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Comment by maxxxxx | Hacker News Reader

"The round-trip efficiency of the system, which is the amount of energy recovered for every unit of energy used to lift the blocks, is about 85%—comparable to lithium-ion batteries which offer upto 90%."

That's quite efficient. Maybe they can get creative and build something different every day. One day you get a big pyramid, the next day you get a big elephant. That would be quite entertaining.

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I think you've actually hit on the real selling point here - ADVERTISING!

Think of it as a VERY slow, VERY large TV screen. With red, green, and blue blocks, they could advertise almost anything!

The value generation from the ad would almost certainly outpace the value generation from energy storage!

Also, you could encase your bitcoin wallet in a block, creating the ultimate block-chain block-chain!

By god and the scientists, you're a genius maxxxxx!

> Think of it as a VERY slow, VERY large TV screen. With red, green, and blue blocks, they could advertise almost anything!

I don’t think that works if the blocks are reflecting light rather than emitting it.

Don't worry we've already pivoted. We're no longer using concrete blocks, now it's giant LEDs.

Unfortunately we lost the entire first floor when we dropped a block and filled it in.

And efficiency's down to 12% because of all the backlights for the ads and all the graphics chips got hacked and are mining bitcoin.

Well they could be transparent (Red/Green/Blue filter) glass blocks stacked in front of a reflective screen...

One question is... visible from the sides, from above, or both?

Or just CMYK like printers...

> I don’t think that works if the blocks are reflecting light

From a long distance the colors would merge in the eye. And this would be visible from a long distance. Imagine it on a high spot next to a city.

Use 4 colours then: cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK, as used in print).

Why wouldn't it? Your eye does not know the provenance of the light that hits it. Red light is red light.

We used to call those 'drive ins'.

Upvoting black and white blocks.

Ok, someone does not like black and white images I guess. But downvoting because of colorphilia is cruel!

Pyramids are probably the most effective to prevent it falling down because of wind gusts

You still have to build a base, which stores no energy, and then plan for different storage amounts in different layers.

Would wind gusts impart enough force to affect barrels / blocks of concrete?

It'd basically be a skyscraper, and those certainly move in wind.

Skyscrapers are hollow...

They’re also a lot stronger because of steel construction, often incorporating a solid core. I don’t think we can attain skyscraper heights with blocks of concrete but I may be wrong on that.

I'd put money on their 90% figure being theoretical. 95% efficiency for a motor and a generator with no other losses is at the edge of possibility.

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