Gravity Battery: Converting gravitational energy to electricity

By Fouad Sabry

What Is Gravity Battery

The energy that is stored in an item as a consequence of a change in height due to gravity is referred to as potential energy. A gravity battery is a sort of energy storage device that stores gravitational energy. Potential energy is another name for gravitational energy. In order for a gravity battery to function, surplus energy from the grid is first used to lift a mass, which then causes the mass to create gravitational potential energy. Once the mass is lowered, the gravitational potential energy is converted into electricity by an electric generator. A gravity battery is a kind of sustainable energy that may be used to create electricity. One kind of gravity battery is a device that generates energy by gradually lowering a mass, such as a block of concrete in this example. The most typical use for a gravity battery is in pumped-storage hydroelectricity, which involves the process of pumping water to higher altitudes for the purpose of storing energy before releasing it via water turbines in order to create power.

How You Will Benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Gravity battery

Chapter 2: Electricity generation

Chapter 3: Hydropower

Chapter 4: Potential energy

Chapter 5: Energy storage

Chapter 6: Distributed generation

Chapter 7: Pumped-storage hydroelectricity

Chapter 8: Grid energy storage

Chapter 9: Peaking power plant

Chapter 10: Off-the-grid

Chapter 11: Microgeneration

Chapter 12: Hybrid power

Chapter 13: Stand-alone power system

Chapter 14: Renewable energy in the United Kingdom

Chapter 15: Solar power

Chapter 16: Electricity sector in the United Kingdom

Chapter 17: Variable renewable energy

Chapter 18: Battery storage power station

Chapter 19: Power-to-X

Chapter 20: Tesla Megapack

Chapter 21: Energy Vault

(II) Answering the public top questions about gravity battery.

(III) Real world examples for the usage of gravity battery in many fields.

(IV) 17 appendices to explain, briefly, 266 emerging technologies in each industry to have 360-degree full understanding of gravity battery' technologies.

Who This Book Is For

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of gravity battery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Oct 13, 2022

Book preview

Copyright

Gravity Battery Copyright © 2022 by Fouad Sabry. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Cover designed by Fouad Sabry.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Bonus

You can send an email to [e-mail] with the subject line Gravity Battery: Converting gravitational energy to electricity, and you will receive an email which contains the first few chapters of this book.

Fouad Sabry

Visit 1BK website at

www.1BKOfficial.org

Preface

Why did I write this book?

The story of writing this book started on 1989, when I was a student in the Secondary School of Advanced Students.

It is remarkably like the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Schools, which are now available in many advanced countries.

STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. This term is typically used to address an education policy or a curriculum choice in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns and immigration policy.

There was a weekly class in the library, where each student is free to choose any book and read for 1 hour. The objective of the class is to encourage the students to read subjects other than the educational curriculum.

In the library, while I was looking at the books on the shelves, I noticed huge books, total of 5,000 pages in 5 parts. The books name is The Encyclopedia of Technology, which describes everything around us, from absolute zero to semiconductors, almost every technology, at that time, was explained with colorful illustrations and simple words. I started to read the encyclopedia, and of course, I was not able to finish it in the 1-hour weekly class.

So, I convinced my father to buy the encyclopedia. My father bought all the technology tools for me in the beginning of my life, the first computer and the first technology encyclopedia, and both have a great impact on myself and my career.

I have finished the entire encyclopedia in the same summer vacation of this year, and then I started to see how the universe works and to how to apply that knowledge to everyday problems.

My passion to the technology started mor than 30 years ago and still the journey goes on.

This book is part of The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies which is my attempt to give the readers the same amazing experience I had when I was in high school, but instead of 20th century technologies, I am more interested in the 21st century emerging technologies, applications, and industry solutions.

The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies will consist of 365 books, each book will be focused on one single emerging technology. You can read the list of emerging technologies and their categorization by industry in the part of Coming Soon, at the end of the book.

365 books to give the readers the chance to increase their knowledge on one single emerging technology every day within the course of one year period.

Introduction

How did I write this book?

In every book of The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies, I am trying to get instant, raw search insights, direct from the minds of the people, trying to answer their questions about the emerging technology.

There are 3 billion Google searches every day, and 20% of those have never been seen before. They are like a direct line to the people thoughts.

Sometimes that’s ‘How do I remove paper jam’. Other times, it is the wrenching fears and secret hankerings they would only ever dare share with Google.

In my pursuit to discover an untapped goldmine of content ideas about Gravity Battery, I use many tools to listen into autocomplete data from search engines like Google, then quickly cranks out every useful phrase and question, the people are asking around the keyword Gravity Battery.

It is a goldmine of people insight, I can use to create fresh, ultra-useful content, products, and services. The kind people, like you, really want.

