A German experiment proved that simple concrete spheres make fantastic batteries. Now, California plans to submerge a 9-meter diameter sphere in the ocean and is already planning versions of 30 meters.
farmingdale-observer.com
Storing renewable energy sustainably and efficiently is one of the major challenges of our time. A team of German researchers is proposing a revolutionary solution: concrete spheres immersed in the ocean floor. Their potential is such that California is preparing to test a large-scale prototype. A simple, ingenious concept The…
  • Libra00English
    1•11 hours ago

    My point is that whether you send down divers or haul 400+ tons of concrete and equipment up from the bottom of the ocean, it’s going to be expensive to maintain either way, especially if things don’t go according to plan and they have to perform maintenance more than once every 20 years or whatever.

    • gian English
      1•9 hours ago

      And my point is that, given how deep these things seems to be, it is cheaper to haul them on the surface than sending a diver down, even if you need to do some unscheduled maintenance, especially because sending down a commercial diver (the only that can hope to work this deep) is not an easy feat in itself.

      Obviously it will be expensive either way, I was only pointing out that sending down commercial divers a lot of additional levels of complexity (decompression periods measured in days or weeks, need to hire many more highly specialized people and from a way smaller pool and so on) that will drive up the price.