3 ms·

Because people correctly point out that if you had literally 100% solar (or near it) the amount of battery you would need is of completely impractical scale in

Because people correctly point out that if you had literally 100% solar (or near it) the amount of battery you would need is of completely impractical scale in even the medium term future. More reasonable approaches would include many massive lakes with pumped hydro stations. I personally think it is entirely possible but the scale of the operation is a massive undertaking similar to the sum total of fossil fuel extraction infrastructure built up over the last 100 years. We are talking trillion dollar scale. Can the USA summon the political will to do it fast? Probably not. Building more nuclear power plants for base load is probably easier.

sytse 5y ago
You need to overbuild solar with a factor of 5 to get to a practical amount of batteries. See https://twitter.com/sytses/status/1441605024887427073?s=21 https://twitter.com/sytses/status/1441605024887427073?s=21 One side benefit of that is that energy will be free 90% of the time. Great for carbon extraction and desalination.
- bigfudge 5y ago
  That presumably ignores the fact that other industries would adapt to respond to energy that was essentially free for even shorter periods. The economics of heavy industries might change if the energy input was free for 3 hours a day (e.g. offsetting great capital spend to overbuild infrastructure there).
- Ajedi32 5y ago
  Overbuilding by 5x means you also need to multiply the cost by 5x. Is solar still cheaper than nuclear once you factor that in? (Not to mention the cost of energy storage.)
  - pydry 5y ago
    In Iceland probably not, in Hawaii hell yes.
- mrep 5y ago
  Has he never heard of power to gas [0]? We already have lots of storage and generators for natural gas. I doubt you'd need more than twice the capacity using power to gas. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas
pfdietz 5y ago
The usual con to get to the conclusion you reached is to assume batteries are used to get to 100% renewables. But batteries are terrible for long term storage and rare event backup, so this is just bad engineering. Batteries + hydrogen does much better in most places, especially at high latitude.
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  And hydrogen comes with it's own challenges, as a large % of energy is lost in the conversion to and from. This multiplies how much solar you need appreciably. There is no easy solution here, many hard ones. We can do it but need to be willing to do that hard/expensive work.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Most of the hydrogen produced would, anyway, be used immediately in industry, excepting only when the storage tanks need topping off. The electrolyzers would never, ever be idle. We need the hydrogen regardless, so its usefulness to store surplus energy besides is a bonus.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    Yes, hydrogen comes with its own challenges, but batteries and hydrogen are synergistic. Each covers the weak point of the other. Most of the energy stored goes through batteries (efficiency), while most of the energy storage capacity is in hydrogen (capital cost). So the system ends up being cheaper. You do not actually increase the needed generation all that much, because most of the stored energy is still going through batteries, not hydrogen. And in particular, unlike the only-battery solution you don't need to ludicrously use batteries for seasonal energy storage or rare event backup.

sytse 5y ago

You need to overbuild solar with a factor of 5 to get to a practical amount of batteries. See https://twitter.com/sytses/status/1441605024887427073?s=21 https://twitter.com/sytses/status/1441605024887427073?s=21 One side benefit of that is that energy will be free 90% of the time. Great for carbon extraction and desalination.

bigfudge 5y ago
That presumably ignores the fact that other industries would adapt to respond to energy that was essentially free for even shorter periods. The economics of heavy industries might change if the energy input was free for 3 hours a day (e.g. offsetting great capital spend to overbuild infrastructure there).
Ajedi32 5y ago
Overbuilding by 5x means you also need to multiply the cost by 5x. Is solar still cheaper than nuclear once you factor that in? (Not to mention the cost of energy storage.)
- pydry 5y ago
  In Iceland probably not, in Hawaii hell yes.
mrep 5y ago
Has he never heard of power to gas [0]? We already have lots of storage and generators for natural gas. I doubt you'd need more than twice the capacity using power to gas. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas

pfdietz 5y ago

The usual con to get to the conclusion you reached is to assume batteries are used to get to 100% renewables. But batteries are terrible for long term storage and rare event backup, so this is just bad engineering. Batteries + hydrogen does much better in most places, especially at high latitude.

gameswithgo 5y ago
And hydrogen comes with it's own challenges, as a large % of energy is lost in the conversion to and from. This multiplies how much solar you need appreciably. There is no easy solution here, many hard ones. We can do it but need to be willing to do that hard/expensive work.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Most of the hydrogen produced would, anyway, be used immediately in industry, excepting only when the storage tanks need topping off. The electrolyzers would never, ever be idle. We need the hydrogen regardless, so its usefulness to store surplus energy besides is a bonus.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  Yes, hydrogen comes with its own challenges, but batteries and hydrogen are synergistic. Each covers the weak point of the other. Most of the energy stored goes through batteries (efficiency), while most of the energy storage capacity is in hydrogen (capital cost). So the system ends up being cheaper. You do not actually increase the needed generation all that much, because most of the stored energy is still going through batteries, not hydrogen. And in particular, unlike the only-battery solution you don't need to ludicrously use batteries for seasonal energy storage or rare event backup.