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Not just factories, also the mines that are needed to feed input materials to those factories: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/chart-lithium-pric

Not just factories, also the mines that are needed to feed input materials to those factories: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/chart-lithium-prices-are-through-the-roof-this-year https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/chart-lithium... You know what we call it when factories and raw materials can't keep up with the demand and lead to skyrocketing costs? A system that doesn't scale. DRAM and GPUs aren't bottlenecked by raw materials the way energy storage is. It was a shortage of electrical components, not a shortage of copper. It is a very wrong assumption to think that resource extractions behaves like semiconductor manufacturing.

pfdietz 4y ago
Yes, and all of those things can be scaled up. I will further say that for your argument to be correct, it must be correct not just for Li-ion batteries, but for all possible storage technologies. You have not, and indeed cannot, make that argument with any level of honesty, since you do not know the bounds of such technologies. This does not stop you from making it though, which is very sad.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  No, you can't just "scale up" mining by a factor of 1000. And yes, that's the kind of increase we'll need to make storage systems viable. I don't think you fully appreciate just how massive an undertaking it is to provide the storage required to make intermittent sources viable. It's estimated it'll take 3 weeks of storage to make intermittent sources viable: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-storage-80-percent-wind-solar/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora... By comparison, the world uses 60TWh of electricity daily. There is no realistic plan to build this amount of storage. You have not, and indeed cannot, honestly make the argument that it's within our capacity to build storage at such a scale. Hence why you point to untested storage systems like compressed air or hydrogen electrolysis. We don't know that they will scale, since we have not attempted to build them at scale. You take this absence of evidence as proof that they will scale instead of recognizing it for what it is: and absence of evidence since hardly any of these storage systems have been built. This is your pattern of commenting: you concede that the storage systems that we have built at scale don't work. Then you point to the storage systems that we haven't built at scale and assume they will work at scales dwarfing anything we've built so far. We do not have the capacity to build storage to make intermittent sources viable. You just assume that every new and untested storage system will be super cheap even when it's built by the terawatt hour. And then you call people dishonest when the point out that you're the one being dishonest about our experience with energy storage.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Your cited link, is also cited in the paper. They said that with only solar, wind, and HVDC but no batteries you could get 80% renewable. Or, with 12hr of battery but no HDVC you could get 80% renewable. And, if you used only batteries, you could get the last 20%. Which, is pretty good? They're not recommending you ignore other technologies, they're just trying to establish rough costs for simplified models. They seem to think so back in 2018 anyway: > “The fact that we could get 80 percent of our power from wind and solar alone is really encouraging,” he said. “Five years ago, many people doubted that these resources could account for more than 20 or 30 percent.” >But beyond the 80 percent mark...Options could include nuclear and hydroelectric power generation, as well as managing demand.” Here's where it gets cited in the current work (footnote 275): > Critics of 100% RE systems like to contrast solar and wind with ’firm’ energy sources like nuclear and fossil fuels (often combined with CCS) that bring their own storage. This is the key point made in some already mentioned reactions, such as those by Clack et al. [225], Trainer [226], Heard et al. [227] Jenkins et al. [228], and Caldeira et al. [275], [276]. However, while it is true that keeping a system with variable sources stable is more complex, a range of strategies can be employed that are often ignored or underutilized in critical studies: oversizing solar and wind capacities; strengthening interconnections [68], [82], [132], [143], [277], [278]; demand response [279], [172], e.g. smart electric vehicles charging using delayed charging or delivering energy back to the electricity grid via vehicle-to-grid [181], [280]–[281][282]; storage [40]–[41][42][43], [46], [83], [140], [142], such as stationary batteries; sector coupling [16], [39], [90]–[91][92], [97], [132], [216], e.g. optimizing the interaction between electricity, heat, transport, and industry; power-to-X [39], [106], [134], [176], e.g. producing hydrogen at moments when there is abundant energy; et cetera. Using all these strategies effectively to mitigate variability is where much of the cutting-edge development of 100% RE scenarios takes place. > With every iteration in the research and with every technological breakthrough in these areas, 100% RE systems become increasingly viable. Even former critics must admit that adding e-fuels through PtX makes 100% RE possible at costs similar to fossil fuels. These critics are still questioning whether 100% RE is the cheapest solution but no longer claim it would be unfeasible or prohibitively expensive.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago

pfdietz 4y ago

Yes, and all of those things can be scaled up. I will further say that for your argument to be correct, it must be correct not just for Li-ion batteries, but for all possible storage technologies. You have not, and indeed cannot, make that argument with any level of honesty, since you do not know the bounds of such technologies. This does not stop you from making it though, which is very sad.

