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Seasonal fluctuations in energy production are more extreme in far northern and southern latitudes. Which just so happens to be where the majority of energy con

Seasonal fluctuations in energy production are more extreme in far northern and southern latitudes. Which just so happens to be where the majority of energy consumption is located. The amount of energy storage required even to just handle the daily duck curve is staggering. To put this in perspective, the US consumed 11.5TWh of electricity daily. Global lithium ion battery production is 300GWh per year. Until some truly groundbreaking storage mechanism gets developed, renewables have difficulty providing more than 40-50% of energy demand.

anoncake 6y ago
Nonsense. No one's going to use lithium ion batteries for this use case.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  Right. It's one of the common anti-renewable canards that batteries would be used for more than diurnal smoothing.
  - manfredo 6y ago
    I think you missed the point: even for diurnal storage the scale required amounts to a decade's worth of global battery production just to create capacity equal to 1/4th of just the US's daily electricity usage.
    - pfdietz 6y ago
      This is a very lame argument. Manufacturing capacity isn't some fixed constant of nature, it's whatever makes sense given the market for the product. So if there's a large market, a large manufacturing capacity will be created. https://cleantechnica.com/files/2019/04/2019-Q1-Growth-in-Global-Battery-Factory-Capacity-Pipeline-GWh.png https://cleantechnica.com/files/2019/04/2019-Q1-Growth-in-Gl...
      - manfredo 6y ago
        Even if we assume that the production capacity will continuously increases at the predicted rate, think you missed the part where that was just the US's storage requirements. Global electricity consumption annually was 22.3 PWh in 2017, yielding 61TWh per day. And while battery production increases, so too does electricity demand. Even if we assume that battery production increases to 1TWh-2TWh per year by 2030 as per your link we're still taking about decades to achieve even 1/4th of the current (not 2030) daily electricity consumption even if 100% of battery production was dedicated to grid storage. And that's not possible because grid storage is going to be competing with electric vehicles and electronics. And again, by 2030 were going to be using more electricity than we are currently. The necessary capacity is increasing exponentially. Pointing out that battery production is predicted to increase doesn't alter the fact that the scale required is massive. And this all this is ignoring the fact that batteries lose half their capacity after 300-500 cycles. Even if we're generous and say 1000 cycles that's still just 3 years for diurnal use (daily charge and discharge cycles). This thread is being rate limited, reply in edit: > I didn't miss that. Why do you think global manufacturing capacity will stop when it reaches what the US needs, and not expand to satisfy the global market? You think the manufactures are going to leave sales and profits on the table for no good reason I can ask you the same thing: why do you think that global battery manufacturing capacity is unlimited? What makes you think that we'll have an unlimited supply of raw materials? The prevalence of metal deposits does not respond to the market. Increasing prices of lithium will make more people search for lithium deposits, but there's a finite number of said deposits. And again, the projected increases in in battery production due to increased demand bring down the time to create enough capacity from a matter of centuries to a matter of decades. For batteries that last a few years if cycled daily. > It also seems reasonable to expect at least one significant breakthrough in battery technology over the next 10-30 years, given how important a problem it is, and how many promising approaches there are already. So our approach is to keep our fingers crossed and hope for a technological breakthrough. If that's the case we might as well just hope for fusion to work. But most of us would prefer a solution that we know works rather than bet on the possibility of breakthrough. And right now the only two known means of generating most of a country's power from a carbon free energy source is through hydroelectricity and nuclear power.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    Lithium ion batteries at that. There are other types like lead-acid that are cheaper, their lower energy density doesn't matter much for grid storage.
- manfredo 6y ago
  Then what's the alternative? Kinetic storage is geographically limited. Th Sabatier process has end to end efficiency of ~30% not to mention it needs an external source of carbon dioxide. The remaining proposals are at the experimental stage (thermal storage, hydrogen storage).
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    Underground hydrogen storage is a demonstrated technology, not experimental. All that's required is scaling it up, and there's plenty of room to do that. The only real missing piece was sufficiently cheap electrolysers for use with intermittently available power, but that's coming along very fast now too, with rumors of costs as low as $200/kW in China (and a recent contract win of $350/kW from a European maker of alkaline electrolysis systems). This is more than adequate for hydrogen storage.
    - manfredo 6y ago
      Underground hydrogen storage had the same issue as kinetic storage: it's geographically limited. It's not just a matter of scaling it up, it's also matter to implementing it in places without empty salt mines handy. And as you point out, generating this hydrogen is nowhere near cost efficient. To put this in perspective, energy costs in the US average about $.10-$.20 per KWh [1]. You're literally talking about a 1,000x increase in the cost of electricity for hydrogen storage even if the rumors of "cheap" $200/KWh hydrogen production turn out to be true. 1. https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/ https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/ This thread is being rate limited, reply in edit: > You are pointing to RETAIL electricity costs. Rookie error, man. Elaborate on what you mean by emphasizing retail energy costs. That is the cost that customers pay for the electricity that is delivered to them. Some of this is subsidized, but this subsidy is not large. The US provides $3-5 subsidy per MWh of electricity. [2] Half a cent per KWh. Even if we ignore subsidies, hundreds of dollars per kilowatt hour of hydrogen storage is still a factor of a thousand more expensive. 2. https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/policy/how-much-does-the-us-government-subsidize-electricity-generating-technologies https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/policy/how-much-...
WalterBright 6y ago
I recall a 60 Minutes episode where someone was making batteries using dirt and seawater. The batteries were big and heavy, entirely unsuitable for a car. But for grid storage, big and heavy means nothing.

