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Sure, you can look at completely different battery chemistries, like lead acid or iron. But so far they've all got detriments that make them less desirable than

Sure, you can look at completely different battery chemistries, like lead acid or iron. But so far they've all got detriments that make them less desirable than lithium based chemistries. Heck, you can zoom out and propose storage mechanisms other than electrochemical. That true, but again most of the talk is focused on lithium ion batteries because that's presently the most effective option.

ben_w 4y ago
> That true, but again most of the talk is focused on lithium ion batteries because that's presently the most effective option. "Most effective" varies between use cases. LiIon is fantastic for drones and personal electronics, but the reason it's used for cars is that Elon Musk is a very capable salesman and he bet on it — ten years ago, when Tesla was a cute startup but not a manufacturing behemoth, most of the talk I remember was still about hydrogen fuel cells. I think used car batteries are likely to be a significant part of the global power grid because there will be enough of them, and it's a good reuse option before they need to be fully recycled into new car batteries. If they're cheap enough to use directly in this way (and they seem to be already in some specific circumstances), great. If not, doesn't matter too much, there are too many alternatives for me to worry about it.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Recycling batteries means there's lower usable lifetime. The recycled batteries would be cheaper to source, but the more frequent replacement drives up labor costs. Recycling also doesn't alter the fundamental disparities in scale. Production needs to increase by close to two orders of magnitude to make any significant amount of grid storage. We're struggling to keep pace with just EV demand for batteries, adding just one hour of grid storage for the USA (about 500GWh) would eat up an entire year's worth of batter production. What alternatives are you talking about? The existing alternatives aren't presently being used because lithium based chemistries beats them in cost. Other storage systems like compressed air are in their infancy and it's unclear if they'll become cost effective enough. Let me re-use your logic: we don't need solar, or wind, or storage. We'll just use fusion. Fusion is making big strides each year. There's no limit to the number of ways we can squeeze together two hydrogen atoms, so if the tokamak doesn't work out there's too many alternatives for me to think about.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    > What alternatives are you talking about? The existing alternatives aren't presently being used because lithium based chemistries beats them in cost. This just isn't the case. There are many large-scale lead-acid energy storage installations.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      Where? There doesn't seem to be any listed here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_energy_storage_power_plants https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_energy_storage_power...
  - ben_w 4y ago
    > Recycling batteries means there's lower usable lifetime. Irrelevant, it's a cost reduction. > The recycled batteries would be cheaper to source, but the more frequent replacement drives up labor costs. Insignificant, and automatable. > Recycling also doesn't alter the fundamental disparities in scale. Unimportant, the scaling up is already occurring. Currently planned infrastructure gets us half way all by itself by 2030. There's no need to hypothesise about beyond that, that's a problem for investors and governments. > Production needs to increase by close to two orders of magnitude to make any significant amount of grid storage. Yes, and? > We're struggling to keep pace with just EV demand for batteries, Which is why Tesla is investing in mining and alternative chemistries. > adding just one hour of grid storage for the USA (about 500GWh) would eat up an entire year's worth of batter production. Unimportant, more factories and more mines are being built as fast as people can find investors. Assuming today's output is a constant going forward is only useful for extremely short time horizons; in this context, extremely short is in the order of 6-12 months, given how fast global capacity is changing. > What alternatives are you talking about? The existing alternatives aren't presently being used because lithium based chemistries beats them in cost. False: https://insideevs.com/news/575956/tesla-battery-chemistries-explained/ https://insideevs.com/news/575956/tesla-battery-chemistries-... > Other storage systems like compressed air are in their infancy and it's unclear if they'll become cost effective enough. Hydroelectric and hydrogen are both large scale, easy to make. China recently finished a big hydroelectric plant. We have not run out of places we can fill will water, not even places that fill themselves with water. Hydrogen electrolysis is so easy that it predates alternators and dynamos, and I did it myself when I was single-digit-years-old. There hasn't been much point to it until recently as it's a store rather than a source, but now we have solar cheaper than natural gas, it's trivial and obvious. > Let me re-use your logic: we don't need solar, or wind, or storage. We'll just use fusion. Fusion is making big strides each year. Logic without a connection to reality is not useful. Fusion, to my personal frustration, is not making "big" strides each year, certainly not if you are defining the current growth rate of batteries (let alone renewables) as anything less than "extremely big". Logic is also not useful when you ignore some of the consequences of your assumptions, e.g., the best current estimates for the quantity of superconductors needed to make 2 TW of fusion reactors (ITER magnet is ~1000 tons and the reactor is 500 MW-thermal) is also enough for a lossless global power grid. > There's no limit to the number of ways we can squeeze together two hydrogen atoms, so if the tokamak doesn't work out there's too many alternatives for me to think about. You are currently using a lithium ion or lithium polymer battery. Demonstrate a working fusion reactor that makes more electricity than it consumes. You only get to count the sun if you're willing to use PV. This is the crux of your mistake: you're treating all futures as equals, when the environmental goals need us to act as quickly as possible. Fission is too slow to build, and we have working designs; fusion is too slow to build even the experimental reactors whose useful descendants are currently scheduled to arrive after it's too late. The new fusion startups? Well, good luck to them, I wish them the best, but any policy decisions that assume they will be ready to start building their own reactor factories before the already-planned-just-not-yet-built battery factories are finished, is wishful thinking. Or do you think it's unfair to count "merely" planned battery factories and mines, even though there's nothing fundamentally novel about them?

