How to use gravity to store energy

[@DWPlanetA]

How is energy stored in your area? Do you think gravity batteries are the way to go?

[@dominikgadze4221]

Guys wtf. Gravity batteries have been debunked as braindead bs YEARS ago. The entire idea is utterly ridiculous. How did you end up in this rabbit hole? This is so stupid it severely undermines all credibility you have had so far. I now question everything you ever told me and will never again be able to use you as a reliable source. Wtf, seriously...

[@AliHaider-nj2mz]

Waste of energy & money!

[@Neferkariusz31]

Here is a better idea: pumped-storage hydroelectricity!

[@kaizu4914]

- Gravity: Only Store Energy - Hydroelectric: Store Energy and Auto Fill Energy (the cycle of evaporation and condensation of water powered by the sun's self-sustaining nuclear fusion)

[@annakissed3226]

Who ever said Germans were humourless has never watched this. This message brought, bought and paid for, for you by the Big Oil & Big Nuclear Fission industries. Lithium is bad, lithium is bad it damages the environment, it only lasts a short time, it, it, it undercuts our industries and we going to loose our cushy jobs and its so unfair wah!

[@brendanpells912]

As someone that has spent much of their working life dealing with cranes and hoisting equipment, I can state with confidence that this idea is completely impractical.

[@ProtoMarcus]

Also, gravity-based batteries *_already exist_* in a much more efficient way _(haven't watched the video yet but I'm sure they talk about it)_ - *WATER.* Reservoirs. Pump water when there's an excess of energy production, and when it is required, you let water flow to move hydroelectric dam turbines. Much more efficient, practical, scalable, etc. There's been multiple videos, documentaries and reports about how inefficient impractical and dumb ''gravity batteries'' using cranes and weight are... *EDIT* - Yep they talk about it in the video. They also should've realized it is way more efficient, practical, scalable than weight-based energy storage...

[@yuri_grillo]

Why?

[@krashd]

@@yuri_grillo Armachair experts don't like to explain the workings behind their "facts".

[@j4genius961]

​@yuri_grillo Too many moving parts, wear and tear, something always breaks down somewhere for whatever reason...

[@hugohabicht9957]

Thanks 🙏. Those clowns never consult experts first

[@op4000exe]

I'll be honest, I don't foresee any other Gravity energy storage being genuinely viable outisde pumped hydro and perhaps the using of old mineshafts. Pumped hydro because it's a mature and very functional technology, and the mineshaft one simply because the mineshafts already exist, and aren't in use. The big Gravity Vault projects are ones that I would personally not bet on.

[@danielsan901998]

The problem with using mineshafts is the maintenance cost, imagine if a cable break, underground repairs are more costly because of the risk.

[@adam-g7crq]

@@danielsan901998 can you imagine being at the bottom of the mineshaft after the cable snaps, messy.

[@auspiciouslywild]

Pumped hydro and gravity batteries serve different purposes. One is good for long term storage. The other is good for short term storage and frequency regulation. Very few of the people criticising gravity batteries have even a rudimentary understanding of energy storage. Like, many of these people thought batteries could never match pumped hydro, yet battery storage is overtaking pumped hydro right now.

[@stickynorth]

@@sbk2207 Let's not got crazy here... ;-)

[@HarunHAHN]

Mine shift method promising

[@D1.y]

Nothing beats good ol' pumped-storage hydroelectricity. Don't fall for concrete towers

[@mael1515]

@@D1.y local ones beat pumped hydro far away 🤷🙂

[@beyondfossil]

Pumped storage hydro (PSH) is good, but reasonable sites are few and are far between and we need *a lot* of storage to displace fossil fuels. What's worse is that water rights and water access become even more contentious as global warming heats up. Water is dense at 1000-kg/m³ but that's only fractions the density of metals like iron at 7878-kg/m³ so gravity batteries can be significantly more compact in area and height versus PSH.

[@beskamir5977]

@@mael1515 It's much easier to dig a massive hole in the ground and accompanying hill for pumped hydro than it is to stack concrete jenga towers.

[@mael1515]

@@beskamir5977 ... If you have a suitable hill nearby. And if it's a mountain it becomes much harder. I love hydro, but at least in Germany it's potential is limited by geography and we reached that limit in the last decades, unfortunately.

[@beskamir5977]

@@mael1515 Still easier to make a fake hill/mountain than it is to make jenga towers work.

[@teamlegebatterie4098]

gravity storage belongs to the category "junk tech" just like solar roads, hyperloop or the line

[@KGTiberius]

Hydro-gravity batteries have been used for centuries. They are called Dams.

[@mcln2]

I guess all those "celebrity investors" need to subscribe to thunderf00t

[@Shmidtk]

@@KGTiberius dams are ok. But all these ideas about moving rocks to store energy are not going to work.

[@crissyhutto8409]

At least solar roads COULD work with a throughly thought out use of surface materials and solar cell technology.

