation or storage capacity, meaning that it works way better than a battery
The amount of maintenance required for a mechanical system like this is an absolute nightmare. Just ask any elevator technician.
Pumping water back up to an elevated reservoir only has 1 moving part per pump.
the maintenance standards required for lifts that carry people would be much more stringent than some concrete blocks in an enclosed vertical column ... they replace wire rope that is only 10 % worn out
The impeller itself may be technically a single moving part but that impeller needs bearings, shafts, coils, valves, sensors, etc. and must work in concert with pipes, gates, transformers, breakers, and so forth. The analysis would certainly need to consider the whole system.
if you power the system by geothermal or hydro it doesn't really matter. The dams are phased anyways due to demand. this would increase demand and therefore cancel out the negatives.
if you power the system with hydro you only increase the speed that you use up the potential energy, you don't actually use any additional energy. the cost is always the same.
No comparison but lift. Elevators need to stop precisely at certain floors & have doors open.
Sorry. This cannot work. I ran the numbers a few months ago in a discussion forum. Here is what I posted last April:
The issue is the achingly low energy density per foot print unit area or construction cost.
Digging a shaft would either have to be done through very sturdy soil (costly) or require bracing so that the pit does not collapse (also costly).
If you compare with a well known hydro facility like the Hoover dam, and consider the figures, you can see how off the whole concept is.
Hoover dam water head: 180 m
Flow: 3300 tonne per second
Installed power: 2 GW
Active capacity: 19.554 km³
Reservoir area: 640 km²
Cost: $49 million in 1931; reportedly the equivalent of $684 million in 2020 dollar
This means, in the absence of replenishment, that Hoover dam could produce those 2 GW for about 6 million seconds, or almost 70 days, before the level gets too low.
For the record, Los Angeles reportedly consumes 22000 GWh of electrical energy per year, which roughly translates to an average of 2.5 GW (but seemingly would peak at 7.8 GW)
The largest solar farm in the world is in India, and has a 2.2 GW capacity (and covers over 56 km²)
This happens to be a nice figure because it is essentially the same as Hoover dam.
So, assuming that one does not have anything besides a very poorly flowing river but with a 180 m head, but with adequate reservoir capacity both uphill and downhill (about 10 km² area, if scaled from the lake Mead) and the equivalent of the Hoover dam power station that can be reversed to pump up the water, one would have a pair of solar farms of ~2 GW, one to power the actual day consumption, one to power the reversible hydraulic system during ‘charging-up’, and rely on the hydro reservoir to provide the power during night time, for an essentially constant 2 GW power production.
(Of course, there are variations during a day, more power needed at certain time than others, but let’s just assume that it is regulated and balanced for simplicity’s sake).
The final footprint for such an installation is around 132 km², 85% of which is solar farm.
Interestingly, Los Angeles, as a city, covers 1302 km².
Evidently, putting installations covering 1/10 the surface area of a city to power it will likely be done by finding suitable locations, which could be somewhat distant; high power transmission lines can allow the solar farm from not even be located close to the “hydraulic battery”, nor to the city itself.
Now, let’s scale this down to this ‘crane and weight’ scheme.
They were talking about 7000 blocks 30 tonnes each.
They want to have a 100 m head.
They want to use this operating for 8 hours (too low in my opinion, but let’s use their numbers).
That means they would be dealing with 7.3 tonnes per second.
100 m 7.3 t compared with Hoover dam’s 180 m and 3300 t.
So, their concept would be 0.123% of Hoover dam capacity, and you would need 814 such installations to compare.
The cost for the structure of a building is reportedly between $35 and $50 per square foot - this value is for building that actually gets built, probably having somewhat distributed floor weight; this gravity battery would on the other hand be top heavy when fully charged, that probably means it would cost more, structurally, but let’s go with $50 and call it optimistic for now.
The cost for digging a basement is reportedly $10 to $20 per square foot - but since a basement is only partly underground, the cost for a deeper well will be more expensive, as machinery will have to be lowered and soil brought up, etc. Interestingly, googling “cost for digging deep foundations” brings something that mentions ‘between $25 to $50 per square foot’, so apparently it costs essentially as much going up as digging down.
So, you have this tower (or underground shaft) that will be housing 210000 tonne of blocks, and move them over 100 m height difference - the equivalent of 30 stories.
Assume that you have 30 stories used as storage (i.e. story 1 blocks would be stored at level 31 when ‘high’, and blocks low at 30 would be hoisted to level 60) and we have a 60 story building.
7000 blocks distributed over 30 stories means 233 blocks per level, or 7000 tonne per level.
Soil has a density of 2.65; concrete is 2.4.
Let’s assume the density of the blocks would be around 2.5, as we have to take into account overall gaps, and the machinery to move them around, the tracks and so on.
7000 tonnes therefore mean 2800 m³.
With 3 m height, we have 933 m² ‘foot print’ - essentially 10000 square feet.
Time 60 ‘stories’, we have an equivalent of 600000 square feet. At $50 per square feet, that is $30 million.
Only for the structure.
To scale this back to Hoover dam proportion, we multiply by 814 - $24.4 billion.
35 times the cost to build Hoover dam.
Again, only for the structure. No tracks, no lift, no power system.
It does not matter if it is made part of an existing building or stand on its own; it would require its own structure to keep that weight up.
That is why this project is ridiculous. It can never be cost competitive.
Truth is: Most innovations have had experts that "guesstimated" and calculated that they would never work.
Until they eventually figure out a way to make them work. It's a recurring pattern.
@@Sn0w1981 Elon Musk is a good example if that. I am constantly hear people say he can't do what he says but his success rate is quite high
@@BlackandWhitecustoms It really comes down to who gets the credit for coming up with an idea or making it work.
Lots of critical thinking is fueled by the hope that others wont succeed, just so their egos remain intact and they can say "See, I told you so"
@@Sn0w1981 Good luck finding people willing to build if *for free*, since this is what it would require. The structural material also would need to be donated.
You go right ahead a figure out a way to make that half baked idea work.
@@vincentgoudreault9662 I see you have become convinced of your theory on this. But there is no way you can "run the numbers" and rule out every possible variation for a fairly new concept to become viable in the future.
Technology is ever evolving, necessity and costs are ever changing.
Creative minds have proven many neigh-sayers wrong in the past.
My point is: Critical thinking is admirable, when doing so constructively and keeping an open mind.
A promising alternative is bouyancy power. Instead of lifting something in the open air, lower a bouyant object like a big baloon in liquid. Releasing the object makes it float up and that force can be used. It allows for using a lot less space.
Good idea.. ❤️
Subject for improvement by reducing the shape and inflating it through a pump under water deep down.. there must be some calculations around the power needed for a certain air volume AND how it suits the Archimedes push to have a power gain. 🤔😉
Such a solution shows low efficiency. Flywheel is much more efficient.
As soon as I saw your comment, a combination buoyancy, gravity battery system appeared in my mind. Thank you for that 🙏 it was a very satisfying rush of mental design 👌
You make a very good point about buoyancy power, and going upwards to generate that power, but I'm wondering if maybe instead of utilizing a big balloon in liquid, that maybe teeth gear notches going all the way up the mine/coal shaft walls, and some type of metal doomed cap with notched teeth on the vertical sides of the doomed cap, that generates power as it rises up the mine shaft via the lifting force of the lifting force of the lighter that air gas.
Only issue i dislike about compressed air or buoyant systems is, as you store more energy in the form of compressed air, the energy demand increases exponentially as pressure increases, say you need 1 KWh at 100 PSi to get to 200 PSi, at 200-300 you’d need more than 2 KWh to compress the air, ik my example isnt accurate representation of the power needs but i am just using it as an example.
