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I am personally not willing to put all the eggs into one basket, because I don't share your certainty about future course of things. We have some lessons from

I am personally not willing to put all the eggs into one basket, because I don't share your certainty about future course of things. We have some lessons from the Energiewende in Germany, which turned out much more expensive than promised. German Green minister Jürgen Trittin assured the German public in 2004 that support for renewable energies is going to cost them "one ice cream scoop per month" [0]. Which was so wildly off-mark that you can only laugh about it bitterly in 2022. Now it is possible that molten salt reactors are a waste of money, but I would still prefer having more options open for the future. Especially your idea that storage will be cheap needs to be tested in reality first. Currently, storing of electric energy is darn expensive. [0] https://de.wikiquote.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Trittin https://de.wikiquote.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Trittin Edit: instant downvote instead of counterarguments. Energy storage is still pretty expensive regardless of the # of votes (positive or negative) that this comment attracts.

ncmncm 5y ago
Storage cost is falling even faster than wind or solar did.
- alvah 5y ago
  What kind of storage? I wouldn’t bank on chemical storage technologies, at least if we want the type of reliable electrical grid that’s allowed us to develop as advanced industrial nations. Generally, reducing storage cost runs into the type of physical limits that software and silicon haven’t really encountered (yet). I wouldn’t bet against human ingenuity in the long term, but it’s not clear how the storage problem can be solved in the short-to-medium term.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    In other words, you have chosen to assume. Storage cost is plummeting for the same reasons wind and solar costs did and still are: manufacturing scale.
    - alvah 5y ago
      - ncmncm 5y ago
diffeomorphism 5y ago
That is so wildly misleading that I am counting your post as a blatant lie. The actual statement was that the "EEG Umlage" (=surcharge on the electricity bill) would cost about that much in 2004. And that was perfectly true.

ncmncm 5y ago

Storage cost is falling even faster than wind or solar did.

alvah 5y ago
What kind of storage? I wouldn’t bank on chemical storage technologies, at least if we want the type of reliable electrical grid that’s allowed us to develop as advanced industrial nations. Generally, reducing storage cost runs into the type of physical limits that software and silicon haven’t really encountered (yet). I wouldn’t bet against human ingenuity in the long term, but it’s not clear how the storage problem can be solved in the short-to-medium term.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  In other words, you have chosen to assume. Storage cost is plummeting for the same reasons wind and solar costs did and still are: manufacturing scale.
  - alvah 5y ago
    - ncmncm 5y ago

diffeomorphism 5y ago

That is so wildly misleading that I am counting your post as a blatant lie. The actual statement was that the "EEG Umlage" (=surcharge on the electricity bill) would cost about that much in 2004. And that was perfectly true.