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A Californian company proposes using weighted electrically-driven rail vehicles on inclines to store energy. At times when the capacity of electricity supply exceeds demand the vehicles would be driven up inclined tracks, and when demand exceeds generation they are allowed to run down, generating electricity as they fall.
This link includes a video that shows a prototype vehicle (which appears to be built on a conventional locomotive chassis), an interview with a promoter, and an animation of a "farm" of these devices. There is a shortage of hard data, such as how much energy could be stored, for how long, and how steep the tracks are, etc., but a quick calculation shows that some thousands of these vehicles would be required for them to be useful. The control panel for this prototype has a power dial that appears to go up to only 20 kW. The promoter in the interview focuses instead on how the construction material can be recycled at end of life.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by xorsyst on Tuesday July 03 2018, @04:40PM (13 children)
How is this any better/simpler/cheaper/more environmentally friendly than using pumped water storage, which has been used for decades?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @04:52PM (2 children)
(Score: 2, Funny) by Sulla on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:01PM (1 child)
Yeah but this one has trains. Checkmate
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:49PM
Meh, with some pumped storage schemes you get to drive inside a mountain on the public tours! [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by fraxinus-tree on Tuesday July 03 2018, @04:52PM
Probably, just probably, useful where water is not abundant. Like, say, Mars. Provided you still have enough steel to make the trains.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:16PM (3 children)
Why bother with water storage and pipes? How about a big pressure vessel? Just use the excess (solar, hydro etc.) production to pump air into pressure container, then release it through a turbine to generate power. Truckers have long stored compressed air to start their diesel engines. Companies are already building large pressure tanks to transport compressed natural gas. Pressure pumps, turbine engines, and generators are off the shelf stuff.
There ya go...the first billion dollar idea is free, the next ones will cost you.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:26PM
Sometimes [thelocal.es], it's because the storage is provided by nature itself, in the form of natural bodies of water separated in elevation, which, when combined with pipes, pumps, and turbines, is arguably simpler (and more failsafe) than using trains or pressure vessels.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:42PM (1 child)
You know what happens when you compress a gas? Yes, it heats up.
And if you maintain the pressure constant, that heat dissipates. Like, it's lost, man, gone.
And when you decompress the gas, you'l be missing that energy.
True, you can use the idea, but for high volume and small delta-pressure - this way, the amount of energy gone by thermal transfer is less a fraction of the total stored energy. Or invent a perfect thermal insulator - with the today's technology, you get around a 700% efficiency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday July 03 2018, @08:34PM
Make that efficiency to 70%.
When taking the conversions electricity->pressure->electricity, you get about half what you've put in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:36PM
How is this any better/simpler/cheaper/more environmentally friendly than using pumped water storage, which has been used for decades?
Because they're in a desert?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:11PM
Locomotives don't evaporate.
I'm wondering whether they have surplus electric locomotives, or some aversion to using a cable-drum to winch weighted train cars up the hill?
How about this: use an electric train to haul tanker cars up the hill, world's least efficient pipeline.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:22PM
It's useful in areas where water is scarce? Or where geologic concerns make storing large quantities of elevated water difficult or dangerous? Or if you have low slopes so that any substantial elevation change requires a dramatic horizontal displacement, then there's also the possibility that rolling resistance will be considerably lower than the flowing resistance in pipes.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday July 04 2018, @12:46AM (1 child)
I'm a builder -- I built a whole city. And I'm a big environmentalist, I've won many awards for environmental. So I know a lot about these things. And for the pumped you need two lakes. A lake on top of a mountain. And a lake at the bottom. And the water goes back and forth. Back and forth. It's not great for fishing. It's not great for swimming. And it's not great for boating. You're at the lake, right? Up on the mountain. And you're on your little boat. You're fishing. And your kids are taking a swim. Beautiful day, the sun is shining. Then, a cloud comes. And suddenly, no water! Boat stranded in mud, kids & fish flopping around in the mud. Where did the water go? It's at the bottom of the mountain, in the other lake. And the folks that were wading down there, well, they better be good swimmers. Because that one got a lot deeper all of a sudden! With the pumped, you take what possibly were two beautiful lakes. PERFECTO. And you make them very very ugly. And if you didn't have the two lakes, very expensive. Because you need two lakes. The two water features. So if you started with one lake, you're building a lake. Or if you start with ZERO lakes you're building two lakes. And a lot of mountains don't come with a lake at the top. A lot of mountains have a pointy tip. But you want a hollow. So maybe you do a sex change for the mountain. Turning a boy mountain into a girl mountain. And that costs big money. If you have nuclear, it's less money. It gets the job done. But it brings out the alt-left. The "hell no, we won't glow" folks. And it makes a lot of fallout. And a lot of noise. Trust me, you can count on getting sued so many times. Before, during & after.
Believe me, it's no way to build an Energy Grid. What we need is RELIABLE power. Coal and nuclear. We need to make our coal & nuclear profitable. So many are closing. But we need them badly. We can do a subsidy. Or we can do a law where folks have to buy the coal power. And the nuclear power. For our National Security!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @02:03AM
Build a wall around D.C. and Mar-a-Lago and use them for pumped water storage.