The Left is doing it wrong.
We need to stop calling it the green New Deal; and call it the Patriot Power Act.
We’re not trying to go green or “Woke”. No! We’re making ’Merca energy independent! We’ll stop importing oil from the tourist countries! And be energy self sufficient!
—BRANDING!!
See I’ve been skeptical about the gravity battery, too. I’m glad to see it developed, toyed with, but I like very simple ideas with very few, if any, moving parts. Gravity battery? Moving parts, cables. Would be a nightmare to work on if it broke down, possibly dangerous with the stored potential energy.
Much safer: sand battery. BTUs are expensive, you’re probably heating your water, and depending on the winter climate where you live, you are using electricity to convert to BTUs so you can heat your home/not die. I say skip the middle man!! Convert the extra energy generated from solar/wind/whatever…store it in the fucking sand as heat.
I also look at the sand battery’s simplicity, serviceability from a post-nuke/EMP/grid-down/post-apocalyptic standpoint. Should I be unfortunate enough to survive. It’s so…practical. Solar panels should only get hit <15% damage from EMP. It gets the electricity. Sent to large copper rods, acting as heating elements. Heat the sand. 🙌🏻 Sand will cost a few thousand & never degrade. Rods, cheap enough, have some spares. Those shitty LiPO batteries play out during the apocalypse, as they literally always do? You’re SOL.
first, it stores heat only. you can make it work with 1000L or so barrel of water and this gets you supply for days. second, you’d want this thing to service entire small community, because otherwise square-cube law fucks you hard. you need also all the auxiliary devices like heaters, pumps, control hardware that looks the same no matter if you make it work for your house or small village