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[Duuvian]

Link to the story I found:

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2013/04/2013480105522838.html

How do these work and is there any more information on these? Can they be used for agriculture? You could build a skyscraper in a city with these dedicated to cultivating fresh produce. I imagine the output is quite low, but still.

[Max White]

These work in a similar fashion to a hydroelectric dam, but using a plastic tape instead of water, and are much smaller. 
Basically you lift a weight up and let it fall, but this weight it attached to a tape that is fed through a generator and can only fall so fast. Thus it takes about 30 minutes to reach the bottom, and for those 30 minutes the tape is turning the generator, producing energy.

Bigger ones powering cities would require a bronze colossus to lift the weight, or heavy lifting machinery that would eat up energy resulting in a net loss.

[PanH]

It's already used as an energy storage for small scale (well, bigger than the video) to smooth production/consumption of energy.

[penguinofhonor]

Not as cool as a gas powered stick. That thing never runs out of gas.

[Hubris Incalculable]

What? not gravity-powered lightning?

Awww.

[Duuvian]

What? not gravity-powered lightning?

Awww.

Hey, we can have both, but if a bunch of superheroes show up to destroy THE MACHINE, it was your idea.

[GlyphGryph]

This seems to produce basically no light for a lamp you have to turn back on every couple dozen minutes.

[Aqizzar]

Yeah, it's basically just a shitty pendulum.  Potential-energy driven power is nothing new, it's just been outmoded for being useless for any purpose except powering something very tiny for a long time.

Think about how large a grandfather clock is, compared to the work it's doing.  All of that pendulum is needed to produce a quantity of mechanical power that wouldn't keep a penlight lit.  And by necessity, they're already about as efficient as a potential-energy differential machine can be.

Not that I would object to installing titanic pendulums in cities, but it'd really just be for the looks.

[Trif]

It's actually human powered lighting.

[Sheb]

It's actually solar fusion-powered lighting.

[comham]

Yeah, you couldn't grow crops with this. It's a handy thing for the electricity-less 3rd world I guess, if it can be made cheap enough.

[Sheb]

Although is it more efficient than those hand-cranked flashlights?

[comham]

It's probably the same, but with this you wind it up and then let it run for a longer period of time.

[10ebbor10]

Also, the gravity  thingy doesn't need to have a rechargeable battery.

[GlyphGryph]

What exactly do you think the gravity thing IS if not a rechargeable battery?