Comment by Youden | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Youden | Hacker News Reader

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> This is an obvious scam if you do the math.

Reading the rest of your comment, I'm not sure you did the math yourself...

> Assuming the full scale version delivers peak power for 11 seconds like the prototype

The prototype is a 4-storey tower (i.e. less than 20m).

> That's terrible. We're taking about dropping hundreds, maybe thousands of tons down a mine shaft

A mine shaft can be expected to be significantly deeper than a 4-storey tower is tall.

So it seems you've invalidated the assumption upon which your argument is based in the paragraph immediately following it?

> the same amount of power as $700 of lithium batteries you could carry in a backpack

From TFA itself, they estimate they can offer a price of $171/MWh, while Lithium-ion batteries cost $367/MWh.

> From TFA itself, they estimate they can offer a price of $171/MWh, while Lithium-ion batteries cost $367/MWh.

With absolutely nothing to explain the cost estimate, so you can put away "TFA" thank you.

A system like this with only a single weight is going to be a huge amount of work to set up each unit of capacity.

Also looking up the info I can find, I think they're calculating that rate over a 60 year lifetime.

Edit: Uh, did I say something offensive?

> Uh, did I say something offensive?

No that I see. It's just really easy to read your comments in a haughty tone, which naturally selects for downvotes. The content of your posts, on the other hand, seems to encourage deeper investigation, so that's probably on point.

Communication is hard.

Even 400 stories would be 600 kwh. Thats like 2 tesla battery packs. Way better than 6 but still not anything that can be realistically applied at scale.

There's not many deep mineshafts that aren't filled with water. And dewatering mines is insanely expensive. And 600 Kwh is nothing. Enough to power maybe 30 houses for a day.

My math is bad, but there's no math where this will ever work out profitably

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