Make a functional prototype(produces energy) and then calculate realistic maintenance costs. It better be seismic resistant too.
They did
@@anteeko if there’s evidence of further progress and development, we need a part 2 for this one then!
Seismic is really important especially if they use "towers."
Tidal Flows are the answer for unlimited free energy. It is like the tried and proven hydroelectric plants but works in both directions and is not dependent on rainfall or snowmelt. It can be much wider than a river and placed in hundreds of times more areas around the world. It is 100% dependable and cycles several times per day. It can easily be made safe for wildlife. You are using the power of the moon's gravity and the ocean and does not require storage of energy. You can create inland areas connected to the sea to increase the overall control and safety factor if necessary.
Just build a winding coil like the wrist watch
I thought of this 40 years ago told a lot of people the big money power company’s blew me off. You could drill dry wells and do the same thing for individual homes.
Everyone blew me off for an idea I had as well.. combining the fridge and hot water system for homes..
Because of all the heat pipes and heat generated by the use of refrigerators, it's insane to me that we then have a second system for heating water..
Why not have a series of interwoven pipes that go all up and down slowly in lines across the back of the heat pipes, but with water flowing inside the pipes, so it functions better as a cooling system for the fridge on the outside while drawing heat away and into the pipes to heat the water which then flows into a small collective tank for later use. With a recycling pipe connected to the tank so the water continuously flows again through the pipes to keep the water at hot enough temperatures.
Instead of paying double, to cool something down by generating heat then just wasting the heat behind the fridge and another damn heating system for water, just use the heat/electricity already generated from the first device... 🤔
We had a cuckoo clock with gravity batteries when I was a kid. Back then we called them weights.
Another example of younger generation redefining words to make it sound like they thought up something new. Another example: string theory is just nonsense.
Come to think of it, battery powered clocks go back to the 12th century!
As others have mentioned, just pump water instead of lifting weights. Turbines placed at the bottom of mine shafts would generate the electricity. Pumps would get the water back up to the surface. Mine shafts could have curves in them, but appropriately sized pipes would snake their way down to the turbines and pumps. All you need is the desired height. Also, pumped water shafts are somewhat impervious to ground water infiltration since you would already have the pumps at the bottom of the shaft. Appropriate lining, as required for sections of the shaft would keep water infiltration rate under control.
At the surface, place a large pond to accumulate all the pumped water. Above that water, place your solar panels.
This could be an opportunity for profitable cheap hilly land in Pennsylvania, with lots of conveniently placed abandoned coal mines and mine shafts. Valleys in those mountains would become the ponds for storage. Solar and wind turbines, if appropriate, would span the tops of the hills.
GitRDone!
Water introduces a series of problems that have to be dealt with. Filtering it, keeping it bacteria free, rust, leakage, etc. Steel\Lead is heavier than water and has none of water's design issues.
Too bad all the people and wildlife that live in those valleys would have to lose their home. And what of places without convenient hills or mine shafts? At least this method can be used anywhere
Better idea. Use buoyancy and gravity. Almost opposite of your idea.
Agreed with Mike. + Water evaporation would be a huge problem too. I think Mike meant that there are other denser* materials we can use instead of water.
the issue is, Einstein, that you need specific locations for pump storage...like a large supply of water and a nearby incline with the desired slope. the gravity technology in the video is exciting because it can be built anywhere.
Water bag batteries are my favorite. You use excess power to pump water into a giant bladder, when you need power, you open a valve in the bladder and use a combination of having a slope and progressively smaller tubes leading to a tiny nozzle that shoots the water into a turbine , which spins and generates power. Its basically a different kind of gravity battery
Sorry didn't catch the bladder,is that some sort of mechanical sphincter?
@@dinozaurpickupline4221I lol'ed out loud.
@@CallMeByMyMatingName just makin people laugh,stay content dear;)
That's a really interesting concept! Gravity battery systems like the one you mentioned are definitely game-changers. Speaking of power solutions, have you checked out the Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series? It's a versatile powerhouse with massive capacity, fast recharging, and comprehensive protections. It's perfect for outdoor enthusiasts and family camping trips. Plus, it's built with Segway's waterproof technology, so you can take it on any adventure, rain or shine! Just thought it might be something you'd be interested in.
its basically a small scale version of a pumped hydroelectric dam
I work in the electricity industry on policy issues and it always shocks non-technical people that we are never more than 0.2 seconds from a full grid blackout. They never really understand the way the traditional grid depends on multiple layers of security margin and how intermittent renewables reduce that dramatically. We desperately need storage as that is the only way that grid can be truly carbon free. The only issue is how much it will cost.
The way I see it, the burning of fossil fuels will end someday, so the only questions are when and what humans will do. Nobody knows how far into the future this will be and how many humans there will be at that point. But my guess is it will be an ugly situation, a collapse in the human population.
We should be putting massive amounts of resources into developing renewables now, stop wasting money on sending people to Mars ect. It doesn’t really effect me, I’ll be dead, but I hate to think what future generations will think of our wasteful, decadent consumption.
Wow you work in the electricity industry? You sound pretty useless.
The US should have funded this project along time ago though my guy, before we hit 2 debt limits. US is going to crap.
if only we could all have solar and turbines and just generated power for everyone without paying. oh well, that shit will never fly in the US, pun intended
Sorry, but 0.2 seconds and entire grid blackout don't compute. Rolling blackouts sure, but grid blackout, if that's that's the best you can do, we need new people in charge. (it's really funny seeing you explain how hard it is to keep hydrocarbon controlled based power working, but then jump right to intermittent power generation)
So, how much storage do you need for a 100% renewable energy source? In December, we don't see the sun here, and the wind doesn't blow, and all our reservoirs are at winter pool. And they've been trying to install a main transmission line here for 25 years, no success. Now you have to put in a 100% base load capable hydrocarbon generating capacity, to back up all your renewable and batteries. So capital investment sounds like it's about 4X (renewable/storage/hydrocarbon) what a simple hydrocarbon system with 10% redundancy would cost. Don't forget your wind/solar needs to have average generating capacity of at least 2X base load, so you have something left over to charge the batteries with. Show me what a GigaWatt-Month continuous system would cost per KWhr to the home owner. None of this makes sense, and I think Germany has already proven me correct on this.
let's say we need to store enough energy to then produce 50 MW for 12 hours (at night). probably enough for a small town.
50 MW * 3600 * 12 = 2160 GJ - we need to store such energy.
Now let's calculate the mass of the load if the lifting height is, say, 100m.
E = mgh , h = 100m, then m = Е(g * h) = 2160 ГДж/(10 m/s^2 * 100m) = TWO MILLIONS TONS ...
For a rough estimate - this is about a cube concrete 100 x 100 x 100 meters :)
good number, as i expected it is a scam
@@silver_surfer88 Not if you factor in the cost to build the structure to hold those cubes. There is no way this can be cost effective.
@@silver_surfer88 since 25=100/4, then you only have (1/4*1/4*1/4) of the energy stored, say to produce with a power of 50/64 MW, roughly 0,8 MW. Despite this cube is still a monster, the mechanical transmission to make it to descend 100 m in 12 hours will absorb an important amount of the energy, say 1/2 with an an efficiency of 50%. As this efficiency also applies during uplifting, it will need an extra power of 50% more. So the system is good for nothing. Please make the calculations. If you don't know, please ask.
