News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on? by dangerface on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @09:39AM (#22180932)
Pumping water up a mountain to store energy has been used around the world with much success, in my opinion it seems to be the most realistic way to store energy efficiently.

If you can remove the mountain you could scale this out to every one in the world and single handedly solve this problem.

There will be other problems to overcome but someone will figure it out why not you? I wish you all the best in this very important effort.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on? by JoeAltmaier on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @09:48AM (#22181064)
That's about 90%+ efficiency pumping it up, and generating it down (electrical conversion). So maybe 85% total storage efficiency. How's that compare to battery or other storage systems? Lithium is 98% by some sources.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on? by DoctorOetker on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @10:27AM (#22181526)
the UPHS seems like a durable system that could store and deliver many more cycles than a battery?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on? by JoeAltmaier on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @11:55AM (#22182730)
Yeah total cost of ownership would tend to even things out.
[ Parent | on HN ]