People searches are the most important dataset ever collected on the human psyche. Therefore, this book is a live product, and constantly updated by more and more answers for new questions about Gravity Battery, asked by people, just like you and me, wondering about this new emerging technology and would like to know more about it.

The approach for writing this book is to get a deeper level of understanding of how people search around Gravity Battery, revealing questions and queries which I would not necessarily think off the top of my head, and answering these questions in super easy and digestible words, and to navigate the book around in a straightforward way.

So, when it comes to writing this book, I have ensured that it is as optimized and targeted as possible. This book purpose is helping the people to further understand and grow their knowledge about Gravity Battery. I am trying to answer people’s questions as closely as possible and showing a lot more.

It is a fantastic, and beautiful way to explore questions and problems that the people have and answer them directly, and add insight, validation, and creativity to the content of the book – even pitches and proposals. The book uncovers rich, less crowded, and sometimes surprising areas of research demand I would not otherwise reach. There is no doubt that, it is expected to increase the knowledge of the potential readers’ minds, after reading the book using this approach.

I have applied a unique approach to make the content of this book always fresh. This approach depends on listening to the people minds, by using the search listening tools. This approach helped me to:

Meet the readers exactly where they are, so I can create relevant content that strikes a chord and drives more understanding to the topic.

Keep my finger firmly on the pulse, so I can get updates when people talk about this emerging technology in new ways, and monitor trends over time.

Uncover hidden treasures of questions need answers about the emerging technology to discover unexpected insights and hidden niches that boost the relevancy of the content and give it a winning edge.

The building block for writing this book include the following:

(1) I have stopped wasting the time on gutfeel and guesswork about the content wanted by the readers, filled the book content with what the people need and said goodbye to the endless content ideas based on speculations.

(2) I have made solid decisions, and taken fewer risks, to get front row seats to what people want to read and want to know — in real time — and use search data to make bold decisions, about which topics to include and which topics to exclude.

(3) I have streamlined my content production to identify content ideas without manually having to sift through individual opinions to save days and even weeks of time.

It is wonderful to help the people to increase their knowledge in a straightforward way by just answering their questions.

I think the approach of writing of this book is unique as it collates, and tracks the important questions being asked by the readers on search engines.

Acknowledgments

Writing a book is harder than I thought and more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. None of this would have been possible without the work completed by prestigious researchers, and I would like to acknowledge their efforts to increase the knowledge of the public about this emerging technology.

Dedication

To the enlightened, the ones who see things differently, and want the world to be better -- they are not fond of the status quo or the existing state. You can disagree with them too much, and you can argue with them even more, but you cannot ignore them, and you cannot underestimate them, because they always change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones or amateur, others see genius and innovators, because the ones who are enlightened enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do, and lead the people to the enlightenment.

Epigraph

The energy that is stored in an item as a consequence of a change in height due to gravity is referred to as potential energy. A gravity battery is a sort of energy storage device that stores gravitational energy. Potential energy is another name for gravitational energy. In order for a gravity battery to function, surplus energy from the grid is first used to lift a mass, which then causes the mass to create gravitational potential energy. Once the mass is lowered, the gravitational potential energy is converted into electricity by an electric generator. A gravity battery is a kind of sustainable energy that may be used to create electricity. One kind of gravity battery is a device that generates energy by gradually lowering a mass, such as a block of concrete in this example. The most typical use for a gravity battery is in pumped-storage hydroelectricity, which involves the process of pumping water to higher altitudes for the purpose of storing energy before releasing it via water turbines in order to create power.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Bonus

Preface

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Epigraph

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Gravity battery

Chapter 2: Electricity generation

Chapter 3: Energy storage

Chapter 4: Solar energy

Chapter 5: Distributed generation

Chapter 6: Pumped-storage hydroelectricity

Chapter 7: Grid energy storage

Chapter 8: Peaking power plant

Chapter 9: Off-the-grid

Chapter 10: Microgeneration

Chapter 11: Hybrid power

Chapter 12: Stand-alone power system

Chapter 13: Solar power in India

Chapter 14: Renewable energy in the United Kingdom

Chapter 15: Solar power

Chapter 16: Photovoltaic system

Chapter 17: Energy development

Chapter 18: Variable renewable energy

Chapter 19: Battery storage power station

Chapter 20: Tesla Megapack

Chapter 21: Carnot battery

Epilogue

About the Author

Coming Soon

Appendices: Emerging Technologies in Each Industry

Chapter 1: Gravity battery

The energy that is stored in an item as a consequence of a change in height due to gravity is referred to as potential energy. A gravity battery is a sort of energy storage device that stores gravitational energy. Potential energy is another name for gravitational energy. In order for a gravity battery to function, surplus energy from the grid is first used to lift a mass, which then generates gravitational potential energy. Once the mass is lowered, the gravitational potential energy is converted into electrical energy by use of an electric generator. A gravity battery is a kind of sustainable energy that may be used to create electricity. One kind of gravity battery is a device that generates energy by gradually lowering a mass, such as a block of concrete in this example. The most typical use for a gravity battery is in pumped-storage hydroelectricity, which involves the process of pumping water to higher altitudes for the purpose of storing energy before releasing it via water turbines in order to create power.

