“New” Concept in Energy Storage
Here’s a piece on a subject we haven’t talked too much about recently: energy storage. In this case, it’s analogous to pumped hydro (see left) or advanced rail energy storage, both of which take off-peak energy and use it to raise a mass against the force of gravity, increasing its potential energy. Then when needed, the mass can be allowed to fall, transferring that energy into electricity.
This guy proposes to install systems like these in abandoned oil wells, making use of the fact that the holes in the Earth’s surface have already been dug.
Is this a big deal? I doubt it.
Yes, energy storage of this type requires elevation change, and thus cannot be sited in places like Kansas. Yet this technology, which comes from Newton (ca. 1660) and Faraday (ca. 1830) doesn’t appear to hold much promise in a world in which battery technology is improving every day.
Btw, the piece linked above is called “Batteries that run on gravity.” I don’t know whether this is an innocent mistake or a deliberately misleading attempt to explain the concept, but it’s incorrect. Obviously, it doesn’t invoke batteries (electrochecmical storage) of any kind. But more to the point, it doesn’t “run on gravity.” There is no energy in gravity; it’s rather a force, and moving objects around in a force field either requires external energy or releases energy, according to whether the objects are moved opposing or in the direction of the force.
As our educational system continues to fall into an abyss, more and more Americans lack a basic understanding of science, and thus accept ideas like this as perfectly feasible.
Remind me to stay far away from this guy’s house.
At left is something that I hope you will find to be worth your time.
At left is the clock tower of the William Penn Charter School, founded in Philadelphia in 1689. Tomorrow I’ll be traveling back there for my 50th reunion.
Kathi Horton sent the meme here and adds, “Yet another reason not to go EV at this point – they really haven’t thought through all the impacts of this technology.”
Think of the context in which Marcus Aurelius said these words 1900 years ago.
Exactly who actively participated in the attempt to overthrow the U.S. government remains to be seen, but this guy is 100% correct that these efforts have not stopped.
Here are people whose platform reads as follows:
I just met a woman who has a close connection to Robert Mondavi, who, some time ago, had addressed a group of about 25 extremely wealthy people and explained why he sold his $400 million and his father’s $600 million wine businesses. Why did they cash in their chips at this particular point in time, given that the industry, particularly for those who can play at the high-end, is going through the roof?
