Everything is so beautiful when reality isn't important

The famous water fed Dinorwig power station in the UK (Tom Scott did a video on it), is essentially a 9.2 million ton 'weight' over a 500m shaft. Some highly academic research on google says that's three million more tons than the weight of the Hoover Dam. To build a concrete gravity battery on the scale of Dinorwig (and the UK alone would need several to meet intermittency needs), you'd therefore need a hoover dam of concrete, with about 8 or so Empire state buildings on top (400k tons each) to make up the weight, suspended on a structure the height of Taipei 101. This is cartoonishly impractical!

Adam Something did a video on the previous version of the Energy Vault just over a year ago, and this design as clearly gone through some iterations, but still has many of the problems of the original. Like you mention, the material cost of the Vault versus using building dams is contentious, though I've done no research to determine the amounts of used in either. Additionally, the amount of energy stored would be an interesting aspect to look into to get an idea of how effective/viable the different options are.

I would've loved to hear more about liquid metal batteries and reversible rust batteries since those seem to hold a lot more promise

It would seem like the amount of energy the concrete blocks could store is very limited and very expensive. There is a reason we've used water so far. It's cheap, widely available in most countries and has little impact on the enviroment. I think thunderf00t made a pretty good video on the topic (and no he probably didn't do a perfect job either but I remember it being good).

Great video with an intriguing idea. But lets not play dumb. This wasnt't not being talked about. Energy storage has been an argued issue with solar & wind for a long time.

You’re also missing the Molten Salt batteries which are much more common in Norway & Sweden. Very interesting stuff.

Hasnt this tech already been disproven?

Did you miss the debunking video's on how much carbon is used to make the concrete blocks for that energy storage solution. Thunderf00t has a few good ones on those topics.

I would like to know more about the maintenance costs of this energy storage solution. Keeping all those cables and/or generators running well is going to be a challenge.

Why don't we build mini nuclear power stations. Like the ones they put in nuclear submarines.

same guys who tried storing energy using a crane. That idea was wildly criticized and rightfully so. Don't see this as much better option considering the complexity. And notice the zero info about the cost to store 1 MWh how much is it in the end? Well I guess let's keep milking those investors for money ;)

The major problem with this video is the guy talking about the vaults says it’s at night that they’d be using the excess power to store energy because consumption is down, while at the beginning of the video they are saying night is when the extra stored energy is needed.

That gravity vault looks like a dumb idea o or a bait for investor money because of ridiculously low energy capacity, and energy density. LOL, May I suggest that those geniuses consider using lead-acid batteries as their lifted weights so that they can increase power density at least.

This looks like a lot of mental gymnastics to avoid nuclear for the base load

My god that smoke alarm at the beginning gave me a bloody heart attack! Sounded just like mine xD

If you haven't already covered it, you should do a video on the Snowy hydro scheme here in Australia and the upgrades they are currently doing with Snowy Hydro 2.0

Liquid air batteries, would be a better option there's already some pilot plants up and running in the UK, the beauty of a liquid air battery is there really scalable and are built from common materials that are readily available and used in other industries with the available skilled engineers to setup and get running, they have a great cycle live cheap and can be placed where you need them, it's worth a Google to find out more about them. Be nice if Tomorrow's Build could do a KZfaq video about this battery.

That intro (the first minute) made me smile and smile! Thanks Fred!

Electricity is about 20% of global energy consumption, of that 20% about 80% is NOT wind or solar generated. So about 4% of total energy is renewable. Just getting to half of demand is a big problem, without considering storage

This video needed more Fred. We could use his guns to push those concrete blocks up, to store all that potential energy 💪

Dunno why videos like this never mention tidal turbines when it comes to reliable consistent renewable energy production. Tidal turbines output is determined by the tide, which is literally controlled via the moons gravity when it rises and sets, which we know is twice a day forever, so the tidal turbine output pattern is consistent forever. Of course the issue is that its output goes between 100% down to 0% then back up to 100% gradually a couple of times a day, but it's exactly over every 12 hours forever. So you could pair say a 2MW tidal turbine with a just 6MWh battery and it'll output 1MW 24/7 more consistently than even nuclear. Can't do this with wind or solar because they're not predeictable and can have low output for days or even weeks on end, can't build a battery for that. Whereas with tidal you KNOW that it'll go back up to 100% output within a few hours. You can know the output of tidal turbines at any specific time any day 10 years from now if you wanted. Of course we can't have tidal turbines anywhere but even 10% from them would be a nice 10% baseload. Or just build nuclear.

I would love to see actual stats like how much each motor/generator takes to raise and how much is gotten back when lowered. What is the ACTUAL efficiency of these gravity solutions?