Manuel_D 4y ago
No, you can't just "scale up" mining by a factor of 1000. And yes, that's the kind of increase we'll need to make storage systems viable. I don't think you fully appreciate just how massive an undertaking it is to provide the storage required to make intermittent sources viable. It's estimated it'll take 3 weeks of storage to make intermittent sources viable: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-storage-80-percent-wind-solar/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora... By comparison, the world uses 60TWh of electricity daily. There is no realistic plan to build this amount of storage. You have not, and indeed cannot, honestly make the argument that it's within our capacity to build storage at such a scale. Hence why you point to untested storage systems like compressed air or hydrogen electrolysis. We don't know that they will scale, since we have not attempted to build them at scale. You take this absence of evidence as proof that they will scale instead of recognizing it for what it is: and absence of evidence since hardly any of these storage systems have been built. This is your pattern of commenting: you concede that the storage systems that we have built at scale don't work. Then you point to the storage systems that we haven't built at scale and assume they will work at scales dwarfing anything we've built so far. We do not have the capacity to build storage to make intermittent sources viable. You just assume that every new and untested storage system will be super cheap even when it's built by the terawatt hour. And then you call people dishonest when the point out that you're the one being dishonest about our experience with energy storage.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Your cited link, is also cited in the paper. They said that with only solar, wind, and HVDC but no batteries you could get 80% renewable. Or, with 12hr of battery but no HDVC you could get 80% renewable. And, if you used only batteries, you could get the last 20%. Which, is pretty good? They're not recommending you ignore other technologies, they're just trying to establish rough costs for simplified models. They seem to think so back in 2018 anyway: > “The fact that we could get 80 percent of our power from wind and solar alone is really encouraging,” he said. “Five years ago, many people doubted that these resources could account for more than 20 or 30 percent.” >But beyond the 80 percent mark...Options could include nuclear and hydroelectric power generation, as well as managing demand.” Here's where it gets cited in the current work (footnote 275): > Critics of 100% RE systems like to contrast solar and wind with ’firm’ energy sources like nuclear and fossil fuels (often combined with CCS) that bring their own storage. This is the key point made in some already mentioned reactions, such as those by Clack et al. [225], Trainer [226], Heard et al. [227] Jenkins et al. [228], and Caldeira et al. [275], [276]. However, while it is true that keeping a system with variable sources stable is more complex, a range of strategies can be employed that are often ignored or underutilized in critical studies: oversizing solar and wind capacities; strengthening interconnections [68], [82], [132], [143], [277], [278]; demand response [279], [172], e.g. smart electric vehicles charging using delayed charging or delivering energy back to the electricity grid via vehicle-to-grid [181], [280]–[281][282]; storage [40]–[41][42][43], [46], [83], [140], [142], such as stationary batteries; sector coupling [16], [39], [90]–[91][92], [97], [132], [216], e.g. optimizing the interaction between electricity, heat, transport, and industry; power-to-X [39], [106], [134], [176], e.g. producing hydrogen at moments when there is abundant energy; et cetera. Using all these strategies effectively to mitigate variability is where much of the cutting-edge development of 100% RE scenarios takes place. > With every iteration in the research and with every technological breakthrough in these areas, 100% RE systems become increasingly viable. Even former critics must admit that adding e-fuels through PtX makes 100% RE possible at costs similar to fossil fuels. These critics are still questioning whether 100% RE is the cheapest solution but no longer claim it would be unfeasible or prohibitively expensive.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago