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We can store grain for a year. How long can we store electricity for 15 minutes in most grids with a dollars for every five minutes further.
by thrown_22 4y ago
We can store grain for a year. How long can we store electricity for 15 minutes in most grids with a dollars for every five minutes further.
- js8 4y agoIt's simply not true we cannot store energy. We can produce hydrogen, methane, methanol, ethanol, biomass, steel, aluminum, cement, sillicon.. These are all energy intense processes that can help store energy. In fact, when it comes to food production (which is really just a form of energy), there are 3 major strategies how we deal with winter: storage (e.g. granary), shifting production (e.g. eating a pig you raised during the year), and trade (e.g. buying oranges from a tropical country). We can apply all these to electricity as well.
- thrown_22 4y ago>It's simply not true we cannot store energy. Which grid can store enough energy to run for a week if all renewables are offline? Hint: there aren't any.
- Gibbon1 4y agoShow me a week in the last two years when California's renewables didn't produce any power https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html
- js8 4y agoThis is partly because massive energy storage (on the order of weeks) isn't really needed until you hit around 75% intermittent renewables (wind and solar), which is not yet the case anywhere in the world. But the technology does exist, and it's gonna be deployed eventually.
- thrown_22 4y ago>But the technology does exist, and it's gonna be deployed eventually. [[citation needed]]
- mcv 4y agoThis is indeed the big issue we need to solve: how to store enough energy to make it through the night. Of course we can already store energy, but to do it at that scale, it needs to be a lot cheaper.