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[-] Maalus@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

Because "gravity batteries" is a stupid inefficient concept peddled by techbros to solve a huge problem with "a magic solution". In reality, they require either digging straight down like a mine shaft, but at huge scale, or a high rise building with all the weight concentrated on its top floor when the batteries are "charged". Wind would sway that shit left and right, the weight concentration would undermine / damage the building if it even was possible to build at scale.

[-] LuckyBoy@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago
[-] Lorgres@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

The problem is really down to finding places where you can actually build something like a hydroelectric power plant.

You need a large area you can safely flood. (No villages in the area or only villages you can buy out the owners of) or a high up lake.

The area to flood needs to have the geology required to construct a dam safely.

And finally, the area needs to be pretty high up and have an area below you can direct the outgoing water to.

[-] LuckyBoy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Yeah, but there are already built hydroeletric dams that can be reused like that.

[-] maniii@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

so-called "gravity batteries" is pretty much exactly a dam with a mini-dam/reservoir at the bottom. When there is an excess, you run the motor to reverse the waterflow to pump uphill into a highe-elevation water retention pond/mini-dam.

This also helps reduce the amount of outflow water "lost" due to high-demand. Since you could take almost a day to fill the bottom reservoir and spend "wind"/solar to pump back the "lost" water downstream back into the higher-level reservoir.

Even if things are inefficient wind/solar are "renewable", so you can keep "wasting" excess to replenish the dam and still make enough money back ( think in-terms of drought, flooding, windy, sunny, cloudy, etc ) you can basically keep the high-output "system" always topped-up with water. And still supply water + electricity as it is needed. There is no "downside".

Not everyone agrees. So opinions can differ.

this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2024
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