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It is far from a solved problem, in fact it is a problem that shows the simple solutions to be infeasible. Battery prices are several orders of magnitude above

by evgen 6y ago

It is far from a solved problem, in fact it is a problem that shows the simple solutions to be infeasible. Battery prices are several orders of magnitude above where they would need to be to provide true grid-scale storage and production capacity is a fraction of what would be required for same. Pumped storage is a dead-end solution because we have simply run out of places for effective hydro and are quire soon going to run out of places where we can turn existing hydro resources into pumped storage. There is no level of investment that can magic away the storage problems of current renewables, which is why they continue to become a bigger and bigger problem as more and more production shifts in that direction.

grey-area 6y ago
> Battery prices are several orders of magnitude above where they would need to be to provide true grid-scale storage and production capacity is a fraction of what would be required for same. Thankfully prices are falling, efficiency improving, and massive battery factories are planned. The growth of EV means that will continue. Peaker plants are already being replaced with batteries. > Pumped storage is a dead-end solution because we have simply run out of places for effective hydro Nope. There is large pumped storage being built in Scotland right now and there are hundreds more glens where it would be feasible. >There is no level of investment that can magic away the storage problems of current renewables Just as one example that may well magic away these problems, grid attached storage in the form of electric cars and home storage is growing massively right now. It may be we rethink entirely our centralised approach to production and storage. Fission is expensive, centralised and carries heavy decommissioning costs and extreme tail risks. Fusion may someday give renewables a worthy rival but till then the falling prices mean nuclear has had its day.
- evgen 6y ago
  Scotland can provide, at most, less than 5% of required capacity if you turned every available loch into pumped storage. Claiming that pumped storage is in any way a viable grid-storage system that can handle baseload in the UK is inaccurate. Even if every battery production facility on the planet was dedicated entirely to producing storage batteries for the UK it would take almost half a decade to meet the requirements. You can claim that more will be built, but there are resource pipelines involved that are not as elastic and just throwing a pile of money at someone to build a factory. Battery production is growing, but nowhere near fast enough to meet the requirements for grid scale storage. Right now fission has no competition from renewables+storage because the storage part of that equation remains a fantasy.
  - grey-area 6y ago
    It doesn’t have to handle baseload, it has to handle peaks.

by evgen 6y ago

grey-area 6y ago

> Battery prices are several orders of magnitude above where they would need to be to provide true grid-scale storage and production capacity is a fraction of what would be required for same. Thankfully prices are falling, efficiency improving, and massive battery factories are planned. The growth of EV means that will continue. Peaker plants are already being replaced with batteries. > Pumped storage is a dead-end solution because we have simply run out of places for effective hydro Nope. There is large pumped storage being built in Scotland right now and there are hundreds more glens where it would be feasible. >There is no level of investment that can magic away the storage problems of current renewables Just as one example that may well magic away these problems, grid attached storage in the form of electric cars and home storage is growing massively right now. It may be we rethink entirely our centralised approach to production and storage. Fission is expensive, centralised and carries heavy decommissioning costs and extreme tail risks. Fusion may someday give renewables a worthy rival but till then the falling prices mean nuclear has had its day.

evgen 6y ago
Scotland can provide, at most, less than 5% of required capacity if you turned every available loch into pumped storage. Claiming that pumped storage is in any way a viable grid-storage system that can handle baseload in the UK is inaccurate. Even if every battery production facility on the planet was dedicated entirely to producing storage batteries for the UK it would take almost half a decade to meet the requirements. You can claim that more will be built, but there are resource pipelines involved that are not as elastic and just throwing a pile of money at someone to build a factory. Battery production is growing, but nowhere near fast enough to meet the requirements for grid scale storage. Right now fission has no competition from renewables+storage because the storage part of that equation remains a fantasy.
- grey-area 6y ago
  It doesn’t have to handle baseload, it has to handle peaks.