[@commieTerminator]

​​@@crissyhutto8409we still haven't covered all the rooftops yet, forget solar roads at least for the next 2 decades. Solar roofs over bicycle tracks are more viable

[@Timformers]

Every time you see a big 3D modled Gravitystorage Strukture you should ask yourself: Why not build a giant Water Tank instead? Much cheaper, much less complicated and much less moving parts. And now you understand why this won't become a large scale thing

[@rubiconnn]

How about instead of building a giant water tank we build a big concrete structure in a valley that holds water back so that the existing geology can be used for most of the holding area. Maybe we call it a "dam" because it's a dam good idea?

[@mizan-mq3me]

​@@rubiconnnimagine build giant Tomer dam near City. cool and dangerous at the same time

[@petermeyer6873]

@@mizan-mq3me imagine build cities and things dangerous to cities apart from each other whilst transporting electricity from one to the other by some tech (hint: some call it wires).

[@arkatub]

The tank also gains a small amount when it rains, win win.

[@BrinJay-s4v]

Armstrong Accumulators powered work shops before electricity being donkey engine pumped stores

[@Fenthule]

I'm 30 seconds into the video and I can already see some junk science being displayed in here so I'm gunna hop into the comments quick. Gravity batteries don't work with solids. The concept falls apart when you adjust for things like wear and tear on critical factors like the cables used to winch the weights up and down. The cost will quickly outweigh the benefits. These systems ARE incredibly energy efficient when done with liquids however. The issue is that they require very specific types of geography in order to make them viable, which isn't available everywhere sadly. But where they do exist, they are some of the best long term, high capacity energy storage systems known to humans. There's a slightly modified version I've heard of, that I doubt will be included in this video known as ACAES, or Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage. There was such a system being looked at somewhere in Ontario Canada iirc, where they wanted to use an old mine shaft, build a reservoir nearby, flood the mine, and pump air into it, forcing the water to the surface reservoir, while ALSO saving heat energy from the compression of air forcing the water up. I admittedly haven't looked into this system in like a year or two though since first hearing about it. It was showing some very high round trip energy storage potential too though. edit: I've now scanned through the video and it looks like this is basically a paid for ad by gadgetbahn companies that are scams targeted at investors. This is really tragic to see that even DW would fall for this type of thing. Gadgetbahn truly is a plague on the modern world these days. *sigh*

[@afterglow5285]

YES! let's watch 30 seconds of a video and write a couple of paragraphs about things that are already addressed in the video. They actually talk about Compressed Air Energy Storage, gas energy storage, thermal and other more effective ways to store energy.

[@Fenthule]

@@afterglow5285 what can I say, I know how to beat the algorithm to ensure my comment gets seen. Regardless, they're still absolutely showing junk science with gravity batteries, and people need to be made aware that they are commonly turned into gadgetbahn and used for scams. I've seen multiple companies try it already.

[@testolog]

Or instead a physic class, they get a gender equality and offensive lesson. So they probably law of energy conservation take as personal offensive.

[@Cookie_85]

@@testolog Show me on the puppet were the gender hurt you.

[@myboysd5772]

@@Cookie_85 Between the legs, obviously.

[@PaleRejent]

" *PUMPED STORAGE HYDRO ELECTRICITY* " Adam something

[@AdjectiveBlazkowicz]

Nothing better than seeing an education channel sell off a long-debunked idea. Truly makes us trust your research guys!

[@adrianthoroughgood1191]

They are being built though.

[@Vysair]

@@adrianthoroughgood1191China and Africa (CCP also) always throw money at random thing hoping one of them catch something. Northing new and it's all prototype with merger sum as well. Dont let this damn video fool you

[@SimonMester]

​@@adrianthoroughgood1191yeah, the hyperloop was too, before being scrapped because of the basic failures of the idea. This concrete gravity block bs will never make any sense. Its a maintenance nigtmare compared to just pumoed hydro. These will be obsolite compared to just the ever better batteries even. Especially moving into sodium at scale.

[@incognitotorpedo42]

@@ZalamaTheDragonGod No, they've been debunked by smart people. Michael Barnard is one.

[@krashd]

@@SimonMester How on Earth can something like this become obsolete? Once built it is pretty much just free energy. You might as well call pumped storage obsolete...

[@MvanPelt]

The title of the video is much more optimistic than the conclusion suggests. Me and many other viewers might have already heard of these concepts and are very unimpressed, so don't be surprised if the responses will be quite negative even though the actual video is fine.

[@markclawrie007]

What an absolute pile of nonsense from these crowd funding chancers. Get out your school physics textbook and open page 1. Then work out why this will never be cost effective. Stick to hydroelectric...

[@joejoe4games]

Low energy density is a bit of an understatement... just a quick example calculation: say you have 1 ton being lifted 100m then that's just slightly over 270Wh of energy or about 1kg worth of lithium ion batteries... Not to mentioning the energy being lost in all the mechanical components.

[@off-gridsurvivalmike8120]

I honestly thought of this idea 30 or more years ago. But after doing the math of how much weight moving one foot it takes to create one horsepower I realized it's just not practical unless you destroy a mountain or some outlandish idea it's just not practical. All of the moving parts also make it a nonviable solution in my opinion. Basically it's the same as hydroelectric like another gentleman mentioned.

