6 ms·

Assuming there aren't economies of scale. Demand for solar had gone way up in recent decades (e.g. in germany, before it was cheap), and the price subsequently

Assuming there aren't economies of scale. Demand for solar had gone way up in recent decades (e.g. in germany, before it was cheap), and the price subsequently went down.

mlyle 6y ago
It's not clear batteries will do the same. While there's been effort to make batteries less reliant on scarce natural resources and mining, there's no guarantee we really get there. If we don't, price can be expected to go up, not down, with scale. I would bet on price going down slightly with scale, but one can't really tell now what will happen: it might go up a lot, it might go down a lot, or it might stay flat.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  There are thousands of different chemistries for batteries. The nuclear stans are betting that all of them fail.
  - Manfredo_1 6y ago
    None of those other battery chemistries are seeing the massive growth that lithium ion batteries have experienced. The nuclear "stans" are just pointing out that these are potential solutions, not actual solutions. If iron oxide batteries, or some other chemistry, suddenly becomes cheap and easily deployed at the TWh scale, great. But until then they're not a solution.
    - pfdietz 6y ago
      Yes, you all are engaging in the "nothing can be invented" argument. It's profoundly reactionary, and also hypocritical, because nuclear itself is dead without great improvement. Uranium quickly runs out if the world is powered by burner reactors and known uranium resources, so either massive seawater uranium extraction or breeding cycles would be needed. Batteries have the advantage of being explorable at a small scale. Now that the potential market has become so clear this is happening, in many companies.
      - Manfredo_1 6y ago
        It's not "nothing can be invented". It's "come back to me after it's invented, not before". And uranium seawater extraction already exists: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-s... It's more expensive than mined uranium, but since fissile material is so energy-dense that increase in fuel cost amounts to hardly any change in overall cost.
        pfdietz 6y ago
        LOL. Hydrogen storage is much more invented than seawater uranium extraction. All the components are close to off the shelf; it's just a matter of putting them together (and for the CO2 tax to be high enough to make it worthwhile). Seawater uranium extraction is at a much lower TRL (technology readiness level). This is an excellent example of your hypocritical double standards on this subject.
        Manfredo_1 6y ago
        Name one hydrogen electric grid storage facility. Not prototypes, but actual commercial facilities connected to the grid. You insist that hydrogen is so technically ready, yet nobody is using it.
        pfdietz 6y ago
        I will repeat the reply I gave elsewhere to this argument: Dude. You are falling back to the "if it isn't already being done, it can't be done" argument. Please stop this foolishness. Hydrogen is being stored in a few places. That the storage isn't larger isn't because of any technical obstacles, it's because there's no reason to store it now. In particular, when we can burn natural gas without CO2 charges, using the hydrogen for energy storage is pointless. This doesn't mean hydrogen CAN'T be stored, it just means the market conditions for widespread adoption of an off-the-self technology aren't there yet.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      There is very little demand for grid storage. The biggest problem with energy storage is that it's a red herring until the 30s and 40s.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    These discussions are always super boring. There are dozens of technologies that can scale to the level needed but everyone goes goes lithium ion and pumped hydro as if everything else didn't exist. Sure cell batteries might not work, we can try out flow batteries, we can try liquid metal batteries, we can try hydraulic hydro storage, we can try out hydrogen, we can try compressed air, we can try electrolyzing iron or aluminum, we can try another dozen different things and it is highly likely that at least 3 will work out just fine.

Assuming there aren't economies of scale. Demand for solar had gone way up in recent decades (e.g. in germany, before it was cheap), and the price subsequently went down.

mlyle 6y ago

It's not clear batteries will do the same. While there's been effort to make batteries less reliant on scarce natural resources and mining, there's no guarantee we really get there. If we don't, price can be expected to go up, not down, with scale. I would bet on price going down slightly with scale, but one can't really tell now what will happen: it might go up a lot, it might go down a lot, or it might stay flat.

pfdietz 6y ago
There are thousands of different chemistries for batteries. The nuclear stans are betting that all of them fail.
- Manfredo_1 6y ago
  None of those other battery chemistries are seeing the massive growth that lithium ion batteries have experienced. The nuclear "stans" are just pointing out that these are potential solutions, not actual solutions. If iron oxide batteries, or some other chemistry, suddenly becomes cheap and easily deployed at the TWh scale, great. But until then they're not a solution.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    Yes, you all are engaging in the "nothing can be invented" argument. It's profoundly reactionary, and also hypocritical, because nuclear itself is dead without great improvement. Uranium quickly runs out if the world is powered by burner reactors and known uranium resources, so either massive seawater uranium extraction or breeding cycles would be needed. Batteries have the advantage of being explorable at a small scale. Now that the potential market has become so clear this is happening, in many companies.
    - Manfredo_1 6y ago
      It's not "nothing can be invented". It's "come back to me after it's invented, not before". And uranium seawater extraction already exists: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-s... It's more expensive than mined uranium, but since fissile material is so energy-dense that increase in fuel cost amounts to hardly any change in overall cost.
      - pfdietz 6y ago
        LOL. Hydrogen storage is much more invented than seawater uranium extraction. All the components are close to off the shelf; it's just a matter of putting them together (and for the CO2 tax to be high enough to make it worthwhile). Seawater uranium extraction is at a much lower TRL (technology readiness level). This is an excellent example of your hypocritical double standards on this subject.
        Manfredo_1 6y ago
        Name one hydrogen electric grid storage facility. Not prototypes, but actual commercial facilities connected to the grid. You insist that hydrogen is so technically ready, yet nobody is using it.
        pfdietz 6y ago
        I will repeat the reply I gave elsewhere to this argument: Dude. You are falling back to the "if it isn't already being done, it can't be done" argument. Please stop this foolishness. Hydrogen is being stored in a few places. That the storage isn't larger isn't because of any technical obstacles, it's because there's no reason to store it now. In particular, when we can burn natural gas without CO2 charges, using the hydrogen for energy storage is pointless. This doesn't mean hydrogen CAN'T be stored, it just means the market conditions for widespread adoption of an off-the-self technology aren't there yet.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    There is very little demand for grid storage. The biggest problem with energy storage is that it's a red herring until the 30s and 40s.
- imtringued 6y ago
  These discussions are always super boring. There are dozens of technologies that can scale to the level needed but everyone goes goes lithium ion and pumped hydro as if everything else didn't exist. Sure cell batteries might not work, we can try out flow batteries, we can try liquid metal batteries, we can try hydraulic hydro storage, we can try out hydrogen, we can try compressed air, we can try electrolyzing iron or aluminum, we can try another dozen different things and it is highly likely that at least 3 will work out just fine.