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Only a negligible fraction of the storage that will be built will be batteries, so talking about batteries is just blowing smoke. Storage cost is falling even

by ncmncm 4y ago

Only a negligible fraction of the storage that will be built will be batteries, so talking about batteries is just blowing smoke. Storage cost is falling even faster than renewables cost ever did. There are many different storage options. Each place will adopt the mix of them that makes sense for that place. Until new renewable generating capacity no longer displaces carbon emission, spending on storage would be stupid.

epistasis 4y ago
I disagree, we are in the hundreds of GWh/year of lithium ion production now, and it grows 10x roughly every five years. It's unlikely that any other storage tech can build supply chains quickly enough to compete with that growth. I certainly don't see pumped hydro doing this, unless we can stop relying on geography and construction projects. To make pumped hydro economical we would need something like spheres bolted to the ocean/lake floors, that pump water out and in for storage. And the materials costs for that are not falling in the same way as chemical storage.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Yet, the material cost for such a sphere, today, would be much less than for the equivalent amount of batteries, even at projected prices. It would only ever experience compressive force, which unreinforced concrete is very good at. Lithium is a poor choice for stationary storage, and competing with growth of electric car usage would be bad policy. Probably molten-metal batteries will turn out better for utility use, where you must have batteries. But there are a lot of other choices besides batteries and pumped hydro.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    On the prices, I haven't heard much optimistic news, the last I heard was at best, parity with current lithium ion prices: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544217308733 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605... But that was five years ago, and as a manufactured product perhaps they can achieve better pricing over time. Lithium ion has no disadvantages for stationary storage, and it has one absolutely massive advantage: there are lots of higher-margin uses driving production scales up, and manufacturing costs down. If the dropping price of lithium ion batteries suddenly opens up new markets that are so huge, that demand can not be met, prices plateau for a long time, then I hope that other technologies can catch up. But as it is I see little chance for other chemistries or technologies to scale to match lithium ion in the near term future. I'm perhaps hopeful for iron-air batteries from Form Energy, but that's only because their management team has lots of hot shots, and not as much because they have an innate technical advantage. At this point in time, execution is everything, and there's precious few people with the executive capacity and the names that would allow them to attract sufficient capital to compete with the lithium ion juggernauts. (I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong. And I have been proven wrong on my skeptical tech takes in the past, so I know I'm not invincible here.)
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      A storage medium that does not tend to burst into flame emitting vaporized Drano would be a much better choice to pack together by the hundreds of tons. Iron-air is one such chemistry. Liquid metal is another. But the future is in non-battery storage.

by ncmncm 4y ago

epistasis 4y ago

I disagree, we are in the hundreds of GWh/year of lithium ion production now, and it grows 10x roughly every five years. It's unlikely that any other storage tech can build supply chains quickly enough to compete with that growth. I certainly don't see pumped hydro doing this, unless we can stop relying on geography and construction projects. To make pumped hydro economical we would need something like spheres bolted to the ocean/lake floors, that pump water out and in for storage. And the materials costs for that are not falling in the same way as chemical storage.

ncmncm 4y ago
Yet, the material cost for such a sphere, today, would be much less than for the equivalent amount of batteries, even at projected prices. It would only ever experience compressive force, which unreinforced concrete is very good at. Lithium is a poor choice for stationary storage, and competing with growth of electric car usage would be bad policy. Probably molten-metal batteries will turn out better for utility use, where you must have batteries. But there are a lot of other choices besides batteries and pumped hydro.
- epistasis 4y ago
  On the prices, I haven't heard much optimistic news, the last I heard was at best, parity with current lithium ion prices: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544217308733 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605... But that was five years ago, and as a manufactured product perhaps they can achieve better pricing over time. Lithium ion has no disadvantages for stationary storage, and it has one absolutely massive advantage: there are lots of higher-margin uses driving production scales up, and manufacturing costs down. If the dropping price of lithium ion batteries suddenly opens up new markets that are so huge, that demand can not be met, prices plateau for a long time, then I hope that other technologies can catch up. But as it is I see little chance for other chemistries or technologies to scale to match lithium ion in the near term future. I'm perhaps hopeful for iron-air batteries from Form Energy, but that's only because their management team has lots of hot shots, and not as much because they have an innate technical advantage. At this point in time, execution is everything, and there's precious few people with the executive capacity and the names that would allow them to attract sufficient capital to compete with the lithium ion juggernauts. (I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong. And I have been proven wrong on my skeptical tech takes in the past, so I know I'm not invincible here.)
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    A storage medium that does not tend to burst into flame emitting vaporized Drano would be a much better choice to pack together by the hundreds of tons. Iron-air is one such chemistry. Liquid metal is another. But the future is in non-battery storage.