[@sciekimike280]

we made many calculations to find if gravitational storage was in any way a viable option in the vast world of energy storage technologies. Long story short: they are a total waste of money and an enourmous waste of materials. Pure junk.

[@grahammukuyu4660]

You ignore alot if factors when doin your calculations not everyone has resources for your lithium batteries water dams dams certain technologies work better in certain places

[@williamforsyth6667]

"we made many calculations" I just made one: Any AA size rechargable battery can store the energy equivalent of lifting 100kg to 10m. Gravity storage (other than pump hydro) is a no go.

[@augustinehuizing6683]

@@grahammukuyu4660 By weight alone water is cheaper in 100% of the world than iron or concrete.

[@WingCheukWilliam]

@@grahammukuyu4660you ignore a lot of calculations, there is also sodium ion batteries. The whole thing do not cover the round trip efficiency, maintenance cost. Even flow battery already difficult, the project sodium ion battery cost per kWh is 40 USD in 203x so when everything is built the sodium ion battery also kill this type of storage even pump hydrogen is now reaching 100 USD kWh depending on where the construction is. So sodium ion battery is the way to go and is already in full production mode

[@jedics1]

Hasn't this already been proven to be wildly inefficient and expensive at the same time? That looks like a staggering amount of steel to hold all that weight up high. I think Sodium Ion is going to fill the grid scale storage space when it achieves mass production in 5 to 10 years which has vastly more options for ease of installation and very low self discharge rates.

[@jmsa2760]

Let's calculate things properly, shall we? Let's start with a simple assumption: we'll have 5 t stones at a height of 150 m. That provides about 2 kWh per stone of potential energy. At about 3 kg/m3 density, the stone would have about 1,670 m3, and if a cube, would be approximately 12 m per side. If we want a storage facility for about 1 MWh, we'd need 500 stones (1,000 kWh total divided by 2 kWh per stone). Since we need some space around each stone, let's say this would be about 3 m on the side of each stone. So the space per stone would be 12 + 3 = 15 m As we need 500 stones, let's distribute them in a grid of 20 by 25 (simple calculation). So we'd need to have a storage facility of 300 m by 375 m by 150 m with all the necessary hoisting equipment just for a 1 MWh installation. A simple search provided me with the dimensions of about 6 m by 2.5 m by 3 m for a battery storage of 1 MWh. And this does not account the energy losses on hoisting the stone up. We'd be talking about the pulley, the rope (or cables, does not have to be actual rope, of course), the winches, etc. You'd be lucky to get 65% efficiency (as a guess, I have no experience). And the argument about the lifetime does not work. Batteries lose life because of frequent cycles of charging and discharging. Doing the same with these gravity batteries would cause frequent replacements of the parts as well: motors, ropes, any other moving part. Besides the immense safety risk associated (I'd guess the risk of a rope breaking is considerably higher than that of a battery catching fire). In short: maybe a good idea if you have tall buildings just laying around (decommissioned industrial sites, for example) and need the storage. Otherwise batteries and other storage forms (e.g. even hydrogen) make more sense. This feels less like a "gravity storage is good" piece and more like a "batteries bad" piece.

[@jmsa2760]

The main problem with this is that gravity is the weakest of the fundamental forces. And by far. Only useful when Nature has provided us the essential infrastructure and we just needed to tweak things (as in dams). Otherwise it doesn't seem to be that useful.

[@skierpage]

Congratulations on doing the math. You're off in one aspect: water weighs 1000 kg per m^3, and concrete around 2400 kg/m^3. Energy Vault says it uses 25-tonne blocks. That's only 10 cubic meters or 2.15 meters on a side (see its dopey glowing cubes moving around at 4:09 in this video). Energy Vault says its Chinese building stores 100 MWh. If it's really 150 meters tall (it doesn't look it), then that requires 10,000 blocks. Its dopey animation suggests they are stored at several levels. Four levels of 50 x 50 blocks would fit in the building, but you need two complicated racking and transport systems to move blocks to and from the lifts as shown in the animation, both at the roof and on the ground. It's very dumb but I really want to see a video of the system in operation!

[@igorsm9397]

Bro, there must be more intelligent solutions

[@dominikgadze4221]

There are. Many. This is utter bs

[@Groaznic]

There are.

[@jackoverton8343]

Heavy rock go brrr

[@hft_trader]

Pumped hydro, There you go.

[@mael1515]

The simplicity is kind of intriguing 🤔

[@fishyerik]

The best part about gravitational energy storage is how easy it is to understand that it's extremely impractical, except pumped hydro when conditions for that are good. The theoretical capacity of gravitational energy storage is described as U=mgh, as in, energy=mass x gravity x height. 1 kg 1 meter up represents about 9.8 joules. That means if you lift a metric ton 1 meter, you have stored as about as much energy as a standard AA NiMH battery cell can store. To store the same amount of energy as one standard 18650 liion cell you will need to lift that metric ton about 4 meters, or four tons one meter. And that's the technically stored energy, there are always losses, even if they can be kept relatively small with gravitational energy storage. When one option is so much more expensive a potentially longer lifespan doesn't help, as interest will keep the net cost much higher indefinitely. And that's even when assuming the "estimates" of cost, lifespan and reliability made by proponents, including industry representatives are reasonable. In reality the mechanics involved means it will require expensive maintenance, and moving huge blocks of solid masses around can have a detrimental effect on constructions. With pumped hydro where you can utilize geography for most if the holding capacity, and water as storage medium, a lot of things becomes much easier. Even if two ponds would have to be dug on flat ground, pumped hydro would be better than man made solid weights as long as the necessary water is available.

