Three Large-Scale Energy Storage Technologies That May Hold the Keys to Unleashing an All-Out Renewa

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Don't raise bricks, raise a chain of heavy links.

The energy stored is proportional to the length of chain raised, so it goes up as the square of the height of the top of the chain.

Since this could be done with gears and pulleys, it has always seemed to me a promising approach to storing wind energy -- imagine a fat base in each tower, with heavy (water- or sand-filled, for ease of installation and removal) slab-like links that could be hoisted by the end of the chain when wind was strong, and lowered back when wind was idle, driving the same generator as the wind.

The idea was inspired by cuckoo clocks.