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Comment by thirdlamp | Hacker News Reader

What if we used load bearing batteries as part of the tower structure?

You risk damaging the batteries and you make maintenance a pain in the ass. If you've got that amount of batteries, just put them on the ground the normal way.

Turbine fires would turn into something really special.

I was thinking what if we used buildings built on jacks as our source of mass. Big one are largely built on pilings anyway, and even small ones on softer ground.

Going to be a lot of flexing though.

Nice thing is that some of the “inefficient” heat may be usable on-site: and you may get compressed air as an output that could be usable directly.

> I was thinking what if we used buildings built on jacks as our source of mass.

Then you've got no height. Plus buildings are not dense so it's a pain in the ass, and when (not if) the jacks fail you're out a building.

It’s amusing to think of whole houses getting jacked 100 ft into the air on giant stilts during the middle of the day when solar panels are operating, then slowly dropping to release the stored energy in the evening/morning.

:-) Perfect for quarantine.

I don't know how much a typical house weighs, but assuming 100t, raising it by 30m will give you potential energy of ... 8.2 kWh, or about $1.6 in today's electricity rate.

Gravity is weak.

I was estimating based on a 200-ton house, 30 kWh/day electricity use, and a need to store up to half of daily energy at any one time.

What about using batteries as the weight to lift?

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