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#151 2024-08-27 12:08:18
- Void
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- Registered: 2011-12-29
- Posts: 8,163
Re: Gravity Energy Storage
This showed up to me today, please forgive if it is redundant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU16iUYKPr4
Quote:
Texas Oil Wells Hold a Renewable Energy Solution | American Innovators
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … ORM=VRDGAR
Quote:
A Deep Dive with Renewell Energy's CTO on Repurposing Abandoned Oil Wells - Part 1
YouTube
Blue Sky Consulting (formerly TutorAlly)
17 views
1 month ago
What I think is also quite interesting is that I have seen ideas of pressuring natural Gas into such wells, as an energy storage method, and then I have to wonder if you could fetch heat up from a well, by pulling the compressed gas up. In that case you might compress CO2 instead.
Here is a compressed Natural Gas notion: https://www.nrel.gov/news/features/2022 … %20storage.
This might still let you use the suspended weight, provided that there is enough clearance for the gas to be compressed into the well.
As for brining up heat, I guess that might be workable, but maybe not massively impressive in thermal output. But you would heat the well when you compressed the Natural Gas into it.
If you wanted to live dangerous you could heat the Natural Gas before compressing it into the well.
But if you went to CO2, you could also heat that prior to compressing.
But if you discharged the CO2 the greens would go nuts. But at least you have used the CO2 created by burning something to do something "Green".
But the weight energy storage concept is very interesting to me.
Done
Last edited by Void (2024-08-27 12:19:44)
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#152 2024-08-27 19:58:30
- Void
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- Registered: 2011-12-29
- Posts: 8,163
Re: Gravity Energy Storage
An idea has come to me, which is a combination of Gravity, Compressed Air, and Geothermal/Geostorage.
I am thinking of a variation on the Eavor Company Geothermal: https://www.eavor.com/
Keep in mind that this is more of an energy storage device, then geothermal, but still in some cases geothermal could be involved.
A back and forth cycling of A<>B, allows storage of energy by gravitation, pressurization, and thermal means.
For instance, when B was pressurized with air, then the heat of compression then is pushed into the well walls.
When it becomes time to release the pressurized air from B though a turbine, then A fill push the air, and the walls of the well section B will distribute heat back into the depressurizing air.
And if you had liked to you could have preheated the air that was to be compressed into B, so injecting extra heat into the well.
But you could also involve true geothermal if the site favored it.
Compressing air into a well, if you encountered Hydrocarbons or Hydrogen could be a bad thing. But if you encounter hydrocarbons and especially Hydrogen, then that is to be a good thing.
In creating such wells, you might accidently find Helium: https://www.naco.org/news/helium-find-c … extraction. (They were looking for an ore).
But by drilling wells for energy storage, and perhaps geothermal, you might find a gas resource such as Helium or Native Hydrogen.
In that case you probably use it for that then and try somewhere else.
The storage device could be good for wind and solar energy.
Done
Last edited by Void (2024-08-27 20:13:50)
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#153 2025-03-18 05:48:11
- Calliban
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- From: Northern England, UK
- Registered: 2019-08-18
- Posts: 3,961
Re: Gravity Energy Storage
The raised weight hydraulic accumulator is an old energy storage technology that could see use in the future.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraul … sed_weight
It is a form of gravity energy storage in which a raised mass is used to pressurise hydraulic fluid in a cylinder. The amount of energy stored is m x g x h, where m is mass in kg, g = 9.81 and h is the height that the weight is raised. A 100 tonne weight raised to a height of 10m will store some 9.81MJ, or 2.73kWh.
The downside of this technology is a relatively low energy density. This will make it expensive to install. The advantages are simplicity, use of simple materials like steel, concrete and stone, a potentially high discharge rate and extreme longevity. Raised weight accumulators installed in the 19th century were still in use in the UK until the 1970s. They were retired because electrically driven systems replaced the entire hydraulic network due to commercial availability of electrical systems.
