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Comment by fsloth | Hacker News Reader

It's not a forest of Sisyphean gravel funiculars which your calculation presumes.

According to the brochure on the site the Ares system seems to be an automated freight yard on a slightly sloping ground. Only a fraction of the total mass is on wheels at a time. The scaling issues might be a bit different.

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>It's not a forest of Sisyphean gravel funiculars

I strongly feel this expression belongs somewhere. I just have no clue where.

Song lyrics, or poetry.

I personally like the idea of turning really deep mines into literal potential energy wells. Use renewable energy to lift loads (water, gravel etc) and then power generators at night by dropping the load back down. Basically enormous cuckoo clocks.

While I like the idea for its steampunk appeal, looking at potential/kinetic energy delta, you have two ways really: build overcapacity for solar, immovable, uses rare earth minerals, but other than dust, maintenance free and then that capacity will sit idle at night or you build capacity like these lifts at that capacity is going to sit unusued during the day, but it does require a lot more maintenance due to moving parts and potentially more resource heavy to build, but no exotic materials. I think the best way forward is to, of course use the least amount of energy possible - insulate from both heat and cold, make efficient CPUs and run everything you can in software and anything physical make it run during the day on solar. Once environmental costs are accounted for, it makes no sense to run things like cars and shops and washing machines at night.

Paul Simon song.

That system needs to be called Sisyphos.

A more apt figure from Greek mythology than the god of war, though, might be Sisyphus, who was condemned by the gods to push a rock to the top of a mountain, only for it to roll back down again so that he had to repeat the punishment for eternity. ARES does indeed push rocks uphill, only to let them roll down again. - See more at: http://www.aresnorthamerica.com/article/9232-sisyphus%E2%80%...

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