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The problem here is not renewable energy sources, it's buffering their output. Improvements to battery technology and short-term energy storage are key to crack

The problem here is not renewable energy sources, it's buffering their output. Improvements to battery technology and short-term energy storage are key to cracking this problem. If energy is free or even profitable to consume you'd make money pumping water uphill during the day and using that potential energy later to produce power through conventional hydro-electric means. This is completely insane if you have to pay for power at conventional rates, but we're entering a new era where time of day costs might go all over the place without arbitrage like this to even things out.

maxerickson 10y ago
At least one of the early large scale pumped storage plants[1] was financed by power companies to optimize their internal costs. So it's long been the case that time arbitrage is a good idea for power production. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power...
- DennisP 10y ago
  Pumped storage is a very cheap way to store energy, but unfortunately its scale is limited by geography. http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-stor...
SquirrelOnFire 10y ago
There are some rather clever and simple options for energy storage - like sending an electrically driven train up a few miles of inclined track - http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a14956/forget-batteries-store-energy-in-trains/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a1... That said, for reliable baseline energy, you're not going to beat nuclear for a while. Modern nuclear "waste" is usable as fuel in Breeder type reactors (LFTR, Traveling Wave reactors) and the waste from those is containable with modern technology.
- nickbauman 10y ago
  From start to finish, bringing a nuke plant online is a 30 year proposition, assuming there are no snags along the way. There are no shortcuts in the offing.
  - jerf 10y ago
    Oh, that's just ridiculous. You can't count 27 years of lawsuits in the "real" cost of building a plant, if people actually wanted to. If we were going to start building lots of plants, there's been plenty of proposals to standardize the designs.
    - nickbauman 10y ago
      This is in the opinion of Janice Dunn Lee. I think she knows what she's talking about. https://www.iaea.org/about/leadership/janice-dunn-lee https://www.iaea.org/about/leadership/janice-dunn-lee
      - arama471 10y ago
        Can you link to a source where she says that and not just her bio page? Googling this for me yielded no results which contained supporting evidence for you, but that may just be bad searching on my part.
        nickbauman 10y ago
        I heard her speak on the radio regarding low-carbon energy solutions. I'm trying to locate the program online.
    - nickbauman 10y ago
      The last nuke plant built in America, Watts-Barr, took only 43 years. It cost $6.1 billion. So I guess the bar to improve is quite low. Good luck.
      - 10y ago
patall 10y ago
Improvement in battery technology is relative. You do not need superlight lithium-something batteries for general energy storage. The only questions for such systems are price per kWh, life-time and somewhat good input/output ratios. But especially the last may become unimportant as energy becomes really abundant. It is the same reason why power2gas may become interesting: only 40% energy efficency are sufficient when you produce 5 time your domestic need in a winter storm.
crdoconnor 10y ago
>Improvements to battery technology and short-term energy storage are key to cracking this problem. Between perpetually 10 years' away jesus-tech grid-scale batteries and letting the invisible hand catch up and fix the demand side of fluctuating supply, I'd bet on the latter, personally. Especially since it's already happening (c.f. aluminum smelters time shifting electricity demand).

maxerickson 10y ago

At least one of the early large scale pumped storage plants[1] was financed by power companies to optimize their internal costs. So it's long been the case that time arbitrage is a good idea for power production. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power...

DennisP 10y ago
Pumped storage is a very cheap way to store energy, but unfortunately its scale is limited by geography. http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-stor...

SquirrelOnFire 10y ago

There are some rather clever and simple options for energy storage - like sending an electrically driven train up a few miles of inclined track - http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a14956/forget-batteries-store-energy-in-trains/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a1... That said, for reliable baseline energy, you're not going to beat nuclear for a while. Modern nuclear "waste" is usable as fuel in Breeder type reactors (LFTR, Traveling Wave reactors) and the waste from those is containable with modern technology.

nickbauman 10y ago
From start to finish, bringing a nuke plant online is a 30 year proposition, assuming there are no snags along the way. There are no shortcuts in the offing.
- jerf 10y ago
  Oh, that's just ridiculous. You can't count 27 years of lawsuits in the "real" cost of building a plant, if people actually wanted to. If we were going to start building lots of plants, there's been plenty of proposals to standardize the designs.
  - nickbauman 10y ago
    This is in the opinion of Janice Dunn Lee. I think she knows what she's talking about. https://www.iaea.org/about/leadership/janice-dunn-lee https://www.iaea.org/about/leadership/janice-dunn-lee
    - arama471 10y ago
      Can you link to a source where she says that and not just her bio page? Googling this for me yielded no results which contained supporting evidence for you, but that may just be bad searching on my part.
      - nickbauman 10y ago
        I heard her speak on the radio regarding low-carbon energy solutions. I'm trying to locate the program online.
  - nickbauman 10y ago
    The last nuke plant built in America, Watts-Barr, took only 43 years. It cost $6.1 billion. So I guess the bar to improve is quite low. Good luck.
    - 10y ago

patall 10y ago

Improvement in battery technology is relative. You do not need superlight lithium-something batteries for general energy storage. The only questions for such systems are price per kWh, life-time and somewhat good input/output ratios. But especially the last may become unimportant as energy becomes really abundant. It is the same reason why power2gas may become interesting: only 40% energy efficency are sufficient when you produce 5 time your domestic need in a winter storm.

crdoconnor 10y ago

>Improvements to battery technology and short-term energy storage are key to cracking this problem. Between perpetually 10 years' away jesus-tech grid-scale batteries and letting the invisible hand catch up and fix the demand side of fluctuating supply, I'd bet on the latter, personally. Especially since it's already happening (c.f. aluminum smelters time shifting electricity demand).