@3:20 *Gravity* is handy if you are near a deep shaft into a salt mine otherwise you're digging one and there are all those mine tailings to dispose of. (Good luck with the world's *NIMBY* syndrome.) Not to mention all the pumping problems if there is any water ingress. *Hydro dams* are great as long as the reservoir stays filled ( *Lake Mead* is drying up,) ... with water (the *Aswan Dam* is silting up.)

Dams work great for Norway, who gets 98% of both it's energy and energy storage from hydroelectric dams.

I would be interested in a video about Geothermal energy. I know there is currently a trial plan being in Cornwall and other countries are also exploring its potential.

Aren't you forgetting nuclear power generation & technological advances in it, including miniature fission reactors and the potential of fusion energy?

This video lacked the criticism an idea like this deserves. Looks to be a more expensive and less efficient energy storage solution than just building a facility for pumped hydro.

The problem with the “build nothing but renewables and attack anything else” is that the storage technology to actually make it work beyond cherry picked hours flat out does not exist. And once it does exist, it still only accounts for fuel (wind/sun) *transients*, not steady state interruptions. Any weather patterns that disrupt generation for more than a few hours are going to lead to voltage collapse and complete blackouts. As a NERC certified reliability coordinator that literally controlled the power grid, I can inform the “renewables are all we need” crowd that a complete blackout takes weeks to recover from. If you try to have a 100% renewable grid, you’re going to regularly be without power to huge sections of the country for weeks at a time. You *must* have a backbone of generation that operates independent of weather. It’s not an option, it’s a necessity - even when storage technology can make short term operation feasible. The solution is nuclear power. Replace the fossil fuel plants with nuclear, and keep about a 49/49 mix of nuclear and renewable (with a little left over fossils for black start recovery; you’re permanently down otherwise). That’s the solution; not delusions of millions of wind turbines and solar farms powering everything.

The inefficiencies of moving the bocks horizontal mixed with the fact that it's not that high makes this a huge waste of resources.

At a student conference a few years ago I heard a talk by an MIT-affiliated presenter about a physical battery system. The energy is stored as heat within a colossal high heat capacity structure which can release heat into special coils to boil water to turn turbines. Square cube law limits heat loss. Interesting stuff but mostly large scale project.

LOVE THE EDITING IN THIS ONE! That was a joy to watch

Yes, and the other problem no one is talking about is that no amount of storage of any kind is of any use at all when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow for long periods or for the many parts of the world where neither is available at usable scale. Fortunately Small Nuclear Reactors are coming. The MSR (Molten Salt Reactor) variety generates 97% less waste, and the waste has orders of magnitude shorter life span. All new generation modular reactors are walk-away, passively safe. Unlike traditional reactors that are mind-bogglingly complex and built on site, SMRs are mass produced in factories to dramatically reduce cost and time to commission.

Sodium ion, liquid metal and aluminum air batteries will likely be the answer to stationary storage in the near future as lithium is better suited to high-capacity batteries for transportation and electronic equipment. I don't see the energy vault, or any gravity battery being much of a factor due primarily to its massive size and short power delivery time when batteries can deliver power for many hours and take up very little space per Wh of power.

Saw this 11 years ago in a German paper, thinking way bigger: cut a multiile granite block out of the ground and move the whole block up an down as power is needed. Nobody built it though

I appreciate they're trying to mitigate their greenhouse impact by producing the materials locally.

That whole lithium battery bit was just a bunch of big oil FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt).

May all beings be healthy, be happy, be well and be free. Including ourselves.

energy vault has been debunked already, check out thunderfoots video on this. The ironic thing about their garbage cgi is that they made their energy vault right next to a mountain where pumped hydro would be possible to build

Love these prototypes but... You know that for your base-load you can build NOW nuclear power plants? Which are the cleanest way to produce energy

Gravity storage is good, but I’d bet chemical storage is more efficient. For instance, splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen is relatively cheap, and hydrogen fuel cells require very little maintenance

Germany is pioneering lithium mining from their own thermal waters which obtains exponentially more than the usual yield.

