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True, there may be uses cases for it. But with renewables price collapse in the last 10 years, and very likely further at least 2x price reduction of solar and

True, there may be uses cases for it. But with renewables price collapse in the last 10 years, and very likely further at least 2x price reduction of solar and slight on wind, this is no longer a make or break thing for humanity. More research and commercialization of advanced batteries would further reduce importance of fusion. I am getting to think that fusion has nearly ran out of time. 10 years down the road, potential market for it may become too small to justify the immense expenses - and by that point, 'mainstream' projects are not expected to bear fruit yet.

wiz21c 9y ago
Problem is : even they're cheap, you have to build massive amounts of them... So fusion energy (or anything nuclear) is still required I think. But well, I'm no expert, just repeating what I've heard (check Jean-Marc Jancovici, french guy)
acidburnNSA 9y ago
It's easy to make the leap you're making but while intermittent renewable costs have indeed been falling, they're doing it in an environment with cheap dispatchable backup natural gas. Once you get to around 50% intermittent renewable penetration the storage costs get crazy. In a four-state area in the Pacific Northwest from December 5 to December 15th, all 4 billion watts of wind generation sat dormant because of a wind lull. Batteries for that would cost $90 billion and take up a football field 100 stories tall.
- PhantomGremlin 9y ago
  Batteries for that would cost $90 billion and take up a football field 100 stories tall. Cost is certainly a reasonable argument to make. But not the "football field" argument for how much area it would take. Given how small a number that is, I just can't see how that is concerning at all. And besides, nobody is going to place $90 billion of batteries into a single structure. A football field is 5351.2 square meters.[1] Instead of a single 100 story tall structure, how about 100 separate single story structures? That's 535120 square meters. Let's consider a site in the Pacific Northwest that has lots of excess land available, the Hanford Site[2] (for some reason, nobody wants to use it for shopping malls or residential subdivisions). That site is 1,518 square kilometers. You could place those 100 football fields of batteries onto 0.035% of the land area of the Hanford site. There are probably still functional high voltage transmission lines there, and if not, then building new lines to get that battery power to BPA's nearby grid wouldn't be difficult or expensive. Anyway, I'm just being silly. It doesn't make sense to put those batteries into either a single $90 billion dollar 100 story building, or onto cheap land at the Hanford site. But having 20 or even 100 separate battery sites scattered throughout the area is certainly feasible. Your overall point is valid, even though batteries will eventually become much cheaper. It's currently difficult to store large amounts of intermittently generated power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_field [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site
  - acidburnNSA 9y ago
    You're definitely right that no one would but then in one building. I chose that analogy because it's easy to visualize, whereas lots of smaller building are not. My cost estimate included raw lithium only and assumed the land and building were free to be conservative. Also This is just for 4GWe, a tiny fraction of the PNWs total energy capacity.
neworldlt 9y ago
Abundance and very cheap energy enable energy inefficient (so far) and crazy projects as well. For example, put some coil under the road and power electric vehicles.

wiz21c 9y ago

Problem is : even they're cheap, you have to build massive amounts of them... So fusion energy (or anything nuclear) is still required I think. But well, I'm no expert, just repeating what I've heard (check Jean-Marc Jancovici, french guy)

acidburnNSA 9y ago

It's easy to make the leap you're making but while intermittent renewable costs have indeed been falling, they're doing it in an environment with cheap dispatchable backup natural gas. Once you get to around 50% intermittent renewable penetration the storage costs get crazy. In a four-state area in the Pacific Northwest from December 5 to December 15th, all 4 billion watts of wind generation sat dormant because of a wind lull. Batteries for that would cost $90 billion and take up a football field 100 stories tall.

PhantomGremlin 9y ago
Batteries for that would cost $90 billion and take up a football field 100 stories tall. Cost is certainly a reasonable argument to make. But not the "football field" argument for how much area it would take. Given how small a number that is, I just can't see how that is concerning at all. And besides, nobody is going to place $90 billion of batteries into a single structure. A football field is 5351.2 square meters.[1] Instead of a single 100 story tall structure, how about 100 separate single story structures? That's 535120 square meters. Let's consider a site in the Pacific Northwest that has lots of excess land available, the Hanford Site[2] (for some reason, nobody wants to use it for shopping malls or residential subdivisions). That site is 1,518 square kilometers. You could place those 100 football fields of batteries onto 0.035% of the land area of the Hanford site. There are probably still functional high voltage transmission lines there, and if not, then building new lines to get that battery power to BPA's nearby grid wouldn't be difficult or expensive. Anyway, I'm just being silly. It doesn't make sense to put those batteries into either a single $90 billion dollar 100 story building, or onto cheap land at the Hanford site. But having 20 or even 100 separate battery sites scattered throughout the area is certainly feasible. Your overall point is valid, even though batteries will eventually become much cheaper. It's currently difficult to store large amounts of intermittently generated power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_field [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  You're definitely right that no one would but then in one building. I chose that analogy because it's easy to visualize, whereas lots of smaller building are not. My cost estimate included raw lithium only and assumed the land and building were free to be conservative. Also This is just for 4GWe, a tiny fraction of the PNWs total energy capacity.

neworldlt 9y ago

Abundance and very cheap energy enable energy inefficient (so far) and crazy projects as well. For example, put some coil under the road and power electric vehicles.