How To Make Buildings Into Batteries

It's no secret that we need green energy solutions. But one often-overlooked part of that future is the need to store our green energy longer-term, so finding novel ways to store that energy is key. Enter: gravity batteries.

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[thamiordragonheart]

uhm, a lot of people have done the math on gravity batteries, and the only reason pumped hydro "blows lithium-ion out of the water" let alone manages cost parity, is because pumped hydro takes advantage of natural basins and relatively small pumping and piping systems to store enormous quantities of water. If you put it in a building, you loose basically all the advantages of pumped hydro.
The other huge problem with using a water-based gravity battery in a building's walls is mold. the water tanks will leak, which is going to make the air spaces inside all the walls damp, and there's really no way around that.

if you want to add non-chemical batteries to a building in a city, it's much cheaper and more energy-dense to stick thermal storage in the basement. Heating and Cooling make up most of the energy usage in commercial and residential buildings, so a thermal battery works for most of the building's energy needs with an even better storage efficiency than chemical batteries because you don't have to convert back to electricity. Even better, you can already buy things like stratified water heaters even at residential scale, and sand, gravel or even graphite based thermal storage at commercial scale.

[AuntySMac]

I'm reminded of the James R Thompson Center in Chicago, where I worked in the 1990s. It used cheap electricity overnight to freeze giant ice cubes that then could cool the building during the day (simplified version). Essentially it was an air conditioning battery.

[amorphous_bones]

I’m skeptical about the actual cost breakdown of the skyscraper battery plan. Density of water is so high that from a structural standpoint, the proposed skyscrapers would not be residential buildings with a dual purpose of storing water; they’d be water towers that people happen to live in. While skyscraper batteries have a better land use efficiency than digging a lake on a hill and the greater height would allow for more energy stored per unit of water, I’m skeptical the additional carbon and dollar cost of steel and concrete actually makes such a solution viable at scale. (Also, Gulf state construction companies have a history of proposing cost infeasible greenwashed vanity projects)

[lazytommy]

this is super neat and interesting. though, there are few things heavier than large amounts of water. storage and transfer might be a bigger problem than is realized. also preventative measures will be needed in case cracks or breaks form causing flooding or even a mid city tsunami.

[SireBab]

I remember doing the napkin math on gravity based energy storage, but the issue was that it's really not energy dense. Using water is far better than say concrete blocks, which you mentioned.

[IStoreGas]

Back in late 2000s i was working for an energy firm as a young risk manager. I got an opportunity to spend some time one on one with Jon Willinghof the previous chairman of the FERC. One thing he said he can see in 20years making batteries out of parking garages for peak shaving. He imagined EVs(Priuses at the time) all charging in a parking garage, they then release energy during peak and recharges during non peak or at night with free or low cost electricity. This is obviously way before the solar boom and the duck curve killing the traditional peak hours and the pandemic destroying the traditional office. But about 5 years ago BMW tried a pilot program and now we have virtual power plants with tesla batteries so his vision did come true albeit slightly different.

[tobiasherbst]

The designers of an impractical crane sytem team up with the architects of the biggest "mine is taller" to build to build a giant water tank with flats in it. Yeah, those deserve each other.
Let me just point out the the fundament of this will have to be enormous and will be totally impractical for any previously developed city.

[arncil]

Sounds awesome, though I don't think that holding megatons of water inside sky high building will be simple at all. One strong earthquake and your city is now a lake.

[trinathebookworm]

It wouldn't even have to be water, if that's a scarce thing. It could be decorative weights on tethers that uses renewable energy to lift and then works in reverse to generate energy when they fall.

[sumoneskid]

Neat video. Neat tech. I struggle with the economics on filling a tower up with water. The material and cost needed to build out a tower to function for both holding people and large sums of water would not be small. None the less, someone's thinking outside the box and I will always appreciate that.

[brian]

I recognize downtown Houston!
Fun fact, that mirrored building on the right was the corporate headquarters for Enron. Yes, that Enron.

[chillsahoy]

Beautiful, Hank Green trying to make the world a greener place. Let's do this!

[cheeseisgreat]

One of the other ways we can eventually use skyscrapers as batteries is use it to store thermal energy, with glass that has coatings to take advantage of the angle of the sun. So like in the summer, you use your AC at night to bring the interior temperature down to just below comfort level, and have the glass reflect the high angle sunlight away to not have as much solar gain, then in the winter, heat the building up during the day with low angle sunlight, and have the thermal energy store itself in the rest of the building structure to let off at night. The only problem is such coatings that are efficient at this are only available on small scale windows in the lab because they’re finnicky AF, and therefore the only current way to do that is by applying additional external films and removing them seasonally.

[___Vortex___]

I think this is a core game mechanic in that beaver city building game

[troydorr]

It has it "Ups & Downs", I laughed to hard at that! I don't know why???🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[blablup]

A few questions.
Wasn't a gravity battery pretty inefficient ?
I mean you need a quiet big mass to store energy.
I have seen a video were someone pumped a if I remember correctly 200 literes of water up at the top of his house.
And it was just enough to charge one phone a little.

Isn't the amount of mass you would need to "get up to the top of a skyscraper" be really bad for its structure ?
Especially as many material don't like water.
If you build the skyscrapper more robust, wouldn't this increase the costs by a lot ?

That the guys that designed the usless crane battery plan something also doesn'T sound very promising....

[jgolden]

Yay, the good narrator! The only reason I am still subscribed to this channel is to see you talk about things.

[vinnieramone]

A lot of old buildings used to have water tanks on top of the roof. So they're built to handle the weight
Also those old water towers look really cool

[leotrollstoy]

I like seeing that Hank is exercising more, good on you homie

[deborahbloom]

Here's an idea....why can't we put pressure sensors underneath flooring? When you walk on it, it raises up the gravity thing with every step. Then does what you described in the video....we could then use it in our homes as well! You know...take advantage of the kinetic energy release concept...(Sorry for the apparent lack of technological words....I'm not really awake yet.) Or is this exactly what was described in the building in Dubai? I missed a little because I had this brainstorm. Guess I need to rewatch the end of the video.... 😂 Ok....just re-watched the end of the don't know if my idea is the best for the whole gravity battery thing....BUT....I do think somehow being able to use kinetic energy of footsteps IS a good idea....people are walking around ALL DAY LONG at work and throughout the evening and weekends at home. Imagine how much energy could be harnessed at a school with all those little kids running around in the GYM??? Just an idea folks.