[@mgt864]

Ever heard of pumped hydro power? It's like this but better!

[@Faisal-ep3fe]

did you even watch the video ?

[@chrisb9319]

Pumped hydro makes zero sense if you don't have the mountains for it. There are many industrial regions around the world that need a lot of energy but are nowhere near mountains.

[@mgt864]

​@@Faisal-ep3fe Honestly, I commented first. But if this concept was going to reduce the same amount of power as a dam it would have to be even bigger!

[@mgt864]

​@@chrisb9319if they need that much energy then the gravity powered system would have to be even bigger than the dam they can't build!

[@beyondfossil]

Pumped storage hydro (PSH) is good, but reasonable sites are few and are far between and we need a lot of storage to displace fossil fuels. What's worse is that water rights and water access become even more contentious as global warming heats up. Water is dense at 1000-kg/m³ but that's only fractions the density of metals like iron at 7878-kg/m³ so gravity batteries can be significantly more compact in area and height versus PSH.

[@jonitan76]

gravity energy will not be cheaper. because it need a tall building. price of concrete and steel + labor cost increasing every year. there is no way it will be cheaper. mean while battery built in factory by robots it will be geting cheaper.

[@dudewithgreenhat]

Tech bro just reinvented a worst dam that's more expensive

[@patrickmckowen2999]

Interesting, but with the cost of batteries coming down fast and life increasing dramatically, I don't see how gravity can compete in any aspect. Cheers

[@ProtoMarcus]

Hydroelectricity uses gravity _(and water of course)_ and can produce tremendous amounts of energy - also, it can be ''stored''; pumped storage hydroelectricity is already a thing!

[@jtleyko]

Pumped hydro has so many fewer moving parts that can break or need maintenance.

[@akshatrai9007]

Watch the video of Adam Something before this

[@mgt864]

Agreed!

[@Akkordinator]

"The Energy Vault is a Dumb Idea, Here's Why" is the title if anyone else is wondering.

[@ahmed51988]

His video is outdated compared to the design updates introduced by the company and the pupmed hydro power solution in his video has problems dicussed here.

[@echothebm]

Water power from dam is so far the most efficient and lowest maintenance way of storing energy. The main drawbacks are: 1.danger of dam collaps and its potential of damage. 2. It requires a massive amount of space, even more than quarrys. 3. It takes alot of power to pump up water to store that energy. (You can pump mainly at low-cost hours to reduce cost, or have dedicated green energy to power the pumps) 4. Water may need cleaning of trash and such to not clog turbines. 5. Turbines and the tunnels leading water into the turbines need cleaning to avoid clogging. Benefits: 1green energy. 2. Depending on geographical location it refills itself slowly. 3. Requires little maintenance (but constant and vigilant attention, to discover early signs of deterioration) Also water does not need much attention compared to others gravity storage. (Concrete, metal etc will take dmg over the usage periods and requires maintenance and replacement) 4. Can provide alot of power at short demand. 5. Depending on location the water can go through multiple turbines before it reaches the sea or pumping point.

[@echothebm]

TLDNR. Material storage materials deteriorates over time. Water dont. Materials are expensive. Water is cheap and almost everywhere.

[@banned0404]

But thats the thing, there are no near dams in places like massive plains. Plus, a water reservoir will depend not on water, but water pressure. The lower amount of water inside the tank, the harder it is to turn the turbine. While this physical concrete battery is more consistent to turn the motor.

[@slaapkonijn58]

Ok so lets do a quick calculation. We have a block of the energy vault. It is 25 tonnes. 25000 kg. To move 1kg 1 meter is 10 joules of energy. Move 1 kg 50 meters is 500 joules. The block is 25000 kg. Thus it has 12.5 million joules of energy. Which sounds like a lot. But it isnt. The average washing machine uses 400-1400W so lets assume(700W) This single block can power 5 washing machines for an hour. Just think about it. This block has the weight of ~20 cars. And can support 5 washing machines for an hour. Not even taking into account any other devices in a home. This type of storage is just not viable at all.

[@ZippyPiglin36]

Are we all forgetting wet-cell batteries? It's cheaper than Lithium, and likely more efficient than Lithium when upscaled to industrial capacities. Much lower risk of accidents, if any other than possible liquid leaks, which are much easier to manage than anything else.

[@awancah7309]

lithium is "wet cell" batteries just used lithium ion, other used, natrium ion, k-ion, sulfur-ion. all in "wet", even dry batterai actualy "wet"

[@BrinJay-s4v]

I agree and I worry every time they get install on a boat, In a fire you are stuffed,

[@williambreen1001]

The problem with gravity energy storage is its terrible energy density, and consequently the excessive amount of engineering required relative to energy stored for approaches such as this. Pumped hydro, in suitable locations where you have two nearby reservoirs with a potential drop, gets around this problem by having most of the infrastructure already built by nature, with just the pumping/power-station construction required.

