Word of the Day
Billet (n./v., BILL-it)
Lodging for soldiers, or to lodge soldiers, especially in civilian quarters. Yes, this does work with the third amendment, but only in wartime.
Gif of the Day
Tape measureUr doing it wrongAlways check your footing before using a tape measureDon't try this at home, kids, we're professionalsA mind of its ownTapering out?
Link of the Day
Saving energy by stacking concrete blocks
When energy is produced, how is it stored? This is one of the bigger challenges in the energy sector (especially in areas without easy access to high-priced technology), but a Swiss startup has an ingenious solution to it:
The innovation in Energy Vault’s plant is not the hardware. Cranes and motors have been around for decades, and companies like ABB and Siemens have optimized them for maximum efficiency. The round-trip efficiency of the system, which is the amount of energy recovered for every unit of energy used to lift the blocks, is about 85%—comparable to lithium-ion batteries which offer up to 90%.
Pedretti’s main work as the chief technology officer has been figuring out how to design software to automate contextually relevant operations, like hooking and unhooking concrete blocks, and to counteract pendulum-like movements during the lifting and lowering of those blocks.
Energy Vault keeps costs low because it uses off-the-shelf commercial hardware. Surprisingly, concrete blocks could prove to be the most expensive part of the energy tower. Concrete is much cheaper than, say, a lithium-ion battery, but Energy Vault would need a lot of concrete to build hundreds of 35-metric-ton blocks.
We're still not sure we entirely understand the idea, but the basic concept is pretty fascinating. You can read more about it over at Quartz.
ConcreteEnergyBatteriesUp, up, down, downSwitzerlandSo that's how Roger Federer is still playing tennis?