Despite this cube is a monster, the mechanical transmission to make it to descend 100 m in 12 hours will absorb an important amount of the energy, say 1/2 with an an efficiency of 50%. As this efficiency also applies during uplifting, it will need an extra power of 50% more. So the system is good for nothing.
@@silver_surfer88 your math is wrong joao 😅
I've worked heavy industrial for years, and the maintenance on this would very high along with a higher than acceptable failure rate.
I still did not heard in this animation movie how exactly making weights solid instead of just pumping water makes it cheaper? Heavy lifts/elevators generally are quite expensive machines, while a water container is much simpler device, with the pump and pipes being the elements which require most service.
It doesn't. This is a "startup" idea that keeps constantly being brought up and milked for gullible novice investors.
Yeah this is a dumb idea. It’s would be so much simpler to build a tower to hold a bunch of water and just pump it vs all the moving parts needed to lift and lower objects. Drilling rigs do this very thing all day everyday. The info to show us how much maintenance is needed for this already exists but those questions for some reason (I’m being sarcastic here) never get answered.
I thought of exactly this when I was a little kid ... Then I went to school and realised that yes, it can work but that still doesn't mean it's a good idea.
It's truly sad and hilarious at the same time that people keep wasting time and money on shit like this. Like, for real these ppl know they are just trolling "investors" out of their money right?!? Don't tell me they actually believe this can go anywhere??
Energy density and specific energy i.e. energy per unit volume and energy per kg mass for water is lesser than for a solid concrete. The potential energy in 1 ton of solid block will need much large volume of water at the same height.
@@PMLighthouse Yes, density of concrete is about 2x more than density of water. So you just need a 2 times larger container for the water. Still, I don't see any argument why building and maintaining heavy elevator would be less expensive than pumping water through a pipe.
Use tidal energy to raise water to a height...and let it out all day and night...
( Tidal is available only at specific times)..the water stored at a height can be continuously tapped.
Salt water flowing over metal combinations?
yes Tidal power systems are massively UNDER utilized...its basically a vast reserve of energy just waiting to be harnessed...You could have control flow points and place turbines on the flow points...it could totally be done ...not much different from a Traditional Hydro system..
Or use tidal energy as energy?
Here is another idea:
Abandoned strip mines can be half a mile deep. They look like an upside-down cake. The deep part of the mine is narrow. The part of the mine at the surface with the earth is wide. So, put turbines and pumps at the bottom of the mine. An appropriately sized catch water basin for the pumps at the bottom. Build a "pool" structure towards the top of the cake close to the surface. That pool is supported on a foundation around the circumference of the bottom of one of the top layers of the cake. The pool is as many feet in depth as you want for your potential energy storage. Solar supported and placed above the pool. At the center of the top circle of the cake, you build a cone section that goes lower than the bottom of your pool. That is to set up a center of gravity for all that weight of water. A column structure going down to the bottom of the mine supports that center of the pool. In the space between the bottom of the mine and underneath the pool structure you put your electric power plant and underground high voltage transmission out.
Now, drop water to the turbines, pump it up for storage. Rinse and repeat.
But, actually, there is a cheaper way to do the above with strip mines. You can spend a lot less money in the building of the pool of water over the mine. That is, that pool that is just hiding the previously ugly carved out strip mine. It could just be very shallow. The reason for that is that it would limit the weight that you would need your structure to support. For energy production, you're just interested in the height of the water column from the surface of the pool to the bottom of the strip mine. Then, if you have land adjoining your strip mine, dig appropriately around the mine to build a pond/lake to any volume you desire for your "water battery". That additional adjoining pond is cheaper, since the land itself supports that water weight. That section of water is also connected to the shallow part over the strip mine. By doing so, not only do you get a nice new lake for lake front living, but you have energy storage in the form of potential energy between the lake and the turbines and now you don't have to look at the ugly strip mine on your land.
P.S. I'm a retired Electrical Engineer. All we need in this world is some imagination. Come on people. Get it done. There is always a way.
gravitricity.
You can also fill them compressed air if water isn't available or if there isn't convenient storage for the water above ground.
PD3045,
Many Open Cut Mines are in Remote Locations.
Some of these are Not Connected to a Grid.
Therefore in Some Cases Better to Build Highrise Gravity Batteries Near an Existing Small Town so as to Create Energy Storage and Enhance the Small Town Economy.
Two Positives instead of One Positive.
They are huge gold mines in South Africa more than 2 miles deep !
Coal mines 0,8 mile deep in Europe too.
@@ore4619 Absolutely. Potential energy storage from a water reservoir on the surface of the earth when using deep mines for energy storage from that water is relatively cheap. But, you do need either a deep cavity deep in the mine, where your turbines are placed to capture the water after power generation. Alternatively, you would need an underground natural water flow that you could dump the surface water into, the sink.
If only there was a material which can go uphill on it's own, easily storable, and can have other uses besides a random weight. Since solids are harder to deal with and store, a liquid or gas would be best. If only this planet had a prevalent amount of liquid that naturally flows downstream, and has a natural cycle which bring it back upstream. Also, it would be nice if all this liquid organized itself into trails when it flows downstream, so that we could use a large body of this liquid or river to hold it then release it. The answer is water, not giant blocks which inefficently store weight, and have to remain stable while releasing energy. Hydroelectric power is much better than this scam version of a weight battery.
It's far from being scam. Of course hydropower storage is better but as the video mention, hydropower storage can't be built everywhere so this can be an alternative in that situation.
@@greenleafyman1028I just think using salt water n encapsulated insulated and corrosive resistant materials too use the old volta stack inside salt water pools with things such as hemp n plant carbons too make your design that is able too just sit half in salt water so it doesn't short n connect....plant carbon salt and metal on a simple build but scale up not down I mean it's not like we are short off land or sea water or land (islands) on sea water
Suffers from the same problem that wind and solar suffer from. It doesn't rain all the time. Sometimes your reservoir is reduced. Also evaporation is actively against you at all times.
The problem is the duck curve of power generation vs usage. You've got to understand the basics first.
@@SecularMentat No, not a reservoir nescessarily, but a metal tank for water storage, doubling as a way to generate power, but also a place to store water with little to no evaporation. If worried about rust, use plastic, fiberglass, or a rust proof metal alloy.
You mean the liquid that seeps through cracks, evaporates, is in high demand both industrially and biologically, randomly replenishess, randomly disappears, requires large areas of land and has massive ecological impacts, surely you can't possibly be thinking of the absolute worst energy storage method compared to those in the video...
We have this with pumped hydro and systems that use a weight and a water tank to force water out by gravity in an Accumulator.
Law of thermodynamics teaches us "you can't even break even" so the less you convert energy from one form to another the better. So rather than rely so much on intermittent sources of power, find more consistent and scalable sources, like, say the virtually unlimited natural gas at our disposal!
To power a house for 12 hours a day (5 kWh), you would need to build a concrete cube with 2-meter sides and lift it 91 meters-for each house. There's no way this is profitable.
Cables, motors, generators, bearings all will need replaced way before the 50 year service life stated. Using old coal mines bring a list of other problems and issues. Methane, oxygen, water, roof and rib supports all will have to be maintained due to maintenance requirements on your gravity battery. It won’t be cheap.
It will still be cheaper than lithium batteries.
@@lancelessard2491 but not cheaper then coal
@@bigmikesexcellentadventure6702 I don't know for sure, but coal has one distinct problem that weights don't have, and that's toxic ash that needs disposing of, and has an associated cost that needs to be figured into the cost of coal burning. Solar energy produces no waste products.