[@Ti-up3dv]

Probably many similar comments are being made here: this project, like SO many similar projects before it, will be bankrupt in a few years, for the same reason that all the other gravity battery projects before it: energy density. The sheer amount of material and space you need for not very much energy storage makes this essentially not viable. In one hundred years there might be ONE of the projects supplying some tiny island with energy storage somewhere and that is all. It is a bad idea.

[@gozieanyiam7169]

The most important trend is # energy mix. Having alternatives, competing & complementary energy alternatives.

[@neinkalando2519]

All of these new powerful energy ideas have one huge flaw in them: From the goals of ending climate change resource depletion habitat destruction and over population: all of these ideas would allow humanity to grow exponentially with little long term consequence for it

[@skierpage]

We have to use less resources. That includes generating and storing the energy we do use with less emissions. One doesn't preclude the other.

[@rogerphelps9939]

But it is not. Population has stopped growing in most of the developed world and it will not be long before it is declining rapidly.

[@CyclicCipher]

Why not just use water...

[@LuccaGasser]

Ah yes... Building massive concrete blocks to safe our climate, absolutely genius!

[@cerverg]

What more to say... journalism at its finest from DW as usual zero research and outdated statements presented as pure facts. Storage batteries are exactly the same as those in your phone? Give me a f-ing break. How about Sodium batteries DW have you ever heard of them?

[@SlackersIndustry]

Lets see what thunderfoot has to say about it

[@Fdzzaigl]

Why not just pump water in reservoirs and let it power turbines, instead of first producing concrete and then creating this entire construction...

[@jussikankinen9409]

Yes africans dont need food

[@Hdtjdjbszh]

these are just reservoirs with more complexity

[@AyushYadav-st4kr]

I had this idea 2 year before and today they made it...

[@manojdesai3942]

Instead of using building why not using the mountains for low coast gravity batteries ?

[@NoHandleToSpeakOf]

Just remember to replace those steel cables after a set number of cycles. All that strain and bending wear them out pretty quick. Expensive replacement though.

[@goemboeck]

Gravity batteries are a borderline scam in most applications, I would not invest in it.

[@NoidoDev]

Why? How? Fundamentally it's a very good way to store energy, and a lot of it will be necessary.

[@YourArmsGone]

@@NoidoDev Just Use water and a turbine. Even a giant water tower makes more sense than blocks on cables.

[@NoidoDev]

@@YourArmsGone Maybe, or the engineers of that company know something you don't. They most likely can regulate it better. Also, there are other ideas in that video

[@pigsnoutman]

​@@NoidoDevyeh, they know marketing green junk is lucrative

[@augustinehuizing6683]

@@NoidoDev A AA battery holds some 3 watt-hours of energy. The same energy as lifting a 10 kilo (20 lbs) block up 100 meters (or 300 ft) high. See how impractical?

[@ricrodrigh1]

Not to mention the carbon footprint of the concrete, people often forget how much pollution concrete manufacturing generates. Ok, fill them with water, ok but instead of small containers, use a huge tub, ok now instead of hoisting up and down, send it down a tube and run a tubine ....

[@myboysd5772]

I see what you did there

[@obelexxus2672]

This baatery is good and all, but what if we used an existing site for storing the blocks, like a mountain? Sorted. Oh and why don't we use a fluid water instead of solid blocks of concrete, so we only have to use a series of pumps to get from the low energy level to the higher one? Sorted. Oh and why don't we call this "pumped hydro storage", since we are pumping water up the hill into a storage container? Sorted. Wait...this technology already exists and is already called "pumped hydro storage"? Well...

[@duncancairncross]

Run the bloody numbers!! The horrible bastard unit we use is KiloWattHours - 1 "unit" - 1kWh is 1000 watts for 3600 seconds - 3,600,000 - 3.6 MegaJoules That is like lifting a 3.6 ton weight (36,000N) up a 100 meters A Tesla battery is 50 kWh - equivalent to lifting 36 Tons up 500 meters - which would require a building which would be one of the highest in the world A "Gravity battery" using concrete blocks is a stupid idea The 25 ton blocks and the 100 meters (being generous) in the video would each store 250,000N x 100m = 25 MegaJoules - about 7 kWh - about $2 worth of electricity A Tesla MegaPack is 3,000 kWh - or 428 of the 25 ton blocks - per module!!!

[@waltertoki1]

This idea is not practical. The storage energy of 1 kWh would require lifting a 1 metric ton weight at least 360 meters.

[@maxdontask]

Gravity Storage with bricks is hilariously dumb.

[@duck1ente]

In terms of density, space and infrastructure cost, I think pressurized gas makes more sense

[@echothebm]

It's and interesting idea. But maintaining pressure and temperature is hard and expensive in large scale for it to be finically viable. 😢 got any examples?

