Comments by "Diana Pennepacker" (@dianapennepacker6854) on "How NASA Reinvented the Mechanical Battery" video.

Flywheels have been around since 6bc with Potters flywheels. Most likely even longer. A German inventor Presbytr recorded some of his machines using em. In the 1100s According to wiki. I am not familiar with him. Then of course you have windmills, grain mills, and sharpening wheels, and such also used the idea. Just not for electricity. Then of course James Watt use of them really took off with helping steam engines run smoothly. The E Dumpster is a giant dump truck for open mines that doesn't need to be recharged ever at the mine it is at. It goes up hill to collect ore. Then since it goes back down hill loaded. It gets all the energy back from regenerative breaking to repeat the process. It gets the energy essentially from the heavy ore. It is cool. It shows how rocks on top of hills or higher elevations have a lot of potential energy, and I doubt most people think about things at higher elevations having potential energy that can be tapped. Anyway just pointing it out! That is cool work. Too bad we didn't embrace batteries back then. We would have crazy electric motors, batteries, and flywheels I think by now. Can't wait to see what it looks like 40 years.
12
@KevinSmith-ys3mh Yeah it is great for niche uses. Some of the old mine tech is especially cool. Your post reminds me of some gravity batteries. Those companies like Gravity Vault are a scam. Like it works. Just the energy stored for cost is just pitiful! I seen multiple people do the math, and it is just bad. The cost per KW is terrible compared to basically all the other energy storage methods. It is like hydrogen. Super niche.
1