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> The amount of proposed solar and wind and battery projects in the United States at the end of 2021 was 1000s of time larger than the amount of proposed nuclea

by IMTDb 4y ago

> The amount of proposed solar and wind and battery projects in the United States at the end of 2021 was 1000s of time larger than the amount of proposed nuclear power projects. Your article links to capacity not effective production when customer needs it. The issue with electricity production resides in being able to reliably produce electricity when customer needs it, not when planet aligns for [insert preferred electricity production method]. It's great to say "I can produce 100Gw of green electricity", but if I ask you "Give me 30GW now" and you tell me "Best I can do now is 5GW, there are clouds in the sky", I'll kindly ask you to shut up about your "100GW capacity". As the recent price hikes in Europe have shown, the prices paid by customers is dictated by the cost of the most expensive megawatts. Solar and wind have not suddenly become pricier, but gas has. And as a consequence, prices paid by customers have increased proportionally. Batteries might seem like a good answer, but basic physics shows us that it is not remotely doable on a large scale, if we want to guarantee reliable supply. The energy density simply isn't there.

jeffbee 4y ago
Please explain said "basic physics". I'll wait. California is building battery storage at a rate of ~2500MW/year. There are ZERO physics problems standing in the way of this. And there is considerable innovation in fixed batteries like iron-air flow batteries, ones that exist and aren't just VC scams like most of the nuclear stuff. https://www.energy-storage.news/california-utility-pge-proposes-1-6gw-6-4gwh-of-new-battery-storage-across-nine-projects/ https://www.energy-storage.news/california-utility-pge-propo...
- IMTDb 4y ago
  Basic physics 101. The US produced 4 10^9 MWh in 2017 [1] That's roughly 11 10^6 MWh / day or 11 10^12 Wh /day So to power 50% of the US for half a day, we need : 11 10^12 Wh /day * 0.5 day * 0.5 = 2.75 10^12 Wh = 275 10^10 Wh The energy storage of a Lithium Ion battery is roughly 270 Wh / kg [2], let's round this up to 275, I am feeling nice here. This means we need : 275 10^10 Wh / 275 Wh / kg = 1 * 10^10 kg of Lithium Ion batteries. That's 10 million tons of batteries The total reserve of lithium for the whole world are roughly 20 million tons [3] The US cannot claim half the total worldwide lithium reserve to give batteries for half a day for half their population. It does not work like this. [1] https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/energy-storage-2019 https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/energy-storage-2019 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1253739/lithium-reserves-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1253739/lithium-reserves...
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    You do know that lithium is just a few percent of the mass of a lithium-ion battery, right? Also, I didn't realize that Li-ion batteries were the only conceivable energy storage technology.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Ah, so the basic physics problems are twofold: 1) You don't know how little lithium is contained in a li-ion battery cell; and 2) You don't know that li-ion is less than half the global battery market.
    - IMTDb 4y ago
      You are right, I double checked. 275 10^10 Wh are needed as per my comment above and there is 160g of Lithium in a battery per kWh of capacity [1] 275 10^10 Wh = 275 10^7 kWh => 275 10^7 kW * 160 g / kWh = 45375 10^7 g = 453 750 tons This is far less than half the resources of the planet, but it's still a non negligible 1/40. To power half the American, for half a day, assuming that we willing to mine all the Lithium on earth, and assuming we don't need Lithium anywhere else the supply chain (hello solar panels !), and disregarding that the rest of the batteries are also using some valuable metals / rare earth (We will still need those 20 millions tons of batteries, that part is correct, they just won't be made of Lithium alone !) As you can see, Lithium-Ion batteries are not remotely sustainable if they aim to help replace the baseline production that is currently provided by fossil/nuclear with intermittent renewable. They can only be considered at the top of the curve to help renewable manage the peak power, where their ability shine and where the total needs are far, far lower. Other battery type do exist, I am willing to admit that, but grand parent projects all involve Lithium Ion batteries....because the other types are even less economically practical (more loss, less energy density, ...). Rechargeable batteries (Lithium Ion or otherwise) are perfectly fin to store intermittent energy. They just aren't remotely practical to run an entire country off their output, which is why we leverage "natural batteries" aka: fuel (plutonium, oil, coal or otherwise). [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-lithium-li-ion-vehicle-battery-paul-martin/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-lithium-li-ion-vehic...

by IMTDb 4y ago

jeffbee 4y ago

Please explain said "basic physics". I'll wait. California is building battery storage at a rate of ~2500MW/year. There are ZERO physics problems standing in the way of this. And there is considerable innovation in fixed batteries like iron-air flow batteries, ones that exist and aren't just VC scams like most of the nuclear stuff. https://www.energy-storage.news/california-utility-pge-proposes-1-6gw-6-4gwh-of-new-battery-storage-across-nine-projects/ https://www.energy-storage.news/california-utility-pge-propo...

IMTDb 4y ago
Basic physics 101. The US produced 4 10^9 MWh in 2017 [1] That's roughly 11 10^6 MWh / day or 11 10^12 Wh /day So to power 50% of the US for half a day, we need : 11 10^12 Wh /day * 0.5 day * 0.5 = 2.75 10^12 Wh = 275 10^10 Wh The energy storage of a Lithium Ion battery is roughly 270 Wh / kg [2], let's round this up to 275, I am feeling nice here. This means we need : 275 10^10 Wh / 275 Wh / kg = 1 * 10^10 kg of Lithium Ion batteries. That's 10 million tons of batteries The total reserve of lithium for the whole world are roughly 20 million tons [3] The US cannot claim half the total worldwide lithium reserve to give batteries for half a day for half their population. It does not work like this. [1] https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/energy-storage-2019 https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/energy-storage-2019 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1253739/lithium-reserves-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1253739/lithium-reserves...
- pfdietz 4y ago
  You do know that lithium is just a few percent of the mass of a lithium-ion battery, right? Also, I didn't realize that Li-ion batteries were the only conceivable energy storage technology.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Ah, so the basic physics problems are twofold: 1) You don't know how little lithium is contained in a li-ion battery cell; and 2) You don't know that li-ion is less than half the global battery market.
  - IMTDb 4y ago
    You are right, I double checked. 275 10^10 Wh are needed as per my comment above and there is 160g of Lithium in a battery per kWh of capacity [1] 275 10^10 Wh = 275 10^7 kWh => 275 10^7 kW * 160 g / kWh = 45375 10^7 g = 453 750 tons This is far less than half the resources of the planet, but it's still a non negligible 1/40. To power half the American, for half a day, assuming that we willing to mine all the Lithium on earth, and assuming we don't need Lithium anywhere else the supply chain (hello solar panels !), and disregarding that the rest of the batteries are also using some valuable metals / rare earth (We will still need those 20 millions tons of batteries, that part is correct, they just won't be made of Lithium alone !) As you can see, Lithium-Ion batteries are not remotely sustainable if they aim to help replace the baseline production that is currently provided by fossil/nuclear with intermittent renewable. They can only be considered at the top of the curve to help renewable manage the peak power, where their ability shine and where the total needs are far, far lower. Other battery type do exist, I am willing to admit that, but grand parent projects all involve Lithium Ion batteries....because the other types are even less economically practical (more loss, less energy density, ...). Rechargeable batteries (Lithium Ion or otherwise) are perfectly fin to store intermittent energy. They just aren't remotely practical to run an entire country off their output, which is why we leverage "natural batteries" aka: fuel (plutonium, oil, coal or otherwise). [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-lithium-li-ion-vehicle-battery-paul-martin/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-lithium-li-ion-vehic...