For me, there's a sharp binary:
If I ask AI to "own" a coding-problem solution — with me passing back the failure responses until resolved — my mind gets numb and I learn nothing.
If I insist on owning the solution — using AI in my effort to better understand the problem space — my mind is active and I get better at coding.
Sometimes I'm lazy and fall into the former. But mostly, so far, the latter.
hydro can win if all the stars align. Electrochemical is the real winner though.
This is just a grift. I doubt this thing will ever materialize. It seems like every month a new gravity storage company emerges and none of them go anywhere with their promises.
As I posted elsewhere, my power company is installing 200MWh of storage on 10 acres. It will take them about 6 months to build it out (they've not started construction yet, they project they'll be finished by june. They just finished getting all the approval they need to start work).
That sort of land efficiency and deployment speed won't be matched by any gravity storage system.
Costwise, it'll probably be in the range of $24,000,000 to install (maybe more like 30M with power electronics requirements).
Complexity is a big part of it along with a lot of required materials.
It takes either a lot of heavy weight or a very long decent regardless the storage system in order to store a significant amount of energy. Further, you need some very beefy generators/motors to work with that weight along with some complex equipment to ultimately convert the AC output into what the grid expects.
It requires 20 acres, a mining pit, 30 employees. And how much energy does it store? 12.5 MWh (15 minutes of runtime, 50MW of output). And do notice the date, 2020. From what I can find, this thing hasn't even started operating yet.
That's a VERY expensive battery which hasn't even been built yet.
All of these very special requirements for such a low storage amount is why these things are grifts.
The comparison is my electric company, which is going to install 200MWh of batteries on 10 acres of available land (it's right next to one of their big substations). It'll take them 6 months to do and the main hurdle they had was getting city approval to start work.
The reason pumped hydro is about the only appealing form of a gravity battery is because you can store just massive amounts of water conveniently which gives those systems pretty nice storage levels. Further, the equipment is near the same of any hydro dam. But even those suffer from very specific geography needs before they can get off the ground and massive amounts of hurdles with local regulations in order to even start work. There is, no joke, a proposed pumped hydro system that I know about which has been in the planning stage for the last 20 years as they've been going back and forth with the local county and community.
That's why it's a grift. The competition is chemical battery storage which has stupidly high energy density and almost instant deployment. Any gravity system that is going to be competitive needs both those things before it'd actually be a contender. I've yet to see any of these systems actually get built beyond just tiny prototypes.
The parent comment's point is that we _should_ care because cheap frontier-model access (that many of us have quickly become hopelessly dependent on) might be temporary.
It's amazing that anyone that has seen anything in technology in the last 30 years can say, "better be careful. They might stop subsidizing this and then it's gunna get expensive!" is ridiculous. I can buy a 1Tb flash drive for $100. Please, even with every reason to amortize the hardware over the longest horizon possible are only going out 6 years. 64K should be enough for anyone right?
Yeah, I can't wait to buy some RAM for my PC! Oh, wait, the AI companies are buying up all the RAM sticks on the planet and driving up their prices to comical highs, surely these beacons of ethics and morality won't do the same with their services that are actively hemorrhaging Billions of dollars, they're providing these services to us out of the goodness of their black hearts and not any kind of monetary incentive after all!
Net metering is gone in most of California (for new solar). I think it's going away in general. Distributed solar supports a more stable grid for everyone (per UL 1741-SB requirements).
I think the poster’s point is that net metering is a tool to promote early adoption of solar, and (in at least one prominent example) when solar penetration becomes high enough for it to impact grid stability, larger grids have removed net metering. So to address GP poster’s point: net metering affecting grid stability in a substantial way is more a theoretical concern that’s already been addressed in one of the locations where it stopped being theoretical.
I came across shademap.app a ~month ago, and had a "the internet can be so awesome" moment. I wrote to my property mates: "I found a cool free website for seeing shade at our site throughout the day and year. Maybe helpful for garden planning. Our address is loaded in [here]". Reply: "Wow! That is cool!". It seems to be very much in the solarpunk spirit (even more so with your engagement here). I hope to incorporate it into my solar installation work. Thank you :)