The pendulum clock, which utilized gravity to power mechanical movement, was designed in 1656 by Christiaan Huygens. It was the oldest version of a device that used gravity to power mechanical movement. The force of gravity was used to power the clock via the use of an escapement mechanism, which caused a pendulum to swing back and forth. Since then, the technology behind gravity batteries has progressed to the point that it is now possible to build devices that can convert the force of gravity into electricity for large-scale energy storage.

Switzerland was the country that pioneered the development of the first gravity-based pumped-storage hydroelectricity (PSH) plant in 1907. Pumped storage was first introduced to the American market by the Connecticut Electric and Power Company in the year 1930. As of the year 2019, the global capacity for PSH was measured at 168 GW (gigawatts).

There are a variety of possible designs and configurations for gravity batteries; but, in order to create energy, all gravity batteries make use of the same physical principles. The amount of effort that must be done in order to move an item in the opposite direction of Earth's gravity is the gravitational potential energy, and it is described by the equation.

{\displaystyle U=mgh}

where U represents the gravitational potential energy, where, The value of m represents the mass of the item.

g is the acceleration of the object due to gravity (9.8 m/s² on earth), and the value of h represents the object's height.

Using the notion of work-energy balance, The equation below may be used to represent the total quantity of energy that is created.

{\displaystyle \Delta E=mg(h_{1}-h_{2})}

where E is the entire quantity of energy that is created and h1 and h2 are the heights that an item is at when it starts and when it finishes moving. There is a one-to-one relationship between the vertical displacement of a mass and the change in energy; the greater the vertical displacement, the greater the amount of gravitational potential energy that is stored. The mass of an item also has a direct correlation with the change in energy; the greater the mass, the greater the change in energy.

When a mass is moved, also known as lifted, inside a gravity battery, it results in the generation of gravitational potential energy, which may then be converted into electricity. The process of elevating a mass to a certain height using a pump, crane, or engine to create a gravity battery, which stores gravitational potential energy. When a mass is raised to a particular height, that mass immediately begins to store a certain amount of gravitational potential energy proportional to both the mass of the item and the height to which it was lifted. The gravitational potential energy that was stored is subsequently converted into electrical energy. The mass is decreased so that it may return to its starting height, which causes a generator to spin and results in the production of power.

One of the components of a gravity battery is a very tall tower that has a significant amount of mass. Either a tall structure that is erected above ground, such as a tall skyscraper or tower, or a deep hole that is bored through the earth's surface to a specified depth that is essential for the battery to satisfy its criteria, may serve as this tall structure. Pulleys are used to hoist a load to the top of the tower or the top of the pit, depending on which metaphor is being used. Energy is required to raise the mass, but often, this energy is excess energy that is utilized at periods when there is more energy output than there is demand for the energy. When there is no longer any extra energy available, the mass will be lowered, which will cause the generator to produce electricity.

The concept of pumped-storage hydroelectricity may be thought of as one kind of gravity battery (PSH), the most widespread kind of energy storage for grids.

The PSH method utilizes water as opposed to a solid material, It is then released via turbines to produce energy after being pumped from a lower reservoir to a higher reservoir.

One such suggestion calls for the use of a specialized high-viscosity liquid, 2+¹⁄2 times denser than water, It necessitates a lower head (elevation), which in turn reduces the required size of the infrastructure as well as the associated costs.

Lift Renewable Energy makes use of a gravity battery in one of its products. By using a winch to lower buoyant gas canisters into water so that energy may be stored there, the water level is effectively raised by hundreds of meters. The cycle is then turned around such that power is produced as a result of the rising gas containers. There is a need for a very little amount of infrastructure, the batteries may be located near large population areas, and the round trip efficiency is more than 85 percent. The technology is scalable from kilowatt-hours to gigawatt-hours.

EnergyVault is hard at work producing gravity batteries that can be used on a wide scale. They are now working on building a gravity battery that will be in the form of an energy storage tower made out of concrete blocks. Concrete blocks, each weighing 32 metric tons, are lifted and stacked by cranes measuring 120 meters, which utilise the surplus energy from the electric system. When bricks are dropped into a generator, energy is generated, which can then be reclaimed by rotating the generator. One industrial unit has the capacity to store 20 MWh of energy, which is sufficient to provide daily electricity for 2,000 houses in Switzerland.