*True. There is not enough cheaply mine-able Lithium to service the worlds people. They predict $80.00 per pound for Lithium by 2035 and $270.00 a pound by 2050. Get it while you can!*
who's to say it has to be completely vertical? It could be down a mountainside on a slope, the potential gravity energy wouldn't be as high but the material costs would be lower and it would be more easily serviceable
The energy stored does not care what angle it is moving on, vertical and sloped are the same, only loss do to friction changes.
That would take up a lot of space. I think if you get like how the oil drillers do it but with a bigger hole you can go down 30,000 feet and you can fill up a plastic container full of water or something dense that you wouldn't mind losing at the bottom and since you start at the surface of the earth the first drop would be free in the sense that it would generate a lot of the profit by putting power into the grid at peak times that by the time it got to the bottom and you started housing it up at bottom pricing for electricity in the grid it might cost less to hoist back up as it produced to drop and you collect the profit. Biggest expense would be digging the hole and lining it in a way that lasts so you don't have to do it again, and also hoping it generates more falling than it costs to haul back up. You could make several right next to each other and set it up to be basically autonomous except for maintenance once in a while. If one material becomes cheaper than other you can swap out whatever it on the platform to heavier weights with stronger pullies and bigger electric motors that produce more electricity on drop and can haul a heavier weight. If you can dig a hole straight down way far deep the first drop of the weight could generate some money
Not an engineer, so everything is totally IMHO: I don't think that storing energy in anything related to moving parts would ever be reliable and cost effective enough to scale it up to where we need it.
Besides that, there is already that system where you pump up water and harvest that energy by running it through a turbine. Not even in the alps where you wouldn't have to build a structure for that simple task is it possible to run that on a profit. And thats way simpler than moving weights.
I've thought of this independently since I was a kid. I just wonder how much weight/space was needed to be practical
You should have learned how to calculate that back when you were a kid thinking about it.
m × h × g so 100tons at 100m=27Kwh, for comparison tesla has a 100KWH battery.
@@faustinpippin9208 kWh
@@faustinpippin9208 I thought your calculation must be wrong as I'm currently using about 50kwh/day to heat my house and this will only increase as Winter progresses. But I checked and you're correct! Seems astonishing I'd need to raise perhaps 3 or 4 100 tons to that height just to heat my house! But Gravity is actually a very weak force so I think much larger masses have to be used - like the water in reservoirs to make this practicable.
Please learn some elementary physics. Then you will realise that this is nonsense.
If the top of the tower was able to rotate and you placed a vertical sail or blades atop it, the wind could gently rotate the weight array and add even more potential energy via centrifugal force.
nice fantasy but I think your way of getting the weight upwards is not the one with least friction. Downwards or centrifugal are just directions of the gravity force. I see no added value in spinning a weight because you want centrifugal force tot harvest electricity. Keeping it simple up and down seems the least chance of friction and other mechanical losses. Actually the whole idea in this video seems still way more expensive then using water pumping up in a hilly surrounding and use the streaming back down to generate electircity. The only reason to chose lifting blocks is to avoid transportation of electricity. But as todays world is already a massive web of transporting electricity, the gravity method is best used with pump-lakes in mountain areas.
then it goes out of control and lauches those heavy weights into people or the ground
My comment below is appropriate for mine shafts or other underground installations. But, it also applies to above ground setups. Instead of spending money on concrete or some other manufactured weight, just use water. Empty tanks are suspended up on the towers, just like the discussed concrete or other weight. Such water tanks get lifted up there empty. Now, pump the water from ground reservoirs up to the empty tanks up high. That's your store of potential energy. Then, when you need power generation, let gravity do its thing with the tanks full of water. Once the tank is at ground level, it empties its load of water at practically zero potential energy. Use some energy once again to pull the empty tanks up to the top of the structure.
True, concrete has about twice the density of water, so that would affect the volume, but the cost may be less. But, actually, you don't have to be lifting things over and over again anyways. Just build the structure to support the weight that you want, pump the water up there and let it fall down pipes. You would probably make the storage tank cone shaped so the center of gravity of all that stored water is on an appropriately sized support column in the middle for all that weight. Then, pipes come down the outside of the support column. In the end, all you really care about is the Head pressure of water for the turbines at ground level.
At 5:17 the narrator compares gravity batteries with lithium-ion batteries as "two times cheaper." This is, of course, absurd. One time cheaper would be free. Whatever unit of cost you use, cost - 1 x cost = 0 x cost. The only way this comparison would make sense is if there were some unit of "cheapness" of which gravity batteries possess twice as much.
I was thinkoing about that way to store energy for a long time... I find it still promising, but I think the biggest problem is the massive load gears are exposed to. Moving Parts need constant maintenance and replacement. The storage facility can work for decades, yes. But only if you keep replacing some components. Imagine what happens if whatever the load is attached to starts to rust...
you're right, it's a scam. plenty of credible videos debunking the gravity battery.
@@networkedperson I don't think it's a scam. It's just a bit more complicated than the video makes it look like.
@@donalain69 You could pay for money to feed people, and then you could pay these people to turn a generator wheel with their hands. Technically, this would work, however, it would be a dishonest scam to say that storing energy inside people can be economically feasible. Likewise, it is a dishonest scam to say that storing energy in mechanical weights will ever be economically feasible. It is less efficient and more costly, by orders of magnitude, than systems which pump water into elevated lakes. It will never be economically feasible to use mechanical weights. So yes, it is more complicated. The complications prevent it from being economically feasible. The only way to believe that it can be feasible is if you don't understand reasoning. If you don't understand reasoning, then you should listen to people who do understand reasoning.
@@networkedperson sorry. i think the problem is we don't define "gravity battery" the same way.
I include elevated water powered turbines in that term, even if the water isn't pumped up mechanically using solar power. (it basically is moved there by solar power anyway, just the natural way)
For me the principle is the same, and where i come from (Switzerland), it's one of the main sources of energy for decades.
But regardless of that... I'm not so sure if pumping up water really requires less power than lifting a weight using multiple pulleys while lowering it again without them.
@@donalain69 we have the same definition, however we are considering the costs differently. Comparing solid battery to liquid battery, the cost and efficiency of momentary operation could perhaps be similar, after all, 1kg of water stores the same potential energy as 1kg of anything else. However, the cost of construction and maintenance will be different. Consider for example Nant de Drance, in which 25 million m^3 of water are stored 425 meters above the generator... The construction cost was 2.2 billion Swiss Franc.... A water system is the least costly system that can store any useful amount of energy. The cost to build 25 billion kilograms of solid weights attached to 425 meters of cables will be exponentially more than 2.2 billions Swiss Franc... Meanwhile, the cost of maintenance for the cables and wheels will be exponentially higher for solid weights compared to the maintenance cost for Nant de Drance.
The best gravity battery is a dam, or two very big tanks of water with a good vertical differential.
Imagine this system with two balanced loads which collect atmospheric moisture at the top, then drain it at the bottom. It seams that a system like that could function with no artificial energy input and provide a lot of energy for a long duration.
Sounds good, but I'd assume the time to collect the load would be impractical
You mean, like a dam? That collects atmospheric moisture in the form of rain? And drains it at the bottom with a turbine?
Yes but if it's balanced, you only get the enegy of the moisture. Which will be tiny.
@@1mlister atmospheric moisture is very high in some places. If the lift locks at the top until it it’s full, and then descends, it could dump its load at the bottom and the ascend once it’s empty.
yes, its called a river.
My idea spent time working on this idea. Because you need a huge amount of weight, my research was on making houses themselves be the weight. In particular this is appropriate for houses that are in high wind areas subject to storms, because their weight makes them safer than lightweight wood houses. And along the coast where you need to raise them to avoid flooding, so having the mechanism to raise and lower also make the house safer. To increase raised height, you want to lower them below ground at base height.
A full very thick two story concrete house could store about 3 days of energy, maybe more if you conserve how much time computers are on watching youtube videos.
Why does everyone keep forgetting about Geothermal...
This is not storage - it is moving energy with energy. It still take a source to move the energy. And there are limitations COPS rating for places that need more are lower
So you're suggesting that the ropes and pully systems which obviously are moving parts, will last for 50 years without any maintainance or even replacements?
And what about earth quakes? It will be devastating to see big ass metal chunks weighing in the tons fall out of a friggin tower.
I want something like this in my back yard. I would lift weights and carry them up the stairs into a large bin. I'd get a workout and also get some free electricity.
Speaking of workouts: Converting gyms to harness power from human workouts. Individual athletes could get 'rewards' for their generated energy and bragging rights....
@@kennywills8797 this!
Some railroad trains have functioned as gravity batteries for a century. Descending or slowing, electric braking energy is transferred to a third rail or overhead wire and used by another train elsewhere.
We need to figure out a way to make basically free heat gradient that is tapped for power.
Examples:
1. geothermal
2. Solar chimneys
This is the more advanced concept after hydropower plant. Water may be evaporated and smeared out to soil and its specific gravity is only 1. If we use concrete with 2.5, then it saves space much. Also this system is more controllable in frequently varying power condition. However it may be more expensive than the hydro power plant in large scale.
This makes as much sense as making power plants were people gets paid to pedal to generate electricity.
Flywheel storage would be a less intrusive option than mass gravity methods.
Except when they break go on a cross country journey and take out several cows minding their own business.
@@jeremylister89 But we can eat the cows....win, win.
Sink a large tube vertically offshore, pump out the water in the tube with excess power, and later use the water outside the tube to fall to generate hydropower. Another way to store energy is to use a large heavy weight falling while spinning inside the tube hanging from a cable on a spool. A motor spinning a dead weight at high speed will store even more energy
Here's what I'm thinking... I think my 1000ft^2 home consumes an average of about 27kwH per day(electricity only). To store that amount of energy within a 100ft tall column, it would take 325,405Kg assuming a 100% conversion of potential energy. That's essentially 358 tons(feel free to double check my math) Heavy duty!
Not sure exactly how much my energy usage compares to an Industrial facility, but I'm left wondering.... is this practical, or pipe dreamz?
Yeah, when you put it that way it seems like a dumb idea. Without doing an exact calculation such as you did here, a ton of water is about a cubic meter. So your house would need about 360 cubic meters to fall 100 ft at 100% efficiency - or about a 7 meter sided cube (about 25 ft). That's just your one relatively small house. But my much larger (but efficiently run house) uses about the same kWh in the summertime (much less in the winter).
I doubt mechanical batteries are a very good way to go. Better to use energy for some sort of chemical reaction process in much less space. Like hydrolysis of water to obtain hydrogen. But hydrogen is a real pain in the ass fuel - so something similar. Something with much higher energy density than anything purely mechanical such as this.
9:37 I like the fact that gravity battery has a working lifespan of fifty years which is ideal. If lithium battery has a working fifty years lifespan then that will be ideal but currently they are not. We need more innovation like these that has significant lifespan and it is effective. Lithium battery is not Even recyclable which is such a disadvantage. A ten year lifespan is not good enough considering that our raw resources is limited in quantity and it is not recyclable or renewable. Plus we have to dig enormous crators or holes in the earth to find limited resources and this digging changes the environment massively. 😎💯💪🏾👍🏾
Since 1991 I am using gravity battery of my own design, transforming solar and wind energy to potential energy of the concrete brick of 1200 kg weight. Must say, it is flawless and works without any expenses at all ( few bearings and grease so far) but efficiency is not that high. I hoped it would be about 30% but it is lower.
Where are the losses?
Very interesting comment!! Would love to watch a video about your experience. I think your percentage loss is actually comparable to other mechanical systems of storage such as pumped water.
30% Losses or effiency?
@@Ebuilt You can imply from his statement, "I hoped it would be about 30% but it is lower." Tvset was disappointed that the efficiency wasn't higher than 30%, but lower than 30%.
Pumped storage (call it whatever fancy name you want) has been around almost 100 years, it's simple easy to build and works. It does not have the highest efficiency, but has very low maintenance compared to almost anything else. It's already proven scalable.
I really like the principle. There are losses, however in the lifting and falling process. Friction, motor/generator coupling, it's the same for water systems. But I like the fact that you could build a tall skyscraper in a city that would take up very little ground space and produce no pollution. I think they would be more convenient than water systems. Combine with a Solar/wind setup and you have a winner. I also like flywheel systems. Magnetic bearings in a vaccum.
I'm not keen on huge Li-ion battery packs. I think the best place for Li-ion is in cellphones and laptops. EV'S are over the top because, when they battery wears out, you have to replace it and that's an arm and a leg. But I think Li-ion bikes have got something going for them. And then there's good old lead-acid. Easy to make, easy to recycle. People don't talk about them much these days. They are used extensively in mines. I think homes and busses have a place for lead-acid. Anything big-ish that has floor space and easy access to recharge. Everything doesn't have to be small and compact. Replacing lead-acid doesn't cost an arm and a leg and you can maintain them for many years if you know what you're doing.
Look up how much the 'skyscraper' able to keep that weight up would cost to build. I ran the number (I am an engineer) and there is no way this can be cost effective.
What they didn't mention here is that LiOn batteries can switch from full power storage to full power supply in milliseconds. LiOn battery farms employ software that allows them to monitor the constantly changing spot prices of electricity in real time, and switch back and forth (store when the price drops below a certain amount, supply when it goes above a certain amount) instantaneously, giving them a means of financial arbitrage that can make the company that owns them a lot of money. This has greatly offset the cost of LiOn and in some instances they show a net profit.
Gas turbine generators take 25min to startup from cold if you're going to use them to try and sell into a high cost market, even an idling gas turbine can take several minutes to spin up, and idling a turbine while waiting for the right price is expensive. Pumped hydro can take even longer to switch from storage to supply, and even these gravity weight lowering systems take several minutes to reverse to make sure the cables aren't overstressed.
LiOn batteries are first in to sell power before the price drops as other generators come online to sell, and first out when the price drops too low. And in a distributed marketplace like electricity, this is a big advantage.
@@vincentgoudreault9662 Many of these systems stack the weights on the ground. The structure is only there to support the crane.
@@glibsonoran And where they are in the 'up' position, they hover in mid-air, unsupported, maybe?
Figure out how massive the structure needed to support the blocks in the up position, and you will have your answer: it cannot work, period.
(And do not try claiming that they are supported by other blocks, since those would be, by definition, on the ground, hence would serve no purpose other than support. Then you look at the pyramid in Egypt and see how quickly the top layer need to taper)
@@vincentgoudreault9662 They're stacked on top of each other.
It is essentially a battery that stores energy. You could easily build something like this yourself. Seems like it could be a better investment than batteries because batteries eventually wear out and you have the chemicals, disposal and environmental concerns of a battery. This is just a weight with some pulleys and a generator. Generators can last a very long time and are easily repaired. You could build the same system in your backyard and lift the weight with your exercise bike while you're getting healthier.
