Looking at the project with cranes and concrete blocks got me thinking about... cranes. The ones in ports and other transfer depots. Real, working cranes, which to not lift thousands of tons to great heights, but instead lift thousands of cargo containers daily.
Do those cranes use regenerative braking when lowering cargo? How much energy do they use to pick up, move and lower a single container? And how much of that energy is recoverable?
Maybe not for storing grid power, but those cranes could have a flywheel, so that the energy from lowering one container could cover the lifting of the next.
But then, when not in use, those flywheels could help the grid...
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Ecorenovation - the bottomless piggy bank that tries to tame the energy hog.
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