Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Harnessing the entropic properties of bulk matter, easily ending up with molecular self assembly, without the need for micromanaging the process--genius!

The team calculated that a block of nanocarbon-black-doped concrete that is 45 cubic meters (or yards) in size — equivalent to a cube about 3.5 meters across — would have enough capacity to store about 10 kilowatt-hours of energy, which is considered the average daily electricity usage for a household. Since the concrete would retain its strength, a house with a foundation made of this material could store a day’s worth of energy produced by solar panels or windmills and allow it to be used whenever it’s needed. And, supercapacitors can be charged and discharged much more rapidly than batteries.

What I'm wondering is how to create a lightning battery with this? Unless my math is wrong (probably is) 1 lightning strike is

  1 zeus = 1 billion joules = 300 kwh. 

  1 big-cube = 45m^3 = 10 kwh

  density = 10/45 kwh/m^3

  volume needed to bottle lightning = 300kwh * 45/10m^3/kwh  = 1350m^3

  cube of sides 12m. or sphere of diameter 14m
So, what I'm proposing is, we get a 60m high copper pole, stick it in a 14m diameter sphere of this, and put it in a rainstorm.

Bottle of lightning?




Lighting rods are actually there to discharge without lighting.

In any case 10kWh worth of li-ion batteries is about the size of a water cooler tank, so the whole system - bms, inverter and all - is no larger than a water cooler.


Just a heads up, Chrome flags your HN profile homepage as a "Deceptive site" !!


Thanks. Yeah, my fault - I was hosting a WIP Wordpress site for a client on a subdomain and forgot to set a strong password there.

A week later there were already ChatGPT-generated posts in English, German and Russian.

Well, at least the client got a demonstration regarding the consequences of having weak passwords.

I've filled the form you gotta fill in such situations, but I'm not hopeful I'll ever get this domain back.

Shame, because this started out as CV padding but over time evolved into this one place I link people to for quick solutions to stuff.


So does Safari




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: