Holy shit they're building kinetic batteries, that's so cool
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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I love these sorts of low tech solutions.
these are neat. the energy density of them is very low compared to batteries, and concrete is a pretty high emissions material to construct (and you need a lot of it for this kind of thing). article says they're using recycled concrete for the blocks though. hopefully learnings from this will help flesh out cases where it's a better move over batteries or pumped hydro
I enjoy using these in timberborn too
I was reading earlier today about how china's solar sector is outpacing their battery production, so that's why this exists, bad battery is better than no battery
All my winning can't keep pace with all my other winning
I imagine low energy density doesn't really matter in this use case, and using recycled concrete has to be incredibly cheap compared to producing efficient batteries.
yeah if you've got the space, energy density isn't so important. I'm sure the recycled concrete is used in the blocks that are lifted and those are surely cheap, but there's also a lot of structural steel/concrete in the building itself (you need a legit structure to hold up all that mass) and there are also the cranes and associated moving parts to consider. the heavy ballast is probably the cheapest part of the whole thing.
Sure, but I'm sure amortizing that over 35 year lifetime comes out to peanuts, especially given how ironed out construction in China is.
MEANWHILE 
I'd love more numbers on energy density because I suspect this might be truly awful in that regard to the point that it probably isnt worth the cost savings from cheap materials. Plus the not inconsiderable mechanical wear this will have.
I suspect at some point someone will work out cathedral sized towers of concrete is just not worth it vs LFP or sodium batteries and a grid forming inverter on the same footprint with a lot more energy density.
I'm always fascinated by comments like this. Like there's this underlying assumption that professional engineers building this project didn't bother to do some basic math to figure out whether it would make sense or not. I suspect they spent a bit more time figuring this out than some random bozo on the internet.
professional engineers building this project didn't bother to do some basic math to figure out whether it would make sense
It is built by a western company that has made some very questionable claims and is floated on the USA stock exchange, so.. let's just say it isn't unprecedented.
But it's built in China with support from the government. Again, I don't think they're rubes and just threw a bunch of money at the company without asking any basic questions about feasibility.
They could be in the interest of R&D and innovation.
Sure, trying things is how you figure out whether they actually work or not. But even there you do the math to see if there's even a point in trying.
It's still interesting that it's actually been built. Even if energy density is low, having a real production one will give way more evidence for/against the idea that speculation.
I'm curious how much maintenance it will need when it's actually powering the grid for 4+ hours/day.
I know people may not like Adamsomething but I saw his video about these a while ago where you can do the same thing with a hydroelectric dam. Maybe you can't implement those in some areas but using water instead makes a lot of sense
Seems like water is more valuable than recycled concrete though.
Doesn't always have to be the same water, where this would have to be the same concrete
I'm not sure why it would be a problem that it's the same concrete though
I guess my thought is if you used water it could be hooked up to a larger reservoir and just pump from the water that's there. Whereas the concrete used would serve no other purpose outside of energy storage.
Yeah, if you have a reservoir to pump from that could make sense as well. I'm guessing different regions would prefer different approaches based on what's available. They do mention concrete is recycled, so it's not like new concrete needs to be produced either.
I saw Adamsomething's video, where he reconstructed the concept of a reservoir piece by piece without saying that was his intention, and I made notes:
-iron is denser than water or concrete
-one crane and one mass is simpler
-if you put it in a brick tower there's no/less weathering
-all of the above would make it low tech and could be built in urban areas instead of valleys for community storage