Mine shaft storage on news

[MarkS]

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ton

 

[shotlighter]

Well, when a bloody dictionary gets it wrong.....

 

[nickwilliams]

The reason this is never going to be a serious proposition, in the UK at least, has already been identified in passing by pwhole: there is almost nowhere in the UK which has a significant number of mine shafts where the natural water table is more than about 30m underground. The energy consumed by the pumping required to keep a shaft even 300m deep, let alone 750m, dry completely buggers the economics of this idea.

 

[Cantclimbtom]

I'm an engineer not a physicist, so I am happy to accept 1 ton as 1000Kg (without further question) and indeed 1Kg weighing 10 Newtons, 1/8 inch as 3mm,  and a lot etc, while I don't Need further accuracy.

Given the context of looking at the feasibility of dangling concrete blocks over mineshafts for energy storage, personally, I don't think we need particularly accurate reckoning to come to a conclusion there

 

[sinker]

Ffs, 1 ton is 907.185 Kg!

?.. want to desperately keep the last dying vestiges of the 'British Empire' alive...

.....it would weigh about 80 tons...

1m3 concrete ~ 2400kg
40m3 concrete ~ 96000kg or 96 tonnes


1m3 steel ~ 7750kg
40m3 steel ~ 310000kg or 310 tonnes


The figures just keep getting better!

 

[Pitlamp]

I'm an engineer not a physicist, so I am happy to accept 1 ton as 1000Kg (without further question)

Call it a tonne and no-one can argue. 

 

[Cantclimbtom]

I'm an engineer not a physicist, so I am happy to accept 1 ton as 1000Kg (without further question)

Call it a tonne and no-one can argue. 

seplling was never my strongpoint

 

[sinker]

Well, when a bloody dictionary gets it wrong.....

That is my new 'Get Out Of Jail' card which I will use to close down arguments. 

Along with "Well of course I can; because I'm a hypocrite."

And "Well I would say that; I'm a liar."

 

[pwhole]

So instead of a shaft, what about a tower? Granted it would be expensive and space-consuming to build several 350m-tall towers too, so I'm not seriously proposing it here, but places like Spain or Morrocco could work? If they're prepared to pay money to sink shafts? The weather's more conducive too.

 

[Cantclimbtom]

Might be cheaper to have a long, slender and pointy weights - not drop them too fast, and use waterfilled shafts - then you could use Kellingley (N Yorks, 800m) , Snowdon (Kent, 940m) and plenty of others.

Still seems "silly" idea to me

 

[shotlighter]

Ffs, 1 ton is 907.185 Kg!

Bit late to respond, but 1 ton = 1000 kg, unless you are a Yank and want to desperately keep the last dying vestiges of the 'British Empire' alive...

Er, wrong 1 tonne is 1000kg.
1 ton is 907.185 kg.

Sorry to carry on off topic but the 907kg ton was bugging me, so I got out my calculator.
The standard ton is 2240 Lbs which is 1016.047kg. For some reason the ?stock? interweb definition of the ton at 907kg, is for the (2000Lbs) short ton, not the standard ton.
Pedantry over - I promise!

 

[SamT]

But 1 tonne is still 1000kg right??

 

[sinker]

But 1 tonne is still 1000kg right??

yes, all day long 

 

[PeteHall]

Might be cheaper to have a long, slender and pointy weights - not drop them too fast, and use waterfilled shafts - then you could use Kellingley (N Yorks, 800m) , Snowdon (Kent, 940m) and plenty of others.

Still seems "silly" idea to me

You'd then need to remove the density of water from the density of your weight, so less energy available for the same size, then (even if it is pointy) there would be considerably higher losses in water, but I suppose if there are deeper shafts available, perhaps that doesn't mater? 

 

[Roger W]

Ypu would also have viscosity problems in a water-filled shaft.  If your weight just about fills the shaft, the water has to squeeze through that narrow annular gap as the weight descends...  Leave a big space round the weight, and I suppose you are limiting the mass of the weight you can sensibly use.

Oh yes, those massive weights are going to need some pretty thick steel cables to hang from. 

 

[wellyjen]

Ffs, 1 ton is 907.185 Kg!

Bit late to respond, but 1 ton = 1000 kg, unless you are a Yank and want to desperately keep the last dying vestiges of the 'British Empire' alive...

Er, wrong 1 tonne is 1000kg.
1 ton is 907.185 kg.

Sorry to carry on off topic but the 907kg ton was bugging me, so I got out my calculator.
The standard ton is 2240 Lbs which is 1016.047kg. For some reason the ?stock? interweb definition of the ton at 907kg, is for the (2000Lbs) short ton, not the standard ton.
Pedantry over - I promise!

The Americans seem to use the short ton, rather than the standard, or proper ton, so I suspect the stock definition on the intertubes comes from American owned web sites still being dominant. The proper ton and metric tonne being as near as makes no odds the same is a useful coincidence.

 

[aricooperdavis]

Lifting weights up mine shafts as a form of energy storage is in the news again, as the usual contenders "Gravitricity" set their sights on the funding available in Finland.

 

[alanw]

holds the potential to store up to 2 MW of energy
Journalists these days who never took or passed any Physics exams and don't know the difference between units of power and energy. And what does power a turbine mean?

 

[Cantclimbtom]

Lifting weights up mine shafts as a form of energy storage is in the news again, as the usual contenders "Gravitricity" set their sights on the funding available in Finland.

In the news again? Was it titled something like "energy companies hate this one weird trick" 🤣

 

[ChrisB]

Assuming they meant 2MWh, storing that suggests about a 500-600te weight, depending on efficiency. I wonder how the speed is controlled without serious energy loss.