Hydraulic accumulators are charged by filling them with hydraulic fluid under pressure. This system is compatible with a hydraulic power transmission system. This is useful in applications where mechanical power is needed in static machinery. Hydraulics allow power transmission without the use of electricity. The systems needed to produce pressurised hydraulic fluid are mechanical pumps. These could be simple positive displacement piston pumps, driven by direct mechanical wind turbines. When the wind level is low, the pumps will operate more slowly. The end use is a turbine that converts the mechanical energy of a moving fluid into rotational energy for a machine.
A modern hydraulic power network could use a combination of wind and solar energy to provide a more continuous supply of mechanical power, which can be buffered by the hydraulic accumulators. If solar PV is used, the PV network could produce pressurised hydraulic fluid using piston pumps driven by DC motors directly coupled to the panels themselves. This removes the need for inverters, as the speed of the DC pumps will vary as the power output from the panels varies. It also eliminates the need for electrical power transmission, as pumps can be installed at regular intervals along a line of photovoltaic panels.
Accumulators are most suitable for relatively short term energy storage. For periods were there is little or no sun or wind, such a system would need either a backup power supply like a DG or would need to rely on curtailment. One way of achieving this would be to oversize the system and have some functions on floating switches. For example, heat pumps could be activated when power levels were high, with hot water stored in insulated tanks. Grinding and polishing operations can be switched on and off, provided that total output is sufficient over a long period. With careful organisation, industrial processes could work on an intermittent power supply.
This might be a system that we could put into use on Mars as well. Due to the lower gravity, accumulators would only store 2/5 of the energy that they would on Earth. But the system is simple in ways that would make it easier to make, with limited available materials. Hydraulically powered machines are simpler than electrically powered systems and static hydraulic networks and machinery can be produced almost entirely from low alloy steels.
Last edited by Calliban (2025-03-18 06:17:17)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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#154 2025-03-24 16:39:30
- Calliban
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- From: Northern England, UK
- Registered: 2019-08-18
- Posts: 3,961
Re: Gravity Energy Storage
The older I get, the more impressed I am by simplicity. Maybe it is a sign of mental deterioration? :-)
This article discusses furnicular railways.
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/ … le-trains/
These are gravity powered cable railways, that are used for transporting people up and down hills. The simplicity of this idea has always impressed me. These vehicles do not require any engine. Motive power is provided by adjusting a counterweight on each vehicle, which is a tank of water. The ascending train is connected by cable to a descending train. By filling a water tank at the top of the hill, the descending train is made heavier than the ascending train. As it descends and applies tension to the cable, it pulls the ascending car up the hill.
Cable driven street trains pre-date the introduction of electricity as a power source. Before electrification, cable driven public transit systems were built in many cities across the world. Only a few now survive, with the San Fransisco cable cars being the most famous example. Any town with a varying gradient could build gravity powered transit networks. The cable would run through a conduit under the road surface. It would not need to be powered, as the energy needed would come from filling water tanks in vehicles at the top of the gradient and emptying them at the bottom. All of the cars are attached to the cable in a loop. So the gravitational potential energy released by a single car as it descends a gradient will help drive all the other cars around the loop simply by pulling the cable down the slope.
Nothing is free of course. The energy needed to run the network comes from the gravitational potential energy of water at the top of a hill. This can be recharged using a pump, to transfer water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir. Provided that the two reservoirs are appropriately sized, this task can be accomplished using intermittent energy. A mechanical windmill at the top of the hill could drive a positive displacement pump at the bottom, by pulling on a cable.
There are variations in how such a system could work. A gravity powered cable car could work on completely flat topography, by raising and lowering weights through pits and towers. Towers could function as raised weight hydraulic accumulators. Discharged hydraulic fluid would drive turbines, pulling the cable. A system equipped with multiple towers could recharge them whilst others towers are discharging.
Last edited by Calliban (2025-03-24 17:23:49)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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