Re:First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in opera...
by 8bitsrule on Sunday December 31, 2023 @03:10AM
(#38822563)
>Storage and demand shaping infrastructure will catch up
Storage in particular could be MUCH cheaper. (And still be centralized to conserve public-utility oversight and dangers from all those saboteurs out there somewhere.)
Battery storage is VERY expensive and hard on the environment. I continue to see little attention being paid to merely simple gravity storage.
Yes, traditional large-scale pumped hydro exists (usually using expensive turbines to pump water uphill, like the plants used in the UK for decades to get past tea-time. There are many more in the U.S.) They're usually expensive (good for getting tax-payer dollars into constructor pockets) ... time-consuming as well ... and need a hill for a reservoir and a water-source. (Of course we have -all the time in the world- right?)
But on a large scale, electricity can also be stored much more simply and economically by moving VERY heavy weights uphill ... or lifting VERY heavy weights out of a hole. Already existing and proven steel cables can lift 'barrels' containing hundreds or thousands of tons of (very cheap) rocks. Construction times and $/MW cost savings over high-tech 'solutions'? might be 10-1000 times lower.
Storage in particular could be MUCH cheaper. (And still be centralized to conserve public-utility oversight and dangers from all those saboteurs out there somewhere.)
Battery storage is VERY expensive and hard on the environment. I continue to see little attention being paid to merely simple gravity storage.
Yes, traditional large-scale pumped hydro exists (usually using expensive turbines to pump water uphill, like the plants used in the UK for decades to get past tea-time. There are many more in the U.S.) They're usually expensive (good for getting tax-payer dollars into constructor pockets) ... time-consuming as well ... and need a hill for a reservoir and a water-source. (Of course we have -all the time in the world- right?)
But on a large scale, electricity can also be stored much more simply and economically by moving VERY heavy weights uphill ... or lifting VERY heavy weights out of a hole. Already existing and proven steel cables can lift 'barrels' containing hundreds or thousands of tons of (very cheap) rocks. Construction times and $/MW cost savings over high-tech 'solutions'? might be 10-1000 times lower.