Pwadol Jatrawuttichai/Alamy
About 450 kilometers north of Helsinki, Finland, there is an abandoned mine. Despite its remote location, it is attracting attention because of the role it is expected to play in revolutionizing our energy system – but not for the reasons you might imagine.
Pyhäsalmi mine once produced wealth from mining zinc and copper, but now it's trying to monetize the power of gravity. As Europe's deepest metals mine, it's an ideal location for what's known as a gravity vault. UK-based company Gravitricity plans to suspend a heavy weight down the mine shaft and connect the mechanism to a generator. The weight would be pulled up, storing electricity as potential energy, and then the weight would be plummeted back down to generate power again.
It may sound surprisingly simple, but that's exactly the point. Governments are grappling with the grand challenge of renewable energy intermittency: how to keep the lights on when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. So far, they've focused mainly on expensive technologies like hydrogen, nuclear power and lithium-ion batteries. But what if you could solve the intermittency problem and also reduce your electricity bill and emissions? In a more fundamental way.
Gravity storage may just be the beginning. Other companies are developing energy storage methods using salt, sand, water, hot bricks, and other technological marvels. These are amazing…
Source: www.newscientist.com
