MIT engineers create an energy-storing supercapacitor from ancient materials

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 7:01 AM UTC

kamranjon wrote: post #25

ggm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those sort-of hyperbolic put downs which goes to "we need" encompassing the entire western worlds power requirements. No, you can't replace all existing power sources now and into the future by pumped hydro. Pumped hydro has a massive role to play in power supply, time shifting electricity from renewable sources, providing system resiliency, black start, inductive and inertial load, you-name-it. It als…

I’ve always wanted to ask someone who knew something about this stuff if this idea is feasible: Imagine a giant empty bucket held high in the air. As it rains, the bucket fills and using a counter-weight it slowly lowers down to ground level. Now the bucket is covered and the water is slowly drained causing the counter-weight to lower to the ground and the bucket to rise in the air again. If this were geared properly…

Post by noam_k » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 7:04 AM UTC

kamranjon wrote: post #25

ggm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those sort-of hyperbolic put downs which goes to "we need" encompassing the entire western worlds power requirements. No, you can't replace all existing power sources now and into the future by pumped hydro. Pumped hydro has a massive role to play in power supply, time shifting electricity from renewable sources, providing system resiliency, black start, inductive and inertial load, you-name-it. It als…

I’ve always wanted to ask someone who knew something about this stuff if this idea is feasible: Imagine a giant empty bucket held high in the air. As it rains, the bucket fills and using a counter-weight it slowly lowers down to ground level. Now the bucket is covered and the water is slowly drained causing the counter-weight to lower to the ground and the bucket to rise in the air again. If this were geared properly…

Post by sashank_1509 » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 7:39 AM UTC

ipsum2 wrote: post #26

dmvdoug wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the same thing, so I went and looked at the paper, and unfortunately, the paper itself has some of these kind of speculative claims as well.

Unpopular opinion, most of MIT's research claims are preposterous and can be safely ignored. Their undergraduate education is quite good, but the research output is quite shoddy. The only exception is their computational photography group (Fredo Durand) is pretty legit.

Post by ozim » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 8:09 AM UTC

brtkdotse wrote: post #23

wumms wrote: post #22

> The team calculated that a block of nanocarbon-black-doped concrete that is 45 cubic meters (or yards) in size — equivalent to a cube about 3.5 meters across — would have enough capacity to store about 10 kilowatt-hours of energy, which is considered the average daily electricity usage for a household. Edit: 10kwh/3.5³m³ ≈ 0.233 Wh/l > Besides its ability to store energy in the form of supercapacitors, the same kin…

> 10 kilowatt-hours of energy, which is considered the average daily electricity usage for a household. Excluding heating.

Post by harry8 » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 8:53 AM UTC

robinzfc wrote: post #29

8bitsrule wrote: post #12

Seems to me that the potential of simply lifting a weight up (storage) and down (generation) beats these fancy engineering goals for cost and practicality. Especially if the weight being lifted is a container full of rocks. At first glance there are plenty of those everywhere. No hills or reservoirs needed either. Of course, no papers need to be published ... that may be the goal.

To estimate the cost and practicality, assume you build a tower 120 meters tall and machinery able to lift 60 tons block of concrete to the top, then retrieve the stored energy by lowering it to the ground level. Think for a moment how much that would cost. Then calculate: mgh = 60000kg x 120m x 10m/s^2 (assume acceleration of gravity is 10m/s^2 for simplicity, no energy losses due to friction etc). The result is 72…