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> but we still don't have any scalable technology for storing weeks worth of energy Why would we need to store weeks worth of energy? Wouldn't a more realistic
by cesarb 5y ago
> but we still don't have any scalable technology for storing weeks worth of energy
Why would we need to store weeks worth of energy? Wouldn't a more realistic amount be just a couple of days, or even less?
- throwaway894345 5y agoYou have to account for increasingly frequent continent-scale weather patterns which can last for weeks in extreme cases. "Weeks" is a figure I heard a few times in the media, but even "days" is a herculean task considering we're presently at "minutes" or worse. Note also that part of solving for emissions means "electrifying more applications" which means it's not sufficient to store days or weeks of today's energy demands, but rather days or weeks of future energy demands which will be much higher (e.g., today our entire transport industry isn't electrified--in the future our grid will need to supply the energy to move cars and trucks and trains which means the overall demand is much larger and consequently we'll have greater storage demands).