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Energy storage is the monorail of energy technology, expensive, unnecessary and conventional technologies like nuclear, hydro and geothermal is better in every
by Mrdarknezz 4y ago
Energy storage is the monorail of energy technology, expensive, unnecessary and conventional technologies like nuclear, hydro and geothermal is better in every regard.
- jandrese 4y agoNuclear has enormous political hurdles that translate into extreme project costs. Hydro and Geothermal are both geographically limited. Hydro especially is effectively tapped out at this point. You are chasing progressively less suitable locations for each install. Most of the best remaining places are far away from civilization and would require hundreds of kilometers of high tension wire to get to the nearest grid connection. Meanwhile battery prices are dropping year over year and installed capacity is still skyrocketing. Eventually the curve will level off, but we are not to the point of diminishing returns yet. Solar and Wind + Battery is shaping up to be the dominant power source of the future. It's all down to economics. Solar cells and wind turbines are not only getting cheap to buy, but once installed they require little maintenance and no ongoing fuel costs. Batteries are similarly low maintenance and the purchase price continues to drop as economies of scale and advances in technology make them cheaper and better.
- pfdietz 4y agoNuclear has screwed up its costs even with political support. The politics argument is really "people won't let us get away with papering over horrific design and construction snafus."
- Mrdarknezz 4y agoBatteries are not cheaper than nuclear.
- pfdietz 4y agoBatteries are getting cheaper quite rapidly, so don't get stuck in the dead past there.
- Mrdarknezz 4y agoBattery costs are literally rising
- pfdietz 4y agoShort term rise due to commodity prices, but shifts to LFP and other cheaper approaches will allow the dramatic long term price trend to continue. https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-to-an-average-of-132-kwh-but-rising-commodity-prices-start-to-bite/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-fall-to-an-a... If you look at PV there were similar "ah ha, costs have stopped falling!" moments in the past (mid 2000s, for example), but they didn't last long and were followed by even more dramatic cost declines. It's important not to be selective here, like climate change deniers are looking at global temperature data.
- Mrdarknezz 4y agoWell it doesn't really change the fact that batteries: 1. Doesn't scale to grid level 2. Isn't interchangeable with firm energy sources
- pfdietz 4y agoWhy don't batteries scale to grid level? I don't see how this assertion could be justified. Do you mean a specific KIND of battery? Renewables + storage certainly could provide 100% of the needs for the grid, in a properly designed system. At this point it's just a matter of quibbling over cost. Since the world could be spending upwards of a quadrillion current dollars on energy in the next century there's a hell of a lot of financial headroom to scale things up.
- Mrdarknezz 4y agoSo far there is no proven technology that scales to grid level? We are closer to achieving fusion than large scale energy storage.
- Mrdarknezz 4y agoBatteries is not an alternative to firm energy, you still need firm energy to balance the grid wether it's from nuclear/hydro/geo or fossil. That's why all decarbonized grids have hydro/nuclear as their main source of energy.