The most mind blowing fact is that this is an innovation lol
Efficiency and costs are pretty important. I live in Norway where we both have hydropower and a lot of wind and planned offshore turbines. So I guess here pumped hydro will be a greatsolution to store any surplus.
soon they are gonna up with an even GREATER invention, a windmill that raises the weight mechanically,,,, like a windmill grinds wheat ,,thus increasing efficiency ,,i am not a tech wizard or anything like that but i would guess that a wind turbine that produces energy and then uses said energy to lift a weight is allot less efficient that having the wind spinning machine mechanically lift that weight
Why not installing these gravity batteries near sea in Africa and combine them with water desalination plant ? When there's excess of power they can power a sea-water desalination plant to produce more water which in turn irrigates fields. Another suggestion: use some form of construction (i.e. rails along which a load is carried up) when there's excess energy generated a material (of which the before mentioned rails are made of) which creates more tension, and when the load is carried down (to produce electricity) it goes over a construction/rails which produces less tension.
Alteratively use some gearboxes or set of pulleys to lift/lower the load at times of different amount of power generated by the gravitional batteries. We might also consider a system that (when batteries generate excess power) add/attach more load to the lift being pulled up and detach the load (when we need more energy) so the load descents faster creating more energy.
Another benefit of installing these gravitional batteries in Africa would be ease of access to sand from which we could make a lot of glass, allowing to build greenhouses (tinted of course) where food is grown.
Either way, there must be tons of use cases (beneficial to some people) to utilise the excess energy generated during times when gravitional batteries generate too much power.
There is a gravity battery that many are not aware of . Its called a floating city. The city is built in a tidal area and raises with the tide.When the Modules of the city are lowered we create electricity. This power is for the city and excess energy goes to the grid for other use like land based industries . When the tide turns energy is created by the force of the modules displacing the water and being pushed up.
I was just thinking of this as I watched this video
Wow... thx for the input! Genius!
Rising and falling on the tide does no work on the floating object- only if it somehow reacts against a stationary surface can work be extracted. This is physics 101 stuff.
@@r0cketplumber the object is tied to the bottom dah!!
@@r0cketplumber yes it reacts against stationary object . Each module is connected to the bottom of the tidal water. You will have to fill in the spaces otherwise it would be a 500 page concept !
This would be cheaper in the short term but the regular maintenance would actually be high. The draw works that lift and lower the load would have gearboxes that need weekly maintenance, the sheaves would need to be greased daily, the cable would need to slipped and cut every so many ton miles, we do it almost weekly. You’ll have safety system’s that need to be regularly tested to protect the stationary cluster of sheaves and the traveling cluster. They always do this with these videos, they present only the upsides and never consult people who work on these things already. It’s funny these videos don’t get blurbs for misinformation while so many others do.
Wrong. I only put oil in my car every 5000 miles
compressed air generators is also a solution. compressed the air during power production and use the compressed air to turn a turbine during off times
Does it exists?
@@LuisAlbanes Yes, although not any being mass-produced. I did find one individual who is using it for personal use to produce power at their home.. There are several videos with people making small prototype ones aswell
Also at one facility i worked, a diaper company. they used compressed air to power many aspects of the machinery
The converbelt for example, The lights within the machine where also powered by a small electric generator that was powered by compressed air
@@randyrogers8201 Good to know thanks and hopefully these systems get improved and be on the market soon
@@LuisAlbanes Also, there is a car company using compressed air to power the vehicle engine , it uses the compressed air from the engine to rotate the alternator and produce the electrical power to run lights and other needed electrical components in the same way a gas powered vehicle does
@@randyrogers8201 I saw something about them a few years ago and I thought it was interesting but didn´t know any more recently!
We've had gravity batteries for more than a century, its called 'pumped hydro'. You can store an enormous amount of energy with a one small lake 1000m above another small lake. Let's say the lake is 1000m on a side and the change in depth between charged and discharged is 5m -- how much energy could that store?
A lake 1000m on a side will have a surface area of one million square meters and a 5m variation in depth means a volume of 5M m^3. One cubic meter of water has a mass of about 1000kg.
OK, we're ready to calculate:
5M m^3 x 1000kg/m^3 x 1000m x 9.80665 = 49TJ or 49 trillion Joules. That works out to 136 billion watt*hours. Or, enough to provide about 1GW for 13.6 hours. I should mention that there is no reason to limit the lake to 1000m on a side, a modest sized lake, about 6 miles by 6 miles or 10km x 10km with a surface area of 100km^2 would be able to store 100X as much energy as the example I provided, or 100GW for 13.6 hours. Actually, the net would be a bit less as the turbines are not 100% efficient, but they are surprisingly efficient, in fact around 92% or even higher. If we account for a, let's say 10% loss, the 1000m on a side lake would be able to deliver 1GW for 12.2 hours and the 100km^2 lake would be able to provide 100GW for more than half a day! That amount of electrical power is more than any state uses including California!
I did some rough calcs on my part and when I compare gravity storage to lithium-ion battery storage, Li-Ion wins by A LOT!
At 5:20, can you elaborate where did you get this calculation from?
Here's what I did to compare:
Epot = m*g*h = 50.000kg * 9,81 m/s^2 * 15m = 2kWh. So, Gravitricitys little port-prototype there can store about 2 kWh of energy, if there's no conversion losses. I imagine costs will be in the 5 digits surely, let's generously assume 60.000€ for the gravity battery.
In comparison, the average price of a Li-Ion battery is around 150€/kWh. For a 2 kWh battery plus grid connection you would pay a generous estimate of 3.000€.
Now compare 60.000€ to 3.000€ for the same 2 kWh of energy storage.
Gravity storage pros: Depending on the motors, probably a lot more power output than the Li-Ion battery. Good for grid stability and fast reaction to load changes in the grid.
But, don't we have much better renewable energy storage alternatives for improving grid stability? Like vacuumised flywheels, super capacitors on the uprising, large pumped water storage connected to the grids?
Please add to the discussion, I am curious what you have to say about this!
I'm interested in this in the context of moving housing:
* Lift 20 shipping container tiny houses up a mountain on a train track, using standard train protocols and mounting the shipping containers sideways so that hydraulic levelers can adjust the angle if the terrain changes or keep the rail at a consistent angle.
* Water and sewage could be at the bottom of the mountain and refilled nightly.
* The houses could be mounted on a linked train so that there is only one mechanism to drive them up the track with gears on the ground and then generate power with each of those motors going down.
* The wind and solar can be mounted on each chipping container as well.
* Basically you take the train and live on a train going up and down, rather than have an ugly high concrete structure that does nothing.
Many people are talking about using water only for the gravity batteries everywhere.
But the possibility of floods in case the dam is breached due to landslide or heavy rain or earthquake or wear-tear over time also needs to be calculated and kept in mind.
Not to forget that in population dense countries, the land itself is much costlier and difficult to procure to extend or create new reservoirs. And the native communities which is displaced because of that since most reservoirs will created in somewhat far-off from cities areas and near forests and hills.
Plus with keeping a big chunk of land, the greenery that goes inside water will be rotting and producing huge amounts of Methane, a Green House Gas with a higher capacity to hold the heat causing Global warming. And anyway, dams and reservoirs themselves create a barrier for aquatic species to procreate and survive causing biological degradation.
It also affects the farm fields where the finer silt which aids the production of crops doesn't reach and instead gets deposited in the reservoir slowly making it unviable over time.
The hydrological solutions cannot be expanded beyond a point without huge ramifications and is not suitable in most countries which need to switch fast to the renewable sources.