ben_w 4y ago

> That true, but again most of the talk is focused on lithium ion batteries because that's presently the most effective option. "Most effective" varies between use cases. LiIon is fantastic for drones and personal electronics, but the reason it's used for cars is that Elon Musk is a very capable salesman and he bet on it — ten years ago, when Tesla was a cute startup but not a manufacturing behemoth, most of the talk I remember was still about hydrogen fuel cells. I think used car batteries are likely to be a significant part of the global power grid because there will be enough of them, and it's a good reuse option before they need to be fully recycled into new car batteries. If they're cheap enough to use directly in this way (and they seem to be already in some specific circumstances), great. If not, doesn't matter too much, there are too many alternatives for me to worry about it.

Manuel_D 4y ago
Recycling batteries means there's lower usable lifetime. The recycled batteries would be cheaper to source, but the more frequent replacement drives up labor costs. Recycling also doesn't alter the fundamental disparities in scale. Production needs to increase by close to two orders of magnitude to make any significant amount of grid storage. We're struggling to keep pace with just EV demand for batteries, adding just one hour of grid storage for the USA (about 500GWh) would eat up an entire year's worth of batter production. What alternatives are you talking about? The existing alternatives aren't presently being used because lithium based chemistries beats them in cost. Other storage systems like compressed air are in their infancy and it's unclear if they'll become cost effective enough. Let me re-use your logic: we don't need solar, or wind, or storage. We'll just use fusion. Fusion is making big strides each year. There's no limit to the number of ways we can squeeze together two hydrogen atoms, so if the tokamak doesn't work out there's too many alternatives for me to think about.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  > What alternatives are you talking about? The existing alternatives aren't presently being used because lithium based chemistries beats them in cost. This just isn't the case. There are many large-scale lead-acid energy storage installations.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Where? There doesn't seem to be any listed here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_energy_storage_power_plants https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_energy_storage_power...
- ben_w 4y ago
  > Recycling batteries means there's lower usable lifetime. Irrelevant, it's a cost reduction. > The recycled batteries would be cheaper to source, but the more frequent replacement drives up labor costs. Insignificant, and automatable. > Recycling also doesn't alter the fundamental disparities in scale. Unimportant, the scaling up is already occurring. Currently planned infrastructure gets us half way all by itself by 2030. There's no need to hypothesise about beyond that, that's a problem for investors and governments. > Production needs to increase by close to two orders of magnitude to make any significant amount of grid storage. Yes, and? > We're struggling to keep pace with just EV demand for batteries, Which is why Tesla is investing in mining and alternative chemistries. > adding just one hour of grid storage for the USA (about 500GWh) would eat up an entire year's worth of batter production. Unimportant, more factories and more mines are being built as fast as people can find investors. Assuming today's output is a constant going forward is only useful for extremely short time horizons; in this context, extremely short is in the order of 6-12 months, given how fast global capacity is changing. > What alternatives are you talking about? The existing alternatives aren't presently being used because lithium based chemistries beats them in cost. False: https://insideevs.com/news/575956/tesla-battery-chemistries-explained/ https://insideevs.com/news/575956/tesla-battery-chemistries-... > Other storage systems like compressed air are in their infancy and it's unclear if they'll become cost effective enough. Hydroelectric and hydrogen are both large scale, easy to make. China recently finished a big hydroelectric plant. We have not run out of places we can fill will water, not even places that fill themselves with water. Hydrogen electrolysis is so easy that it predates alternators and dynamos, and I did it myself when I was single-digit-years-old. There hasn't been much point to it until recently as it's a store rather than a source, but now we have solar cheaper than natural gas, it's trivial and obvious. > Let me re-use your logic: we don't need solar, or wind, or storage. We'll just use fusion. Fusion is making big strides each year. Logic without a connection to reality is not useful. Fusion, to my personal frustration, is not making "big" strides each year, certainly not if you are defining the current growth rate of batteries (let alone renewables) as anything less than "extremely big". Logic is also not useful when you ignore some of the consequences of your assumptions, e.g., the best current estimates for the quantity of superconductors needed to make 2 TW of fusion reactors (ITER magnet is ~1000 tons and the reactor is 500 MW-thermal) is also enough for a lossless global power grid. > There's no limit to the number of ways we can squeeze together two hydrogen atoms, so if the tokamak doesn't work out there's too many alternatives for me to think about. You are currently using a lithium ion or lithium polymer battery. Demonstrate a working fusion reactor that makes more electricity than it consumes. You only get to count the sun if you're willing to use PV. This is the crux of your mistake: you're treating all futures as equals, when the environmental goals need us to act as quickly as possible. Fission is too slow to build, and we have working designs; fusion is too slow to build even the experimental reactors whose useful descendants are currently scheduled to arrive after it's too late. The new fusion startups? Well, good luck to them, I wish them the best, but any policy decisions that assume they will be ready to start building their own reactor factories before the already-planned-just-not-yet-built battery factories are finished, is wishful thinking. Or do you think it's unfair to count "merely" planned battery factories and mines, even though there's nothing fundamentally novel about them?