Estimates suggest abandoned mine shafts could store enough electricity to power the planet

An abandoned mine in Finland is set to be transformed into a giant battery to store renewable energy during periods of excess production.

The Pyhäsalmi Mine, roughly 450 kilometres north of Helsinki, is Europe’s deepest zinc and copper mine and holds the potential to store up to 2 MW of energy within its 1,400-metre-deep shafts.

The disused mine will be fitted with a gravity battery, which uses excess energy from renewable sources like solar and wind in order to lift a heavy weight. During periods of low production, the weight is released and used to power a turbine as it drops.

  • ISometimesAdmin@the.coolest.zone
    76·
    9 months ago

    I googled Pyhäsalmi Mine gravitricity "2 MW" and EVERY article covering this has also cited 2 MW.

    Now, under Occam’s Razor, what’s more likely:

    1. Absolutely none of the article writers have any clue what the difference between a MW and a MWh is because none of them remember any physics
    2. Some of them could suspect that it’s wrong, but an authoritative source of the claim wrote/said 2 MW capacity when they meant “2 MW peak generation” or “2 MWh storage” (I’d presume Gravitricity, but I’m struggling to find such a source, myself)
    3. One writer miswrote/misquoted as per 2, and everyone is mindlessly recycling that original article’s contents with no attribution or care.

    I don’t know which one it is. But I’d generally lean against 1.

    • tunetardis@lemmy.ca
      24·
      9 months ago

      #2 is certainly food for thought. So the idea is that from a journalistic fact-checking point of view, it is more important to convey the information exactly as it was presented than to verify its accuracy?

      This would explain why science/engineering-based articles are so commonly inaccurate or missing in critical details. The journalist can fall back on saying “I have a recording of an interview with the expert after we downed a few pints at the pub, and I’m just parroting back what he said. Don’t shoot the messenger!”

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            9 months ago

            It’s also correctly called:

            • hash
            • pound sign
            • number sign

            But cool people use the bespoke octothorpe.

            The first appearance of “octothorp” in a US patent is in a 1973 filing. This patent also refers to the six-pointed asterisk (✻) used on telephone buttons as a “sextile”.

      • ISometimesAdmin@the.coolest.zone
        6·
        9 months ago

        I’d honestly prefer raw parroting in most cases, even if it’s “obviously” wrong. I don’t want people selectively interpreting the facts as have been conveyed to them, unless they’re prepared to do a proper peer review.

        • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          That’s what [sic] is for though. You fact check, and then leave the quote as the press release had it.

          The problem is that most of these articles are basically reprinting of the press release without any editorial additions at all.

          • TwoCubed@feddit.de
            2·
            9 months ago

            I’d wager they let bots crawl articles and have said ai bots rewrite them slightly. Internet journalism is completely lost.

      • neutron@thelemmy.club
        1·
        9 months ago

        Then there’s the issue between scientific jargon that is different from general public use. A scientific theory has a specific definition, but it’s easy for general population to dismiss them as “just a theory”.

    • ISometimesAdmin@the.coolest.zone
      6·
      9 months ago

      Though btw, I also think it’s fascinating the difference if you look up Pyhäsalmi Mine gravitricity "2 MW" vs Pyhäsalmi Mine gravitricity "2MW"

      You’ll get different articles entirely