Such a clever perspective on environmental issues, which demand the comprehension of countless variables. We just can’t assume water is good everywhere, for big batteries need monstrous reservoirs, which destroy ecosystems besides being really damaging to communities, food security and so on.
Dam breaches are very rare and should never happen if they are properly designed.
This storage never 'leaks', in that once lifted, the potential energy stored does not dissipate. The only loss is in the electrical and mechanical resistance of the system, which is true of any storage system. No added pollution, no exotic materials - you can use sand, rocks, water, cement blocks, or iron ingots. Water can evaporate from reservoirs. Bricks do not.
Saying it never leaks is not entirely accurate. Any material used will decay over time and quickly if left in open air. It is not a very good argument for gravity batteries anyway. Water does not evaporate fast enough for the stored power to go unused as the "battery" is recharged/discharged daily. These system are not built or needed for long term energy storage they just need to store enough energy for a days worth of energy at the most.
I love the innovation and never settle for the current energy sources attitude of the company
Problem is, the highest demand is during the day and we don't have extra during this period. Pumped storage was designed to collect the extra produced at night when demand is low. Today's renewable energy produces only during daylight and windy conditions. Unless you have an extremely windy nighttime ( which is historically not regular), there is no extra to save. Nuke ,oil and gas are the most reliable and work at night. Renewables will never replace the Nighttime producers. No way, no how, ever. That's the only period that we ever have extra energy. Hydro is a small portion in most markets and environmental groups are getting them commissioned, so it's a declining source.
The reality is how gravity batteries will not change the world.
..ya nothing new about this principle..been there since the first Hydro powered turbines
You sure won't.
Too complex, too expensive, too many things to wear out. If you’re going to build a tower to put weights in, why not put a tank on top and pump water up.
The pump becomes the only moving part.
The only gravity storage I’ve seen that makes kind of sense is to run railroad tracks up a hill. Then use rail cars full of rock. Winch them uphill to store power and let them down again to release it. The components are readily available, thus cheap. You could even use old rail road gear too unsafe for transportation. You are not limited by how high you can build a tower. The rails could be miles long and be a thousand feet high.
You could put motor/generators on the cars themselves. Use a third rail to carry power to and from the cars. This eliminates the winch and cable, points of failure and power loss.
Need more storage, add more cars to the rails.
The problem I see with these types of gravity batteries are "wear and tear". Using hydro, it's less likely that things are going to go wrong when it's essentially one hole full of water leading to another with the route filled with turbines(A bit more complex than that, but you get the idea). Gravity batteries as shown above however are far more complex and will require more maintenance. With it being such a heavy load in such a small space, you'll need to make sure every part of the equipment is in top condition, or risk the entire thing breaking.
Not only that, but put it in the right spot and rain can essentially give free energy to hydro energy storage systems... granted, evaporation can do just the opposite, so it just depends how it's built.
It's hard to beat water.
And for the record (I'm not a professional in the area so if I'm wrong please tell me)
The smallest PSH (Pumped Storage Hydroelectric) station in the US has a power capacity of 1,065 MW
So when numbers are thrown around like 80 Megawatts or when the prospect of 4 Megawatts being generated from the coal mine gravity battery seems like a lot, it's... really not.
@@SharkyShocker Yeah, but the possibility of floods in case the dam is breached due to landslide or heavy rain or earthquake or wear-tear over time also needs to be calculated and kept in mind. Not to forget that in population dense countries, the land itself is much costlier and difficult to procure to extend or create new reservoirs. And the native communities which is displaced because of that since most reservoirs will created in somewhat far-off from cities areas and near forests and hills. Plus with keeping a big chunk of land, the greenery that goes inside water will be rotting and producing huge amounts of Methane, a Green House Gas with a higher capacity to hold the heat causing Global warming. And anyway, dams and reservoirs themselves create a barrier for aquatic species to procreate and survive causing biological degradation. It also affects the farm fields where the finer silt which aids the production of crops doesn't reach and instead gets deposited in the reservoir slowly making it unviable over time.
The hydrological solutions cannot be expanded beyond a point without huge ramifications and is not suitable in most countries which need to switch fast to the renewable sources.
Ever replace a pump?
Absolute lunacy maintenance would astronomical if it’s even feasible
This is just adding complexity to what already exists.
I'll need to do some math, but consider that groun-loop heat pumps are becoming popular for residential uses. They require a well--like cylinder to be drilled into the ground. Could the same drilling systems be used to drill for a gravity "battery" system for residential pv energy storage? It seems reasonable.
The problem could be charging power required is pretty fixed. The excess power has to meet the desired power range to lift up the weight. Whereas batteries are convenient to store. I believe having rooftop solar with a 10kWh battery for every house that can communicate with grid demand will be super simple and convenient.
Doesn't sound very convenient at all. You have to mine all that precious metals and equip it on every house. The houses are already wired for electricity you just have to get it to the grid.
@@TheAnnoyingBoss to top it off; 10% - 20% battery degradation within 10yrs, they will not outlast any mechanical system, industrial battery power storage require air conditioning (heat\cooling), any failures can destroy an entire unit by fire, shorts and swelling. Beyond that, their external maintenance is similar to those of gravity based variants. The video does a great job explaining the pros and cons
Gravity batteries? Dam it! You're doing absolutely wrong!
There are those who say it’s not possible to store sufficient energy this way. I say rubbish why on earth not if we put our minds to it. I’m sure the same people would years ago have said it’s impossible to make light carry data, fibre optic ! This gravity technology is a brilliant idea that could be put to all sorts of use both industrial and domestic, only time will tell but my moneys on it. 😊
@@orionbetelgeuse1937 total nonsense
Same people say the same thing about hundreds of scam that fool billions from innocent people too. Not every idea can be successful only just because we put "all effort" into it.
@@orionbetelgeuse1937 So using the weight of water is also a myth, better recycle those studies
Ingénieux ! Réalisable et écologique sur le long terme. Plus besoin de barrage hydro-électrique, ni de centrale nucléaire et ni d'éolienne qui nuisent à l'environnement. Chapeau ! 🙂👍
How about elevators? Could a small scale charger be put on every elevator to capture the descending energy?
Nuclear power is still the best solution. Renewable like solar & wind require batteries plus the manufacture of panels & turbines are high & use old power supplies. Then on top the land & sea areas used aren't good for the environment. Whereas Nuxlear once built will have a suitcase sized package, every 20 years, of radioactive material to dispose of. They are safe, cost effective & less damaging to the environment.
Decomissioned missile silos are also a prime candidate for this concept. ICBM fields also tend to be in flat and remote lands that are ideal for wind and solar, so having a close gravity battery to store for high peak or surprise draws is fantastic.
I don't believe those are typically ~1000 m deep, unfortunately.
@@LightbringerDesigns About a 1000 ft actually. Some are more. I used to work on the explosive warheads, but never did see the inside of a silo personally. Just know a bit about them. Really gravity batteries will work at any depth but obviously more is better. You just need to be able to lift a weight up and hold it in place until you need to release its kinetic energy later. The beauty of having the weight underground is that if there is an accident, the damage is very contained with little risk to human life.
One thing is wrong. Lithium batteries live more than 5-10 years. In a storage they aren´t used from 100% to 0. They discharge only 20-50% so they live three times longer. And when you use LFP Batteries, they even last longer and don´t burn anymore. And you can recycle them already up to 96%
Why not use the weight of batteries for gravity battery so you charge batteries while pulling up the weight and during peak hours you discharge both.