[@beyondfossil]

@@echothebm I have high hopes for compressed CO₂. Look at "Energy Dome" using compress gaseous CO₂ into tanks (70 bar pressure). It's a closed loop system, so doesn't need any more CO₂ than from initial CO₂ supply. LCOS = $50/MWh. Compare pumped hydro $186 LCOS. Round trip efficiency (RTE) 75% to 80% which is in the neighborhood of Lithium RTE 90% which Lithium is pretty much #1 in efficiency. Compressed gases also use just plain industrial material for construction and operations, nothing exotic. The turbines also provide AC synchronous buffering naturally which switched DC inverters do not do.

[@skierpage]

@@echothebm April 2024 "A compressed air energy storage (CAES) project in Hubei, China, has come online, with 300MW/1,500MWh of capacity." May 2024 "Chinese developer ZCGN has completed the construction of a 300 MW compressed air energy storage (CAES) facility in Feicheng, China's Shandong province." Both claim to be the world's largest.

[@adamlytle2615]

Any physics nerds out there know how that big energy vault building in china would compare to doing a comparably sized pumped hydro storage facility using existing water tower designs? Picture 2 water towers vertically stacked in an hourglass configuration with the pump/generator in between. My gut says that it might not have quite the same storage capacity, but would be MUCH simpler/cheaper to build and maintain?

[@skierpage]

Water towers don't store enough working mass and don't have enough height drop. No town with a water tower uses it as a battery. Work it out yourself with a units calculator (I use Fourmilab), it's just `X tonnes * gravity * Y meters` in kWh. You have to use existing natural reservoirs with a substantial vertical drop between them, i.e. pumped hydro.

[@hugonavakopp]

This is literally the first textbook example of potential energy in physics books lol

[@cbcml42]

bruh thunderf00t already debunked this techbro nonsense years ago lmao

[@ProtoMarcus]

Him and _Adam Something_ and plenty others - because it is impractical, inefficient, way more complicated, requires huge maintenance, requires production of huge weights While Pumped Storage Hydroelectricity already exists and already works and does everything these proposals aim for - but way better, less costly, easier to maintain, etc.

[@krashd]

Don't watch clowns like thunderhead, he just likes to be contrarian because it sells. He would probably find a way to debunk water.

[@cbcml42]

@@krashd show me 1 thing he debunked and was wrong about it y o u c a n t

[@augustinehuizing6683]

@@krashd You're right! We should trust the investor panderers like DW Planet, they clearly aren't being influenced by the paying of a certain company.

[@RICK82873]

I suggested this to my physics teacher about 30 years ago and he scoffed and looked at me like I was an idiot.

[@Khyranleander]

Not mentioned are the materials. Where old mines exist already, still need to tie these usually distant sites into the core grid. Elsewhere, you're erecting massive buildings. It's not just the _production_ side of energy that needs to be green.

[@kevinjpluck]

Victoria Big Battery is the size of a parking lot and stores 4 times as much and can output 12 times more than that behemoth.

[@zaurenstoates7306]

In this episode of "anything but nuclear" we look at a needlessly more expensive version of pumped hydro. This is achieved by replacing cheap, plentiful water with either refined metals or reinforced concrete Fun fact: if you lifted the entire burj khalifa up 30 meters there would be about 37MWh of potential energy

[@KGTiberius]

CALCULATION: This is a footprint of 2/3rds of a mile on each side and 20 stories tall for a city with 100,000 people (40,000 homes), each home using ~30kWh per day, and a 3 day supply of energy storage (cloudy days), and the concrete gravity battery ONLY powers the homes (not businesses, commercial, industrial, hospitals, infrastructure or lights, water pumps, etc) - just the homes - the concrete gravity battery would be 1x1 km footprint, solar panels on top of the concrete, this mass would be 15 meters tall and need to be lifted ~45 meters up.

[@KGTiberius]

This 1x1km footprint has enough solar power to sustain the gravity battery.

[@KGTiberius]

Is this calculation correct? A 5 story tall mass of concrete, lifted 15 stories up (full capacity would be a height of 20 stories (15 high and 5 tall)).

[@lawrenceheyman435]

Individual projects would need to prove their worth. It will probably depend on local factors, like having a mine shaft but not having spare water. I can't see the economics of a seasonal battery working. It would only run a few times a year, so would have to receive so much money for those few times. Can you do a video on iron-flow batteries? An American company is building one. Seems closer to viability than gravity.

[@mach1553]

It's not a gravity storage battery, it's a gravity storage generator.

[@jimhood1202]

I'm glad to hear see the small segment from the investment analyst included. Getting familiar with terms like energy density will help educate investors and decision makers to get all the data on the table. Less happy about the lithium bashing. There was a lot of out of date nonsense in there.

[@Bennie32831]

Why don't gravity battery's install a small lithium battery to help them respond to the market 🤔

[@coscinaippogrifo]

I love the approach of this channel: always carefully weighing pros and cons of eco technologies! One thing to add about gravity storage in mines is that I heard that is attractive due to the high costs that mining companies need to sustain to decommission the mine. So, leveraging the mine for gravity storage for a few more years would elongate the life span of the mine and help cover the decommissioning costs.

