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I think that natural gas plants will be a significant part of power grids for a long time. Maybe they will not be primary generators, but they certainly will st

by fuoqi 5y ago

I think that natural gas plants will be a significant part of power grids for a long time. Maybe they will not be primary generators, but they certainly will stay as backup. At the very least until the grid-scale storage problem will be properly solved (i.e. you need to store at least several days of consumption, ideally several weeks). I don't think that any kind of chemical batteries is the solution to this problem. Personally, I hope that hydro pumped storage in artificial underground cavities will become mainstream one day.

sofixa 5y ago
> Personally, I hope that hydro pumped storage in artificial underground cavities will become mainstream one day. That would have massive (environmental and financial) costs. https://youtu.be/JSgd-QhLHRI https://youtu.be/JSgd-QhLHRI Is a great video discussing the practicality and finances involved in hydro pumped storage.
- fuoqi 5y ago
  Have you missed the underground part? Ideally both reservoirs would be kept underground, thus minimizing environmental impact and water loss to an absolute minimum. I agree that such storage would require huge CapEx, but on the bright side OpEx will be relatively small. And no need to bother with recycling of megatonnes of batteries every decade. Also because stored energy is proportional to volume and height difference you it's possible scale such storage quite flexibly (assuming an affordable technology for creating such cavities will be developed).
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > Have you missed the underground part? Ideally both reservoirs would be kept underground, thus minimizing environmental impact and water loss to an absolute minimum. Nope, but you still need to dig a lot in rocks, and divert water to fill up the reservoir in the first place, which aren't without environmental consequences. Furthermore, as the video i linked explains, you need very specific conditions for pumped up hydro to be viable (size, height, water, etc.) which IMHO makes it a non-starter in many places.

by fuoqi 5y ago

sofixa 5y ago

> Personally, I hope that hydro pumped storage in artificial underground cavities will become mainstream one day. That would have massive (environmental and financial) costs. https://youtu.be/JSgd-QhLHRI https://youtu.be/JSgd-QhLHRI Is a great video discussing the practicality and finances involved in hydro pumped storage.

fuoqi 5y ago
Have you missed the underground part? Ideally both reservoirs would be kept underground, thus minimizing environmental impact and water loss to an absolute minimum. I agree that such storage would require huge CapEx, but on the bright side OpEx will be relatively small. And no need to bother with recycling of megatonnes of batteries every decade. Also because stored energy is proportional to volume and height difference you it's possible scale such storage quite flexibly (assuming an affordable technology for creating such cavities will be developed).
- sofixa 5y ago
  > Have you missed the underground part? Ideally both reservoirs would be kept underground, thus minimizing environmental impact and water loss to an absolute minimum. Nope, but you still need to dig a lot in rocks, and divert water to fill up the reservoir in the first place, which aren't without environmental consequences. Furthermore, as the video i linked explains, you need very specific conditions for pumped up hydro to be viable (size, height, water, etc.) which IMHO makes it a non-starter in many places.