3 ms·
> We only need about 3 hours worth of storage This doesn't align with the analysis that I've seen. For example in this post (https://www.manhattancontrarian.c
by gwright 5y ago
> We only need about 3 hours worth of storage
This doesn't align with the analysis that I've seen. For example in this post (https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/the-disastrous-economics-of-trying-to-power https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/the-disastrous-economics...) the analysis shows that California would have to spend about $5 trillion on battery storage to have a solar+wind+battery grid.
If the book you reference was accurate we would be seeing headlines about power companies
bragging about these new grid arrangements but instead I just see headlines about how India an China are moving ahead with enormous amounts of coal power plants, rapidly increasing energy costs where intermittent power generation is a significant fraction of power capacity (i.e. Germany), and power outages when base load generating capacity isn't sufficient to keep the lights on when the sun sets and the wind dies.
- missedthecue 5y agoIs there even enough lithium on earth for global grid storage, nevermind electric vehicles?
- fukpaywalls2 5y agostationary batteries do not need to be from lithium. please search for iron or rust batteries.
- RobertoG 5y agoThere is a good chance that batteries for grid storage will be from different technologies than lithium. For instance: https://ambri.com/ https://ambri.com/
- thomasmg 5y agoYes. Worst case, lithium can be extracted from seawater: https://electrek.co/2021/06/04/scientists-have-cost-effectively-harvested-lithium-from-seawater/ https://electrek.co/2021/06/04/scientists-have-cost-effectiv... - but it's currently cheaper to get it from somewhere else. And lithium can be recycled. In the near future, I think most cars will use LFP batteries.
- cinntaile 5y ago> Due to seasonality of the availability of the wind and sun, most locations require a month or more of battery capacityto get a fully-wind/solar system through a year. Yeah if their assumptions include a month or more then you can end up with an astronomically big sum. Also you don't need batteries for all your energy storage and they use todays battery prices to come up with that number.