1kg of mass has about 10J of potential energy for every meter of height. On average a lead acid battery has an energy density of 35Wh/kg or the same as 126,000 J per kg, a lithium ion battery can be 8 times more energy dense. So you would have to lift the lead acid battery about 13km to equal its energy density or in the case of lithium ion about 80km. So it is not really worth the mechanical complexity and investment for an increase of less than .01 percent or less of storage capacity.
Reading the comments, I see most people miss the part about the electricity coming from solar or wind and having an excess of power which is used to lift the weights. Instead of the excess power going to charge batteries, it is used to lift a weight and there is no damage to the environment like from batteries.
Or... Pumped Hydro?
Cant they work with companies that build windmills? They can redesign existing windmills so that they can be fitted with one or more of these gravity batteries. I think this is a good idea because of its height and sturdiness. They can store excess electricity to the fitted gravity batteries when the winds are strong then use them when the winds are weak.
Would be interesting if this could be combined with geothermal in the case of a mineshaft, and offset cost from mineral resources 🤔
The storage of potential energy instead of the electricity itself seems like an amazing and durable way to store the energy we produce. There are all kinds of risks with storing it the traditional way, not to mention the resources needed. Our ever increasing need for electricity needs innovative solutions like this
Great idea. Simple is good. Simple is very good.
The cost to store 1MWh in lithium is around $110 according to google. They also ignored thermal batteries which cost $50 for 1MWh.
3:40 50 tonnes
3:45 15 meters
4:00 250kW for a “few seconds” let’s say 6 seconds.
4:15 Proposes that systems can provide 20MW for eight hours.
Starting with the time, there are 28,800 seconds in 8 hours, so we are looking at 4,800 “6 second falls.”
You would need 4,800 fifty tonne weights dropped from 15 meters to provide 20MW of energy over 8 hours.
That is 240,000 TONNES of gravity battery and all the associated hardware to handle all that mass.
You might as well put your sky scrapers on lifts and use your buildings as gravity batteries…
Yes, BUT...
Pumping water through pipes is
inefficent due to friction.
A pulley setup is more efficent
than that, but there may be
better ways to store power.
Flywheels don't seem good either.
Possibly turning an elevator in a common high rise building might also be a viable option for this energy scheme, simular to the way breaking in some electric cars helps return some energy
wow. They also don't have to be made completely of metal. they can be filled with soil or rocks. and they are 100 percent recyclable. this could be the future.
I think we build a big arm that goes high up and off a lift with one big weight tied to the end and then a mega deep hole line the oil industry does. 10,000 feet down. Build 5 in a row and see how much it costs to dig and kind the hole, and then how much money it generates in electricity to drop it down the hole the first time and if it's worth even hoisting it back up and if it's even possible to be profitable. If it is, expand
Interesting idea! What kind of materials will be used to hold all that weight? If this structure is built underground, there will be some resistance, but a compromise can be reached for the benefits. If it is built above ground, the resistance will be ferocious, similar to what we have seen with the placement of wind turbines.
Another way to store energy is by compressing air into stainless steel air tanks for use in off hours. It wouldn't be cheap but it would be way less expensive than gravity systems.
I'm not sure if this would work, but I love this concept.
We have a lot of tall buildings in our cities. If you put one gravity battery in one of the elevator's shafts, that battery could basically run the whole building.. maybe more
A lot of the energy banks just seem over complicated, especially when fluids are so much easier and less complicated to pump around a system. What could possibly be the advantage of having concrete blocks being lifted with cable when water can be pumped to a height.
I have been saying this for forever. We all need gravity generators on our homes not only for self sustainability but great for exercise too.
It is exact the same idea when I was a kid and went for school picnic .
There I saw bug stones and highted hills
Same I was in class 3 and saw huge stones on hills but the above comment explained very well 😊
It is important to note that energy storage helps all powerplants, including 'base power', so it's not just alternative energy.
The prototype in Switzerland was called EV1. Today the system is called EVX. The first of these has been implemented and is online in China. The company behind it: Energy Vault.
It gives me hope to read the comments on this vid, lots of knowledge and many good ideas.
Gravity batteries don't need to be made of concrete? Can they have steel frames that hold scrap material or resources in long term storage? (Dual puropse. Gives a place to keep things while taking advantage of their weight)
Would have to be open air, can't retrieve containers off of structure when they are finally needed down in a mine shaft
Water tower gravity batteries?
Of all the storage ideas I've heard this is by far the best. You can use anything like rocks scrap metal or dirt.
One thing to watch out for, slavery. I was working on small projects like this at the coffee shop I worked at in the 90s. My original thought came from the friction limiters to keep the doors from swinging wildly, those boxes with the hinged arm at the top of many doors. The energy from opening the door is managed and released as friction heat. I figured why not put the energy to use. I worked up many dorky contraptions to realize the concept, like clocks, fans, and the such.
There are many sources of small energy release like this all over human activities. From doorways and appliances, like opening refrigerators and oven, to sound dampening floors, etc…
Taken further, I thought, why not boost input, like make doors a fraction more difficult to open to gain the fraction more energy to the small system. Cars could drive over plates to “donate” energy, and the idea flooded, but then it hit me. This sort of idea leads to slavery.
Why not just have a gym that uses the gym equipment to generate energy? From here the door to slavery opens up. Kinetic to potential energy devices exist throughout history.
But then the thoughts of slavery and misuse of the technology freaked me out.
This technology, now re-coined as gravity batteries is ancient tech. Many slaves throughout history have lost their lives to power such machines. Go with caution. This technology will always lead to slavery.
I did the math. In order to supply 20 MW of power for 8 hours from a so-called gravity battery, you would need a skyscraper that is 1 km tall with 65300 tons of weight at the top. That is if we assume that the efficiency of electric generators is 90%.
It’s the best way to get energy that does NOT degrade over time. In other words, sort of ‘emergency energy’. You lift it - more accurately, hold it at the top of a drilled hole probably - and can park it WITHOUT needing energy etc, using a locked brake situation. A peg, ratchet etc. Trigger the ratchet, and you have exactly the energy out you put in, minus a bit of efficiency loss. It would hold and work if you held it there for a year - this is NOT so for other storage projects like batteries or even water. It needs exploring at scale. I would suggest, filling-in a quarry or other artificially-created edge, is more likely than building a huge skyscraper in plain view. But, make a serious effort at it, somewhere. Needs learning, great idea, one of many.
Interesting. But what I missed was any mention of the energy efficiency of gravity-based storage.
In most cases, the most successful methods will be those with the least complexity. Pumping fluids and using train cars on a slope are both simple solutions. Where you can use train cars, your highest costs include mostly the grading of the slope. Everything else is off-the-shelf rails, motors and rail road cars. Same with fluids, but your advantage is only needing high spaces and low spaces because your reservoirs can be of flexible shape and location. I think as many have pointed out, the problem is energy density. Any gravity solution must be able to store enough energy at low enough investment to make it worth the effort. In these cases, its either a lot of cars or a lot of water. The solutions also need to compete with hydrogen storage when hydrogen generation is increasing in its efficiency.
vertical tower only applies to areas with no water and no mountain , water is super cheap compared with building a super heavy elevator
Thanks and high respect for my university professor who teached me and other students that one electric tram need energy on uphill and will release this energy back downhill, and this lection was decades ago.
Thanks to all my efforts during decades which lead me on an advanced concept which use gravity weight to generate energy on demand but heavy concrete blocks or wagons full with dirt can be lifted and dropped to generate energy when it is needed on so called "stationary gravity engine". The invention is not disclosed and will not be disclosed without partnering with a government which goal is energy independence and clean energy. Let government work now and not complain for energy sanctions. Energy is abundant but need the right technologies.