I refer you to the recent tesla investor day where 1. It is shown how rare earths such as cobalt etc. will no longer be used in the vast majority of Li-Ion batteries (and definitely not stationary storage which is already Li-Fe-PO4) by 2030 2. They show how incredibly abundant lithium is on earth and present the plan for new refineries which will allow even the U.S alone to meet entire worlds lithium demand (which would never happen but demonstrates lack of lithium bottleneck) I personally think liquid metal and/or reverse ox batteries mixed with nuclear for baseload is best current option but demonstrates that lithium chemistry CAN serve purpose and is already shown to be SCALABLE, which is the single most important consideration of ANY storage solution

I've heard of a pneumatic solution where air is pumped into large balloons, then released when needed to drive the turbine.

of course you are right, as we head for net zero, storage in all its forms will be key and must be taken seriously. The first and most obvious thing to do to reach net zero, is to generate carbon free electricity whether by wind or wave, solar or tidal, or by nuclear, but because most carbon free electricity generation is subject to variability, we must build 50% more generating capacity than we would need on a typical day, and to complement the additional generating capacity, we need to build energy storage with sufficient capacity to not only even out the daily ups and downs of production and demand, but also to act as long-term storage to meet the demands of a cold winter and for green fuels. Storage When it comes to energy storage, we must consider 3 categories, starting with, short-term grid storage, up to six hours to even out the highs and lows of demand and production, our existing pumped hydro systems work well enough with fossil fuel plants, but as more renewable energy comes online, it will have to be supplemented probably by batteries, which will also play a role with home energy storage, and light vehicle energy storage, but not lithium-ion batteries, which keep getting more expensive due to rarity of the materials they are made of like Lithium, cobalt, and nickel, plus there is environmental damage caused by the mining and processing of these materials. Sodium-ion batteries are already beginning to compete with lithium-ion batteries, as they are made from cheaper and more abundant materials, and batteries using other low-cost materials like sulphur are making good progress in development, within the next year or two there could be several cheaper alternatives to lithium for batteries. Then there is the 6 hours to 48 hours segment, there are many hopefuls in this sector, but I am not a fan of lifting and dropping large weights, or huge spinning flywheels. But there is one technology that looks ideal for this slot, the carbon dioxide battery (Energy Dome) basically, a closed loop system where a large quantity of carbon dioxide is repeatedly compressed with surplus energy, then allowed to expand to generate electricity, but best of all there is no Hughley complicated cryogenics system, and it is made from off the shelf engineering components, which should make the system affordable and easy to replicate, the only drawback is the large size of the dome, but I am certain these could be accommodated at the site of fossil fuel power stations waiting to be decommissioned, plus the transmission line would already be in place. Then there is long term storage, for when the wind and the sun don’t play ball for days or even weeks at a time, plus fuel for heavy vehicles, ships and aircraft, only chemical storage has the density for this, and luckily the latest development for producing Hydrogen by electrolysis is looking very efficient, plus there have been big development in green Ammonia as well. Every winter the U.K. is subject to weather events, known as a blocking high pressure system, which can last for up to two weeks at a time, and they usually come complete with a blanket of cloud, which further reduces an already limited amount of light for solar panels, plus there is little, or no wind for the wind turbines, leaving us with nuclear but even if we get 8 shiny new nuclear power stations, that is equivalent to only 30% of our energy needs, which will go nowhere near meeting our energy demands, put simply we need a system that can store and supply between 60 to 70% of our energy needs for up to a month each winter, only a chemical storage system has would have the capacity to storage energy for such a period, and we will need to make green chemical fuels such as Hydrogen or green Ammonia for heavy transport, ships trains and planes, so it would make sense to make these green chemical fuels for long-term energy storage as well. It has been suggested that large scale energy storage is unnecessary, and that we should rely on interconnectors under the sea to transfer electricity backwards and forwards between ourselves and Europe, on the assumption that some part of Europe will always have a surplus we can use, But I can see a scenario where eastern Europe is suffering a winter cold snap and needs all the energy it can get, Britain and the low countries are stuck under a blocking high pressure system, so no wind, plus Spain and Portugal are covered by rain bearing cloud, so minimal solar power, and such a situation would not be that unusual, and given recent developments with the war in Ukraine to satisfy a small man’s ego, it would be extremely unwise to assume that our partners in Europe will always be willing, or even able to supply us with what we want, when we want it, storing our own energy means we stay in control. Another idea doing the rounds, says we build the bear minimum amount of renewable capacity and use smart technology to switch on or off an internet of things, as a way of balancing supply and demand, where large tech companies would control the operation of everything from large factories to your domestic washing machine or fridge, I believe this is a Distraction, I believe that the big technology companies could build such a smart system, but I also believe that the tech companies already have too much control over our lives, and I believe our goal should be to build 50% more renewable capacity than we need, so the excess can be stored, and we do not have to rely on a smart system that could be hacked. Funding for storage, energy storage is crucial to the story of carbon free energy generation, most of which suffers from intermittency problems, to ensure enough of the right mix of storage is built, some long-term incentives such as tax relief will be needed plus, corporate and financial investors will want to see a reduction or elimination of the planning regulations, and red tape.

