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Re:Energy Vault – Gravitational Batteries by walrus01 on Monday January 11, 2021 @05:47AM (#25727174)
I wonder how they've calculated the costs of building this giant crane and concrete block system, vs building small scale pumped storage hydroelectricity. Not by the usual method of impounding a reservoir at the top of a hill, but putting a giant array of load-balancing medium sized water tanks at the top of a hill, running a pipe to the bottom where there's the pump/generator, and a similarly sized array of tanks.
Re:Energy Vault – Gravitational Batteries by ncmncm on Monday January 11, 2021 @11:33PM (#25742325)
A big tank is overwhelmingly cheaper than a collection of small tanks.

Ground water makes a remarkably capacious reservoir, which may be deeper than your hill is high, doubling the energy storage capacity, for a possible upper limit on instantaneous wattage.