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> the mining problem, the scalability problem, the toxicity problem, etc These are all trivial compared to nuclear's construction problem. But I've never hear

> the mining problem, the scalability problem, the toxicity problem, etc These are all trivial compared to nuclear's construction problem. But I've never heard that batteries are not "scalable," when they are actually one of the most incredibly scalable technologies out there. Want a few watt hours? No problem. Want 10GWh? No problem. Want to distribute a MWh at every distribution station across a country? No problem. Batteries scale as small or large as we can conceive. > atrocious rare earth batteries There aren't rare earth elements in batteries. It's been funny to watch "rare earth" become a synonym for "harmful" because this does not seem to have any basis in fact that I can understand. > coal isn't going anywhere Coal is already a dead man walking. Most of its use in the US is uneconomic, and loses money for utility customers. Bad financial agreements, executive incompetence, and misaligned economic incentives between utilities and their customers are the only reason its still on the grid. Everybody who bet on coal 10 years ago was foolish, and should lose their capital, but since that section of our economy is run on cronyism instead of capitalism, people bad at capital allocation are not losing their shirts like they should.

WA 5y ago
Even more weird: most people think rare earth is rare as in: "there isn’t a lot in the ground and it is easily depleted". Whereas in reality, rare earth means that it is less common per cubic meter of earth than other minerals. But there is plenty.
- epistasis 5y ago
  Yes, this is all important information to know. The best I can understand is that "rare earths" became associated with dependence on China (not true), which led to people being against rare earths in general. But it's tough to figure out what's going on with people's opinion on the matter, I still don't know what I said in my comment above yours that was so disagreeable.
- saati 5y ago
  It actually means it doesn't form many minerals worth to mine, they aren't rare on average per volume.
panick21 5y ago
> But I've never heard that batteries are not "scalable," when they are actually one of the most incredibly scalable technologies out there. Want a few watt hours? No problem. Want 10GWh? No problem. Want to distribute a MWh at every distribution station across a country? No problem. Its actually massively difficult challenge both from a production and supply chain perspective. Lithium itself plentiful but getting it into the battery is a long way. Its more like specialty chemicals, even the 'Lithium majors' have had massive problems getting new plants online and producing high quality lithium. Battery plants are incredibly complex mass manufacturing operations and even small manufacturing problems can leave to burning cars. Scaling these is very difficult and only a few companies are really producing lithium batteries at scale. Lithium batteries in Grid operation have never been deployed at '10GWh' so if it was 'no problem' then somebody might have done it. The challenge of producing enough batteries (and renewables), lithium or otherwise to have a 100% reliable electricity grid (even if there are 2 weeks without wind) is gigantic and to me it actually seems far harder then just building nuclear plants. > Coal is already a dead man walking. Look at China, India and Indonesia and then rethink your statement. It just so happens that US and Western Europe are not the only places in the world.

WA 5y ago

Even more weird: most people think rare earth is rare as in: "there isn’t a lot in the ground and it is easily depleted". Whereas in reality, rare earth means that it is less common per cubic meter of earth than other minerals. But there is plenty.

epistasis 5y ago
Yes, this is all important information to know. The best I can understand is that "rare earths" became associated with dependence on China (not true), which led to people being against rare earths in general. But it's tough to figure out what's going on with people's opinion on the matter, I still don't know what I said in my comment above yours that was so disagreeable.
saati 5y ago
It actually means it doesn't form many minerals worth to mine, they aren't rare on average per volume.

panick21 5y ago

> But I've never heard that batteries are not "scalable," when they are actually one of the most incredibly scalable technologies out there. Want a few watt hours? No problem. Want 10GWh? No problem. Want to distribute a MWh at every distribution station across a country? No problem. Its actually massively difficult challenge both from a production and supply chain perspective. Lithium itself plentiful but getting it into the battery is a long way. Its more like specialty chemicals, even the 'Lithium majors' have had massive problems getting new plants online and producing high quality lithium. Battery plants are incredibly complex mass manufacturing operations and even small manufacturing problems can leave to burning cars. Scaling these is very difficult and only a few companies are really producing lithium batteries at scale. Lithium batteries in Grid operation have never been deployed at '10GWh' so if it was 'no problem' then somebody might have done it. The challenge of producing enough batteries (and renewables), lithium or otherwise to have a 100% reliable electricity grid (even if there are 2 weeks without wind) is gigantic and to me it actually seems far harder then just building nuclear plants. > Coal is already a dead man walking. Look at China, India and Indonesia and then rethink your statement. It just so happens that US and Western Europe are not the only places in the world.