Well, great idea, looks very technical. Good luck with the maintenance costs.

I would have also mentioned flow batteries, liquid metal batteries, and flywheel energy storage. And also the importance of baseload power from nuke plants.

Well that's better than cranes stacking blocks but the needed infrastructure just went up incredibly high to build those frames.

You produce more co2 producing those concrete blocks than you save. This isn't a solution but a way to get VC money.

Glad to finally hear about how mining for batteries is terrible for the environment and how it is a finite resource which we cannot mine enough of for the impending electrolysation of the world. Will we have enough even for all of the electric cars we are supposed to want? And what impact will this mining have on the scale we will need to supply said electric cars? Why are we not talking about hydrogen more? Yes, this video is limited to the gravity solution but a video on hydrogen energy storage would be really useful as another alternative.

We've been doing this with water for 70 years. And we don't need nonsense concrete. Just pump water uphill during the day.

Great video. The UK has the world's largest electrolyser plant near Sheffield as part of the green hydrogen phase of an industrial and energy plan started last May 2022.Several storage facilities are being built around the country and on the continent. The world's largest offshore renewables and innovation with hydrogen will surely meet our energy needs well into the 21st century.

Honestly some potential opportunity in South Africa, use abandoned shafts almost 2-3km deep and approx 6-10m wide. as well as open pit mines for pumped hydro systems post closure

Sand storage for heating your house needs to be added here. And you really need to equip the viewers with the basic terminology for Kilowatt-hours and the current cost per KW-hr for each type.

Pumped hydro is fine, but you need the proper topography. We need to investigate and use multiple storage schemes based on the local circumstances. A big question is how much storage is required.

5:20 - There's a cost no matter the technology deployed and used. In the end, our environment is going to continue to go through cycles of warming and cooling, as it always has, and we can do nothing to stop this natural process. But it is in humanity's best interest to develop as many sources of power generation as possible to meet our energy needs. And we can do this without destroying the world around us, nor each other.

Other than batteries, do Capacitors have a future in this regard? Or are they not viable in terms of construction costs? I thought they could store a lot of electrical energy but would have to discharge it all at once? If i am wrong, any info regarding the workings of a capacitor are welcome

hmmm if only there was a tried and tested way of using nuclear fission to create cheaper, greener and more consistent energy than solar and wind 🤔

"Excellent entertainment!"

It would have been nice to mention that all of these energy storage solutions aren't 100% efficient and they're all losing power in the process; some info on which are more or less efficient would have been good as well.

Gravity energy sounds like such a bad idea. Every time you change energy's form you lose more energy . Entropy at its finest.

That seems insanely inefficient. Each weight isn’t going to move far, and you have thousands of them, so that’s all those conversion losses multiplied across thousands of weights.

It would be much more energy and cost efficient to significantly improve the infrastructure for energy transmission and better integrate it across state and country borders. This way surplus energy can be shifted across a continent to where it is currently needed. This would alleviate a huge chunk of the fluctuations. The remaining peaks and troughs may be buffered using centralized (hydro, batteries, ...) and decentralized (domestic batteries, plugged-in electric cars, ...) energy storage.

WHAT....no more Fred!!! Arrraahhhhhh 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂❤❤

They are also looking into pumping liquids denser than water. They take less space.

I immediately thought of the tens of thousands of abandoned opal mineshafts in South Australia. That same state already has the cleanest energy, so I wonder if it would be viable to store energy down those holes.

Well, first of all: a lot of people are talking about it ans solving this issue. For example, see Tesla's plan to produce batteries in the TWh/year range. They'll not be using rare Earth minerals either. Second, as Tony Seba pointed out, solar and wind prices are dropping to the point where in 10 years you can install 10x more for the same price as now allowing you to have enough even in these few energy dips.

SMR/MSR tech is already at a fraction of the cost of these options.

Wait, the weights only go straight up and down, & inside of a weather safe building, instead of by a bunch of cranes, outside, building a weird cement block tower? Doesn't sound complicated enough.

12 hour days + 12 hour nights I love it

Make the weighted blocks out of very dense compacted waste from landfill.