[@gruttewibe76]

Besides green power generation and storage, we should also think about saving energy. Traveling less, using more energy efficient transport (like bicycles (electric assisted or not)), better insulated houses, using passive cooling (like Iran's windcatchers), etc. I think we won't get rid of fossil fuels, and won't reduce our greenhouse emissions if our energy hunger keeps growing.

[@parihar-shashwat]

You can store in sand as heat and use that heat to convert back to electricity. This storing it as potential energy seems inefficient and dangerous

[@stickynorth]

I love the idea of urban skyscrapers popping up in every area with gravity storage built into them. I don't know how truly feasible it is but it's worth building a few test projects to find out... Mixed use towers with observation decks, hotel rooms, apartments and office space as well as hospitality suites... Put them together and you have a winning formula...

[@SamFigueroa]

Dual-use that mineshaft for geo-thermal base load generation please.

[@mr88cet]

Good topic and video (mostly)! However… 5:30 - really, guys, cellphone battery life is a bad analogy. Cellphones, laptops, etc. typically use LCO (Lithium Cobalt-Oxide) battery chemistry. Stationary energy storage, and electric vehicles as well, generally use LFP or NMC chemistries, which have a much longer lifespan. Between that, active temperature management, and reasonable charging margins (“fully charged” is actually 85-90%), batteries in these applications can easily have 5 times the lifespan of cellphone batteries.

[@yureonice7917]

thunderfoot explained why its not gonna work like... 4 years ago.

[@crescentmono3344]

Earthquake and other disaster be like, good toppling blocks

[@sandiwijaya4964]

concreate only 2,5 more dense than water, but with much more complecity than water. Water can use all the space for storage, while solid gravity need stucture. alot of rotating mechanism need more maintenance than water

[@frostmelody]

All those unused commercial apartments, perfect solution to convert them all to batteries.

[@allenqueen]

Using waste as weights does sound like a good way to keep them out of landfills

[@ModernSurvivalSense]

Gravity batteries are not new. We've done this with water for a couple hundred years at this point.

[@yahallo5343]

I did a scratch sketch of a similar concept of this when I was try na figuring out of ways to use gravity as means of energy. Of course its nothing special but finding out that your silly ideas are really out there just feels nice🥺

[@ranggaajibaskara1809]

Answer to the thumbnail: yes, we can. Make a big dam, then insert a power plant inside the dam. Hurraaaayyy, it's a power plant based on gravity

[@undesiredshoe]

Even better idea, make the blocks out of electric batteries for extra energy density. Why lift an empty block when you could be lifting a block that is also storing energy.

[@martinfarfsing5995]

I have electronics and electrical degrees from college and university. We were taught to see solutions in life . How about using metallic springs with the gravity weights . The springs would be stretched and slowly released tension would drive generators.

[@skierpage]

How about humbly acknowledging that if yours was a workable idea engineers would have done it centuries ago. What is the benefit of compressing a spring with gravity over slowly lowering a weight to drive a generator? And neither is much good because gravity is such a weak force. CAES (Compressed Air Energy Storage) is a similar idea to store energy, but it has problems with round-trip efficiency and cost.

[@tims.2832]

Now where sodium ion batteries are coming, recycling this concrete tower idea is kind of odd.

[@dasstigma]

I wonder how long it will take for humanity to wake up and realise, reality is more important than money...

[@bunnycatch3r]

What's so interesting about this form of energy storage is the artistic possibilities; kinetic sculpture climbing or descending a hill.

[@echothebm]

Interactive art like that is cool

[@rubidot]

That’s a cool idea. Maybe a bronze statue that climbs a skyscraper.

[@GordonGarvey]

Like sisyphus

[@wudubora]

It makes sense that Switzerland is developing it since it is the same technology developed a couple hundred years ago. It is how grandfather clocks work.

[@skierpage]

Yes, and we all know how people run their household appliances and boil water using the potential energy stored in the weights of a grandfather clock.... NOT! Gravity is an extremely weak force.

[@michaelmckeown3164]

Could you do a documentary on molten salt batteries?

[@DWPlanetA]

We actually have this video on concentrated solar that works with molten salt ☀️ 👉 kzbin.info/www/bejne/rJDOmKWbbc1obas

[@augustinehuizing6683]

@@DWPlanetA Hi sellouts!!!!

[@w0ttheh3ll]

Energy vault's new concept is simply an oversized automated high-bay warehouse used to store unusually low-value material. Can't see it ever being economical.

[@skierpage]

Except the material you're storing in this really really really tall warehouse weigh 25 tons each, about 500 times more than an Amazon tote, and 4:09 some magical Willy Wonka elevator system moves the glowing blocks up and down and around. But 7:32 DW says "If the high start-up costs of gravity batteries even out over time partly due to the low cost of maintenance, that might make them competitive in the long run." Yes, because a materials moving system for 10,000 25 ton blocks has lower maintenance costs than a bunch of Tesla Megapacks that just sit on the ground.

[@juhilla749]

Mount the weight on a wheel, so you only have to turn the wheel if you want to place the weight in the upward position again. Several weights can be placed on one wheel and it can be continuously used not only as a battery. The same works with water.