anoncake 6y ago

Nonsense. No one's going to use lithium ion batteries for this use case.

pfdietz 6y ago
Right. It's one of the common anti-renewable canards that batteries would be used for more than diurnal smoothing.
- manfredo 6y ago
  I think you missed the point: even for diurnal storage the scale required amounts to a decade's worth of global battery production just to create capacity equal to 1/4th of just the US's daily electricity usage.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    This is a very lame argument. Manufacturing capacity isn't some fixed constant of nature, it's whatever makes sense given the market for the product. So if there's a large market, a large manufacturing capacity will be created. https://cleantechnica.com/files/2019/04/2019-Q1-Growth-in-Global-Battery-Factory-Capacity-Pipeline-GWh.png https://cleantechnica.com/files/2019/04/2019-Q1-Growth-in-Gl...
    - manfredo 6y ago
      Even if we assume that the production capacity will continuously increases at the predicted rate, think you missed the part where that was just the US's storage requirements. Global electricity consumption annually was 22.3 PWh in 2017, yielding 61TWh per day. And while battery production increases, so too does electricity demand. Even if we assume that battery production increases to 1TWh-2TWh per year by 2030 as per your link we're still taking about decades to achieve even 1/4th of the current (not 2030) daily electricity consumption even if 100% of battery production was dedicated to grid storage. And that's not possible because grid storage is going to be competing with electric vehicles and electronics. And again, by 2030 were going to be using more electricity than we are currently. The necessary capacity is increasing exponentially. Pointing out that battery production is predicted to increase doesn't alter the fact that the scale required is massive. And this all this is ignoring the fact that batteries lose half their capacity after 300-500 cycles. Even if we're generous and say 1000 cycles that's still just 3 years for diurnal use (daily charge and discharge cycles). This thread is being rate limited, reply in edit: > I didn't miss that. Why do you think global manufacturing capacity will stop when it reaches what the US needs, and not expand to satisfy the global market? You think the manufactures are going to leave sales and profits on the table for no good reason I can ask you the same thing: why do you think that global battery manufacturing capacity is unlimited? What makes you think that we'll have an unlimited supply of raw materials? The prevalence of metal deposits does not respond to the market. Increasing prices of lithium will make more people search for lithium deposits, but there's a finite number of said deposits. And again, the projected increases in in battery production due to increased demand bring down the time to create enough capacity from a matter of centuries to a matter of decades. For batteries that last a few years if cycled daily. > It also seems reasonable to expect at least one significant breakthrough in battery technology over the next 10-30 years, given how important a problem it is, and how many promising approaches there are already. So our approach is to keep our fingers crossed and hope for a technological breakthrough. If that's the case we might as well just hope for fusion to work. But most of us would prefer a solution that we know works rather than bet on the possibility of breakthrough. And right now the only two known means of generating most of a country's power from a carbon free energy source is through hydroelectricity and nuclear power.
- anoncake 6y ago
  Lithium ion batteries at that. There are other types like lead-acid that are cheaper, their lower energy density doesn't matter much for grid storage.
manfredo 6y ago
Then what's the alternative? Kinetic storage is geographically limited. Th Sabatier process has end to end efficiency of ~30% not to mention it needs an external source of carbon dioxide. The remaining proposals are at the experimental stage (thermal storage, hydrogen storage).
- pfdietz 6y ago
  Underground hydrogen storage is a demonstrated technology, not experimental. All that's required is scaling it up, and there's plenty of room to do that. The only real missing piece was sufficiently cheap electrolysers for use with intermittently available power, but that's coming along very fast now too, with rumors of costs as low as $200/kW in China (and a recent contract win of $350/kW from a European maker of alkaline electrolysis systems). This is more than adequate for hydrogen storage.
  - manfredo 6y ago
    Underground hydrogen storage had the same issue as kinetic storage: it's geographically limited. It's not just a matter of scaling it up, it's also matter to implementing it in places without empty salt mines handy. And as you point out, generating this hydrogen is nowhere near cost efficient. To put this in perspective, energy costs in the US average about $.10-$.20 per KWh [1]. You're literally talking about a 1,000x increase in the cost of electricity for hydrogen storage even if the rumors of "cheap" $200/KWh hydrogen production turn out to be true. 1. https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/ https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/ This thread is being rate limited, reply in edit: > You are pointing to RETAIL electricity costs. Rookie error, man. Elaborate on what you mean by emphasizing retail energy costs. That is the cost that customers pay for the electricity that is delivered to them. Some of this is subsidized, but this subsidy is not large. The US provides $3-5 subsidy per MWh of electricity. [2] Half a cent per KWh. Even if we ignore subsidies, hundreds of dollars per kilowatt hour of hydrogen storage is still a factor of a thousand more expensive. 2. https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/policy/how-much-does-the-us-government-subsidize-electricity-generating-technologies https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/policy/how-much-...

WalterBright 6y ago

I recall a 60 Minutes episode where someone was making batteries using dirt and seawater. The batteries were big and heavy, entirely unsuitable for a car. But for grid storage, big and heavy means nothing.