The GravityLight is a portable lighting device that is powered by gravity and functions by having the user physically hoist a bag of pebbles or sand to a certain height and then allowing the bag to fall by itself to create electricity. Because it would remove the need for individuals who do not have access to electricity to depend on kerosene lamps — which are costly, hazardous, and polluting — the GravityLight was created to assist the over one billion people throughout the globe who do not have a source of energy.

There is a range of prices for different designs of gravity batteries.

The operational cost of pumped storage hydropower is $165 per kilowatt-hour, whereas the levelized cost of storage (LCOS) is just $0.17 per kilowatt-hour.

Gravity batteries are intended to be used in conjunction with renewable energy sources whose output is very erratic and does not always correspond with consumer demand. These sources include sunshine and wind, amongst others. It is anticipated that they would have a better long-term cost than chemical batteries, while having less environmental concerns than other conventional storage systems like as pumped-water storage. This is because chemical batteries have a higher initial cost than these newer batteries. It is expected that gravity battery systems would be able to rapidly produce electricity during periods of peak usage, which may enable them to augment or replace peaking power units that rely on fossil fuels. It is anticipated that single-weight systems would be able to reach peak power generation in much less than one second.

Between the years 1870 and 1930,

{End Chapter 1}

Chapter 2: Electricity generation

Generation of electricity refers to the process of creating electric power from main energy sources such as fossil fuels. It is the stage in the electric power business prior to its delivery (transmission, distribution, etc.) to end users or its storage, and it is performed by utilities in the electric power industry (using, for example, the pumped-storage method).

Because electricity cannot be obtained directly from the environment, it must be made (that is, transforming other forms of energy to electricity). The manufacturing process takes place in power plants (also called power plants). Electromechanical generators are the most common type of generators used in power plants. These generators are primarily driven by heat engines that are powered by either combustion or nuclear fission. However, electricity can also be generated using other methods such as the kinetic energy of flowing water and wind. Solar photovoltaics and geothermal power are two more types of alternative energy sources.

Eliminating power plants that burn coal, and ultimately gas, will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Michael Faraday, a British scientist, made the discovery of the basic principles that underlie the production of electricity in the 1820s and early 1830s. His technique, which is still in use today, involves the movement of a loop of wire, sometimes known as a Faraday disc, between the poles of a magnet in order to create electricity. The invention of alternating current (AC) power transmission, which makes use of power transformers to carry electricity at high voltage and with little loss, made it possible for central power plants to become financially viable.

After connecting the dynamo to the hydraulic turbine, production of power for commercial use could finally get underway. The mechanical creation of electric power marked the beginning of the Second Industrial Revolution and paved the way for a number of innovations that made use of electricity. The most significant contributions to this revolution were Nikola Tesla and Thomas Alva Edison. In the past, the only means to generate electricity was via the use of chemical processes or battery cells, and the only use of electricity that had any real-world significance was the telegraph.

In 1882, a steam engine at Pearl Street Station in New York City generated a direct current (DC) by operating a dynamo. This DC current was used to power the public lights on Pearl Street. This marked the beginning of the production of electricity at central power stations. The new technology was immediately embraced by numerous cities throughout the globe, and in doing so, they converted their gas-fueled street lights to ones that are powered by electricity. Soon after, electric lights would be employed in public buildings, in companies, and to power public transportation like trams and trains. This occurred not long after.

The original power plants either utilized hydroelectricity or coal to generate electricity. Modern society makes use of many different kinds of energy, including coal, nuclear power, natural gas, hydroelectricity, wind power, oil, and other sources including solar power, tidal power, and geothermal energy.

After its debut in the 1880s, the incandescent light bulb was largely credited for catalyzing the explosive growth of the electrical industry. Even though there are 22 others who are credited with inventing the light bulb before Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan, the innovation that Edison and Swan came up with became the most commercially viable and widely used of all of them. Significant advances were achieved in the fields of electrical science and technology in the early years of the 19th century. In addition, the development of electrical technology and engineering throughout the latter half of the 19th century led to the widespread use of electricity in daily life. The need for electricity in private residences skyrocketed in response to the widespread dissemination of several electrical innovations and the incorporation of these innovations into routine activities of daily living. As a result of this rise in demand, many business owners saw the opportunity for profit and started making investments in electrical infrastructure, ultimately leading to the establishment of the first electricity public utilities. The term electrification is often used to refer to this historical process.

In the beginning, the distribution of power was handled by individual corporations that were completely separate from one another. A customer would buy energy from a producer, who would then distribute it via their own power infrastructure after having received payment from the consumer. The generation's overall productivity and efficiency increased in tandem with the development of new technologies. Inventions such as the steam turbine had a significant influence not only on the effectiveness of the means by which electricity is generated but also on the cost of doing so. This conversion of thermal energy into mechanical work was quite similar to that of steam engines, but on a much bigger scale and with a substantially higher output. The enhancements made to these large-scale power plants were essential to the process of centralizing the production