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A German Experiment Proved That Simple Concrete Spheres Make Fantastic Batteries. Now, California Plans To Submerge A 9-Meter Diameter Sphere In The Ocean And Is Already Planning Versions Of 30 Meters (farmingdale-observer.com)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And my point is that, given how deep these things seems to be, it is cheaper to haul them on the surface than sending a diver down, even if you need to do some unscheduled maintenance, especially because sending down a commercial diver (the only that can hope to work this deep) is not an easy feat in itself.

Obviously it will be expensive either way, I was only pointing out that sending down commercial divers a lot of additional levels of complexity (decompression periods measured in days or weeks, need to hire many more highly specialized people and from a way smaller pool and so on) that will drive up the price.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Did you not catch the part a couple comments ago where I agreed with you? Yeah, of course it's cheaper to not send divers down. All I'm saying is cheaper cheaper doesn't mean cheap. And my larger point is that it's probably not cheap enough, not least because they're planning for a 20 year part replacement cycle on metal bits exposed to high-pressure seawater and that just doesn't seem plausible to me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Did you not catch the part a couple comments ago where I agreed with you?

Nope, miss it. My bad ;-)

Yeah, of course it’s cheaper to not send divers down. All I’m saying is cheaper cheaper doesn’t mean cheap. And my larger point is that it’s probably not cheap enough, not least because they’re planning for a 20 year part replacement cycle on metal bits exposed to high-pressure seawater and that just doesn’t seem plausible to me.

I think that this depends on how much this system can really "produce".
In a 20 years cycle (ok it is theoretical), it does not seems too hard to overcome the maintenance costs, even this high, assuming the production is high enough, which is to be demostrated.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago

Nope, miss it. My bad ;-)

Fair enough.

I think that this depends on how much this system can really “produce”.

True. And I did just recently learn that power prices per kWh in California are about double what I'm used to here in Texas, so maybe it's more viable in that market. This just seems like a more complicated, more involved, more demanding version of pumping water into/out of a reservoir on a hill which we already have several examples of that are working great (there are more in the UK) without requiring complex and expensive maintenance and without subjecting pumps and turbines to highly corrosive salt water. I guess pressure in the ocean is easier to come by than hills big enough to create reservoirs on, but..