What about 14 days of no wind and very little sun in January? How much storage for that scenario, I'm worried when somebody says we're going to replace reliable energy with something that turns off randomly for an indeterminate time that they've considered every scenario. So after 14 days we've got flat storage then we get 7 days with just enough to cover demand then another 14 days of nothing. What happens then? Are all of these structures earthquake proof. A lot of places in southern Europe are seismically active Greece, Italy the Balkans and next door in Turkey and Syria; then Japan and California. We know what can happen if you get earthquake proofing wrong

Here in south africa we still use coal, but I still won't have power tonight :(

there are "batteries" of heat energy, either molten or solid. and there are storages that use compressed air, who need heat when expanding the air in a turbine or motor. china now has the largest compressed air storage and it is a technology that could be easily used anywhere in the world. there are also other energy storages using gravity, either lifting very large chunks of earth with hydraulics. or large balloons in water(the sea) and can be inflated or lifted to store or release energy. also there are different techniques for storing heat over the long term. some salts have a heating when dissolved in water, some materials have the same effect with their large surface or their chemical bonds(reversable with heat). we need to talk about more solutions, compare them, and find the right ones to do the job in different situations(local).

Electrifying the entire car park of the (western) world is asking for trouble. The best investments and returns should come from proper public transport. Is there _any_ country that actually gets this right?

I learned about all this from "undecided" by Matt Ferrell

00:00 - 01:00 ➡️ Appears someone forgot to tell you about the atom ⚛ and nuclear power.

First look at the Vault, and it seems weird they'd choose to move the weights horizontally to store them. It's just more energy loss both ways. They should be stored on a incline so as to reclaim energy when moving into use. Or better yet, a stack them so that the motor/generator moves one at a time like an abacus.

Most of the storage “solutions” are absolutely *horrible* for the environment. That _has_ to be part of the equation.

Energy should come from the safest and cleanest source to exist, and yes, it's nuclear energy. If half of the energy comes from renewables (wind, solar, water) and half comes from nuclear, then everything is perfect and we need much less storage.

It would be nice to hear what their cost per kWh is. Gravity storage tends not to do super well on paper.

I see alot of energy used to do the work of lifting the water or weight that won't be available to do anything else. And what if it was a rainy day with no wind. A power station creates energy and it is put to good use other than storing it for whenever the green stuff can't keep up. Any time you convert energy you lose energy and I bet the loss's are pretty high for this idea..

Best thing you can do for real clean energy: support nuclear!

The easy answer is nuclear power plants, but nobody wants to talk about that.

One massive inclusion into the evening household energy demand you forgot moving forward is the super high current EV charger because people will want their car charged as quick as possible so it's always full for conveniences sake. Rolling brown outs from these chargers will be the future unless there is a standardized way of chargers being able to communicate with the grid for permission to pull power etc. is developed.

@2:35 *Pumped Hydro* works fine if you've got a gravity gradient handy, but it is fairly expensive to build *pumped hydro* on a _flat plain._

inline flywheels scale much better than these. just takes the peaks and troughs off the energy spike from wind turbines (3-9hr storage)

This one was a good one

Yeah that structure isn't going to be able to meet large scale energy needs, same as pumped hydro or mineshafts as they're very niche in where you can build them. I've seen something about superheating bricks that looks promising. Also using compression with ammonia. You have to think - what are ways to store energy? 1) Chemical 2) Heat 3) Gravity Any others? Flow batteries use just iron, water and salt Molten salt from CSP stores a lot of heat Bricks can be heated to 3000c - Rondo Energy Anhydrous ammonia batteries work like refrigerants except in reverse Apart from these things i think we're looking for technological breakthroughs in physics I don't think gravity is the way to go

Wait, solar and wind can’t replace nuclear, water and natural gas? Wow, who would have guessed 🤷‍♂️

can't this be used in the foundation of buildings? I'm thinking especially in skyscrapers that use piling (learned that word on B1M)...

Love this and also love Sand Storage that can hold the heat and then it be turned back into energy when needed. ❤

Or more generally, liquid salt storage... I thought that these were regarded as being very promising solutions to energy storage

How many percentage of energy loss from the energy gained from RE into the process of pumping the water of lifting the weight to produce the potential energy ? im curious

Storage are NOT a solution. That is because periods for supply deficit can be as long as a month. For example pan-European total average wind per YEAR fluctuates normally about 30% year to year, but the difference can also be as much as 50%. In Northern Europe there's a meaningful solar energy production only between March and October. When it comes to this Energy Vault then only looking at that storage facility SCREAMS: Money. I.e. building such a facility costs. A lot. Imagine building hundreds of high capacity elevators side-by-side. Not to speak about the fact, that the same thing can be solved more elegantly and cost effectively.

Moving water is convenient an less expensive 👍👍

Instead of gravity, could it not be stored in springs like how a watch works, so it takes up less room?

Great Video, combining hydrogen power with water reservoirs as a store of power activated when the grid requires could be the answer.

Hello there

The solution to this problem is, and always has been, nuclear. If special interests could stop promoting irrational panic about it based on long outdated methods of generation, we could solve this issue easily.