I haven't been following the thread closely, so my comments may be
obviously wrong.

As I understand this, energy is being put into a solid mass by lifting it,
then getting the energy back as it comes back down. If you're going to
build something that can hold a solid mass up, could that not also hold a
tank of water at the same height? Are pump/turbine efficiencies worse than
motors and a bunch of pulleys?

On the need for utility sized energy storage for non-steady sources like
solar and wind, if you average out the power available on a continent-wide
basis, is it fairly steady (except for the lack of solar at night)? It
SEEMS that this would average out since a lack of wind somewhere can
probably be compensated for by the presence of wind somewhere else. This
would require transmission from generation points to loads, and there may
be inefficiencies in that.

On location of solar generation, it appears that a typical rooftop solar
installation generates more energy than used by that house (anyone have
numbers?). If so, it seems that this is an ideal location for solar power
since the space is available (energy being wasted heating up a roof) and
the source is close to the load reducing transmission costs. But, I
suspect installation costs are higher for these small scale solar plants
as compared to utility sized plants in the desert.

So, how does continent-wide solar/wind generation capability compare with
load on an hour-by-hour basis? How many percent of building roofs would we
have to install solar panels on to meet daytime energy requirements on a
continent-wide basis?

Harold



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