4 ms·

The battery/solar/storage costs are near material costs already. And the material costs are artificially low. If you wanted to scale up production to match dema

The battery/solar/storage costs are near material costs already. And the material costs are artificially low. If you wanted to scale up production to match demand, prices will have to increase so that mines can extract worse ores in harder to reach places.

pedrocr 6y ago
From what I've seen there's enough known advancements coming to make the cost of the type of lithium battery I'd need to at least half of what it is right now. There's also the growing market for second-lives of EV batteries. So I expect to turn the house effectively off-grid within 5 years, keeping the traditional grid as backup and occasional filler. In rural areas with crappy power that's an improvement over the existing grid. Even today if I valued the insurance against power cuts enough to buy a generator just doing the battery install today would make sense instead. From what I've read lithium itself is plentiful, it's the other stuff that goes into batteries, and is actively being engineered out, that's a problem, like cobalt. So I wouldn't bet for a rise in the price of the needed raw materials, but insight into the cost curves of mining would be cool to see.
- erentz 6y ago
  I think the point he is making is that battery metals as a commodity have been unusually cheap. As have a lot of commodities for a while now. Commodity prices are expected by many to go up as demand increases. It’s why people are investing in companies that mine battery metals. As that happens the input costs of batteries will increase and given how massive the component of batteries is in the wind/solar green grid scenario that could change the economics considerably. FWIW uranium is also expected by many to undergo a big surge in price in the next few years with refueling contracts coming due in the US and the growth of nuclear overseas. But the fuel costs for a nuclear plant are a much smaller component compared to other sources, and I am guessing also compared to the battery metals component of the alternate solar/wind/battery/new grid system.
  - pedrocr 6y ago
    Yes, and I replied to that. The used materials are changing. The hard ones for lithium chemistries are being replaced and there are more storage technologies than lithium. Given all the ways to improve/grow both mining and the chemistries of batteries and new storage technologies I wouldn't bet against the reduction of cost of storing electrical energy as demand increases.

pedrocr 6y ago

From what I've seen there's enough known advancements coming to make the cost of the type of lithium battery I'd need to at least half of what it is right now. There's also the growing market for second-lives of EV batteries. So I expect to turn the house effectively off-grid within 5 years, keeping the traditional grid as backup and occasional filler. In rural areas with crappy power that's an improvement over the existing grid. Even today if I valued the insurance against power cuts enough to buy a generator just doing the battery install today would make sense instead. From what I've read lithium itself is plentiful, it's the other stuff that goes into batteries, and is actively being engineered out, that's a problem, like cobalt. So I wouldn't bet for a rise in the price of the needed raw materials, but insight into the cost curves of mining would be cool to see.

erentz 6y ago
I think the point he is making is that battery metals as a commodity have been unusually cheap. As have a lot of commodities for a while now. Commodity prices are expected by many to go up as demand increases. It’s why people are investing in companies that mine battery metals. As that happens the input costs of batteries will increase and given how massive the component of batteries is in the wind/solar green grid scenario that could change the economics considerably. FWIW uranium is also expected by many to undergo a big surge in price in the next few years with refueling contracts coming due in the US and the growth of nuclear overseas. But the fuel costs for a nuclear plant are a much smaller component compared to other sources, and I am guessing also compared to the battery metals component of the alternate solar/wind/battery/new grid system.
- pedrocr 6y ago
  Yes, and I replied to that. The used materials are changing. The hard ones for lithium chemistries are being replaced and there are more storage technologies than lithium. Given all the ways to improve/grow both mining and the chemistries of batteries and new storage technologies I wouldn't bet against the reduction of cost of storing electrical energy as demand increases.