[@skierpage]

You only store a slightly significant amount of potential energy if you lift a heavy mass high into the air. So you need an enormous ferris wheel. Use a units calculator, and don't quit your day job.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

Appreciate the honest, low hype reporting.

[@JeanClauded653]

The concept is very interesting but the battery information given is about old technology. Batteries are much cheaper now and last for much longer. Even the reference made to mobile phone battery is outdated. My phone is 4 years old and the battery is still perfect or close.

[@Souchirouu]

So many of the tallest buildings in the world stand mostly empty. Repurposing them with this technology could add an additional buffer to the energy grid while minimizing costs and pollution of building from scratch.

[@skierpage]

Nope. Use a units calculator (I use Fourmilab) to find that lifting 1 ton in a 200 meter skyscraper's elevator stores all of 0.5 kWh, a laughably small amount of energy. If you have to move lots of 1 ton weights in and out of the elevators both at the top and bottom to store more energy, then they takes up more space and the moving system becomes complicated (look 4:09 at Energy Vault's Willy Wonka elevator).

[@showaibzaman400]

Bro, reinventing the dam in the worst possible way

[@mryitch]

if they manage to figure out how to couple this with warehouses and build it into the supply chain it could be quite interesting

[@davidrandall6087]

It's not a novel or new concept. Grandfather clocks use "gravity batteries"

[@ai4px]

The elephant in the room is the round trip efficiency. Lithium is 99%. Lead acid is 80%. What is the round trip cost of a kWh?

[@pengyuecai553]

According to the 100MW project in Rudong, the measured efficiency is that the comprehensive efficiency can reach 85%

[@energyideas]

Roads can do this activity with trucks. Trucks rolling downhill like down i-70 into Denver can generate electricity especially if they're filled with water or rocks. Electricity store in batteries on truck can be dispatched onto the electric grid.

[@internationalbusiness5877]

I wonder if this gravity-powered generator can actually pull the weight back up high enough to keep the electricity flowing. Sounds like a cool prototype in the making! Not reliant on variable sources. It's definitely reliant on the force to pull the weight high enough to the starting, like wind turbines rely on wind speed, solar panels on sunlight, and hydro power on strength of water flow. Nothing is free, but physic definitely is helpful in making it more efficient.

[@slippinchillin]

“Lithium ion batteries explode” Not like the gravity battery won’t collapse and crash on somebody’s head

[@pengyuecai553]

The Rudong 100MWh gravity energy storage project has a total investment of 1 billion yuan, a construction scale of 100MWh and a power generation capacity of 25MW. In fact, China has tried almost all energy storage methods. In addition to lithium batteries, the largest ones are pumped storage, compressed air, and even compressed carbon dioxide. In the comments section, there are also gravity storage methods using hillsides and tracks. But the applicability of this building energy storage lies in its applicability. It can be deployed in most areas, and the cost will decrease geometrically with the construction cost, especially in the current period of oversupply of cement and steel bars. Other energy storage methods, chemical energy safety and environmental protection issues, and other physical energy storage are either too dangerous or too demanding on the terrain.

[@w0ttheh3ll]

The skyscraper plan :'D :'D :'D It's almost like Energy Vault's engineers are having a competition on who can get away with the most obviously stupid idea.

[@elvin5304]

It would be more interesting if efficiency of the system was also discussed here for typical project.

[@houssembenabdallah6599]

What I wonder about is how much energy is lost between transferring from electrical to mechanical energy and back to electrical?

[@pengyuecai553]

In fact, has tried almost all energy storage methods. In addition to lithium batteries, the largest ones are pumped storage, compressed air, and even compressed carbon dioxide. In the comments section, there are also gravity storage methods using hillsides and tracks. But the applicability of this building energy storage lies in its applicability. It can be deployed in most areas, and the cost will decrease geometrically with the construction cost, especially in the current period of oversupply of cement and steel bars. Other energy storage methods, chemical energy safety and environmental protection issues, and other physical energy storage are either too dangerous or too demanding on the terrain.

[@pengyuecai553]

The Rudong 100MWh gravity energy storage project has a total investment of RMB 1 billion, a construction scale of 100MWh and a power generation capacity of 25MW.

[@YanaiGuedj]

Roughly 10 years I have followed the subject: they're completely stuck, nobody has ever come up with a groundbreaking battery technology. Technology and Ideology do not work hand in hand, they oppose each other!

[@skierpage]

Lithium-ion battery storage is going gangbusters without requiring any groundbreaking new technology. USA installed 24 GWh of battery grid-scale storage in 2023. Tesla alone deployed 9 GWh of battery storage in Q2 2024. Worldwide estimate is over 300 GWh, even more in 2024. That doesn't include business and home battery storage "behind the meter".

[@Aranimda]

My country has no mountains, very expensive land prices, high material and labor costs. I don't see it happening here any time soon.

[@Souchirouu]

China has decided to invest in a pilot project for this technology so, despite much skepticism here, I think it's at least worth exploring.

[@chefmosta2024]

The gravity battery lasts longer but do you really think future humans in 2080 will ever use this crazy idea to produce energy??