Switzerland-based startup Energy Vault has broken ground on two huge facilities in Texas and just north of Shanghai, CNET reports, to test whether we can store energy by raising and lowering hundreds of 24 metric-ton (53,000 pound) bricks made of compressed dirt.
The idea is astonishingly simple. By lifting the massive bricks to the facility's upper levels during periods of excess renewable energy production, the facility's cranes can store large amounts of power — and release it by subsequently lowering them back down when demand is high and the energy supply is low...