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Re:Energy Vault – Gravitational Batteries by Retric on Monday January 11, 2021 @07:07AM (#25727843)
Cycling stress like that is going to dramatically reduce the lifespan due to tress fractures. I think they would be lucky to get 10-20 years from the blocks.

Stress fracture are already a significant issue for concrete dams when you frequently vary the water levels, and this is much worse as different stacking is going to stress each block slightly differently every time. In theory they might be perfectly flat surfaces meeting evenly, but in practice that’s far from the case.

Re:Energy Vault – Gravitational Batteries by leonletto on Monday January 11, 2021 @11:51AM (#25731605)
Wouldn’t you just grind them up and recycle them?
Re:Energy Vault – Gravitational Batteries by Retric on Monday January 11, 2021 @02:49PM (#25735309)
They can’t recycle it into blocks of the same material properties. It’s not worthless by any stretch, just a poor fit for such demanding applications.