6 ms·

The old ways of thinking no longer apply now that high density industrial lithium batteries exist. Solar+Storage is the way of the future.

dasudasu 6y ago
Vanadium redox batteries are looking pretty good as an alternative to lithium for large-scale energy storage.
ThomPete 6y ago
Solar and wind today doesn't deliver more than 1% of the world energy consumption. We are as close to fusion as we are to the kind of fuel cells that would be needed for that. Furthermore solar+storage doesn't do industrial grade energy needs. The heat thats needed ex.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  > Solar and wind today doesn't deliver more than 1% of the world energy consumption. That's an interesting statistic, but the topic of the article is electricity in the UK not energy use in the world. A more useful statistic would be this: "The government’s official data has revealed that renewable energy made up 47% of the UK’s electricity generation in the first three months of the year, smashing the previous quarterly record of 39% set last year."[0] It's true that doesn't include the energy used by gas heating systems or fuel used by vehicles, for example, but to bring those into consideration it would be helpful to know how quickly heating systems and vehicles are being replaced by electric equivalents (increasing the load on the grid, although per capita energy consumption in the UK has been decreasing for decades). [0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/25/renewable-energy-breaks-uk-record-in-first-quarter-of-2020 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/25/renewable-e...
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    Electricity is only around 15-20% of a countrys energy usage.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      Electric vehicles will change that.
      - ThomPete 6y ago
        no they wont as they will need their energy from coal, gas, oil and nuclear to be able to be charged
  - natmaka 6y ago
    In Europe the share of renewable energy consumption in gross final energy consumption is booming: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/refreshTableAction.do?tab=table&plugin=1&pcode=sdg_07_40&language=en https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/refreshTableAction.do?tab=...
- bigphishy 6y ago
  Renewables accounted for nearly 25% of all energy generated in the US in 2020. https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/07/renewables-reach-new-high-provide-25-of-u-s-electricity-in-first-five-months-of-2020/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/07/renewables-rea... and here are the statistics to back that up https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_es1a https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
  - ThomPete 6y ago
    You are confusing energy with electricity. It's a common mistake and it's used by the "green" energy companies to paint a rosy but unrealistic picture of renewables. Why do you think california is having their issues. Electricity is only a subset of our energy usage (around 20%) and out of that wind and solar is only a small part. Hydro is much bigger.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      Primary energy includes waste heat so it's a pretty useless metric. If 50% of the energy in a coal plant turns into heat then a 1GW coal plant will generate 2GW of primary energy. Is that primary energy useful? It can be if you build district heating but even district heating won't need that much excess energy. How about cars? Most ICE engines are less than 40% efficient. If you charge an EV with renewables it will consume 2.5 times less primary energy. Renewables look small in primary energy comparisons because they are less wasteful.
      - ThomPete 6y ago
        no they look small because they are small.
gwright 6y ago
Can you purchase grid scale storage batteries? I don't think so and so the old ways of thinking are pretty important right now if you don't want rolling blackouts.
- flukus 6y ago
  Not sure about purchase but you can build them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve Not only was it quick and cheap to build but it turns a good profit.
  - sagarm 6y ago
    The Tesla deployment in Australia is a good example of how lithium is possibly one of the best grid stabilization technologies out there. However, this particular market was apparently paying exorbitant rates for grid stabilization services before Tesla swooped in, so other grids wouldn't see cost savings that are as large.

dasudasu 6y ago

Vanadium redox batteries are looking pretty good as an alternative to lithium for large-scale energy storage.

ThomPete 6y ago

Solar and wind today doesn't deliver more than 1% of the world energy consumption. We are as close to fusion as we are to the kind of fuel cells that would be needed for that. Furthermore solar+storage doesn't do industrial grade energy needs. The heat thats needed ex.

dane-pgp 6y ago
> Solar and wind today doesn't deliver more than 1% of the world energy consumption. That's an interesting statistic, but the topic of the article is electricity in the UK not energy use in the world. A more useful statistic would be this: "The government’s official data has revealed that renewable energy made up 47% of the UK’s electricity generation in the first three months of the year, smashing the previous quarterly record of 39% set last year."[0] It's true that doesn't include the energy used by gas heating systems or fuel used by vehicles, for example, but to bring those into consideration it would be helpful to know how quickly heating systems and vehicles are being replaced by electric equivalents (increasing the load on the grid, although per capita energy consumption in the UK has been decreasing for decades). [0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/25/renewable-energy-breaks-uk-record-in-first-quarter-of-2020 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/25/renewable-e...
- ThomPete 6y ago
  Electricity is only around 15-20% of a countrys energy usage.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Electric vehicles will change that.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      no they wont as they will need their energy from coal, gas, oil and nuclear to be able to be charged
- natmaka 6y ago
  In Europe the share of renewable energy consumption in gross final energy consumption is booming: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/refreshTableAction.do?tab=table&plugin=1&pcode=sdg_07_40&language=en https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/refreshTableAction.do?tab=...
bigphishy 6y ago
Renewables accounted for nearly 25% of all energy generated in the US in 2020. https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/07/renewables-reach-new-high-provide-25-of-u-s-electricity-in-first-five-months-of-2020/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/07/renewables-rea... and here are the statistics to back that up https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_es1a https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
- ThomPete 6y ago
  You are confusing energy with electricity. It's a common mistake and it's used by the "green" energy companies to paint a rosy but unrealistic picture of renewables. Why do you think california is having their issues. Electricity is only a subset of our energy usage (around 20%) and out of that wind and solar is only a small part. Hydro is much bigger.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Primary energy includes waste heat so it's a pretty useless metric. If 50% of the energy in a coal plant turns into heat then a 1GW coal plant will generate 2GW of primary energy. Is that primary energy useful? It can be if you build district heating but even district heating won't need that much excess energy. How about cars? Most ICE engines are less than 40% efficient. If you charge an EV with renewables it will consume 2.5 times less primary energy. Renewables look small in primary energy comparisons because they are less wasteful.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      no they look small because they are small.

gwright 6y ago

Can you purchase grid scale storage batteries? I don't think so and so the old ways of thinking are pretty important right now if you don't want rolling blackouts.

flukus 6y ago
Not sure about purchase but you can build them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve Not only was it quick and cheap to build but it turns a good profit.
- sagarm 6y ago
  The Tesla deployment in Australia is a good example of how lithium is possibly one of the best grid stabilization technologies out there. However, this particular market was apparently paying exorbitant rates for grid stabilization services before Tesla swooped in, so other grids wouldn't see cost savings that are as large.