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80-90% of energy generated from intermittent source would require immense amounts of storage to even out intermittency. If a silver bullet like hydrogen or comp

80-90% of energy generated from intermittent source would require immense amounts of storage to even out intermittency. If a silver bullet like hydrogen or compressed air solves storage, this may be feasible. But that's a big if. If fusion becomes viable could it be a viable primary energy source? Sure. But societies aren't going to bet the future of the energy industry on an if.

epistasis 4y ago
Every model I have seen shows 80%-90% renewables with almost no storage. Where are you getting your estimates? Fusion is not a realistic power source for decades, and there's no reason to think it will be cheaper than fission, or that it could ever be cheaper than massive amounts of storage.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Demand for storage varies greatly depending on overproduction, geography, and willingness to continue using fossil fuels. Plans for an 80% renewable grid in the he US are estimated at 12 hours of storage and "just" 3 weeks of storage. 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... The problem is, even 12 hours of storage is a prohibitively large amount. The US uses 12,000 GWh of electricity per day. 12 hours of storage is 6,000 GWh. The entire world produces 400 GWh of batteries each year. Most of it is going to EVs and electronics, not grid storage. Even if we stopped building EVs entirely and directed the world's supply of battery production to just America's grid storage needs were talking about a decade of production. And worse yet these batteries are good for a couple thousand cycles, and will have to be replaced after a few years of use. And even with this 6 terawatts of stotage, in the end we'll still have a fifth of our grid still dependent on fossil fuels. Again, this is why plans for a renewable grid assume some other form of energy storage will be orders of magnitude better than lithium batteries. That'd be great if hydrogen, molten sand, compressed air, or something else delivers. But that's a big if on which to gamble the energy grid, especially when alternative paths to decarbonization that we have more than half a century operating are within our reach.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
80-90% of electricity from renewables is achievable in many regions with no storage other than increasing the intermittency of existing hydro, existing interconnects, and adding dispatchable loads to soak up the curtailed energy which is effectively free. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z An example is heating which is a huge portion of emissions and is also a dispatchable load.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  That's great for regions with hydroelectricity, but the significant majority of the world is not lucky enough to have that geography. Also, the places that do have good geography for hydroelectric storage also usually generate their electricity from dams anyway and thus don't benefit from storage.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Well when you find a region witout hydro or interconnects or sufficient renewable resource that neither are necessary to exceed 75% penetration just by adding variable loads then let us know and we can put the chemical batteries there first.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      Most of the USA, for one. Some states like mine are fortunate enough to have 70%+ hydroelectric generation. But in aggregate, the country creates 6% of it's electricity through hydropower. If our plan is to use hydro when wind and solar aren't producing we're very limited in terms of renewable production. The US uses about 12,000 GWh of electricity per day. The entire world produces about 500 GWh of batteries per year and this price is climbing as lithium shortages impact the supply chain. Batteries aren't going to cut it. That's why plans for a renewable grid either comes with either plans for extensive blackouts or some silver bullet solving storage. Again, "variable loads" is a pretty euphemism for "shut off the power". If we're going to be shutting off power to industries the cost of reduced economic output needs to be counted.
pydry 4y ago
>80-90% of energy generated from intermittent source would require immense amounts of storage to even out intermittency. If a silver bullet like hydrogen or compressed air solves storage, this may be feasible. The silver bullets are called demand shaping, pumped storage and batteries and theyre already here. The fact that renewables are 5x cheaper than nuclear means that any storage that is, overall, less than 4x the cost of generation makes dispatchable solar/wind energy cheaper than nuclear energy when the sun isnt shining and the wind isnt blowing. Almost every form of storage is cheaper than that. There is no need for an if. The if is here.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  If we need to resort to demand shaping (read: turning off the power) then the cost of that needs to be accounted for. If you only run your smelters, chemical industries, etc. for part of the year then the cost of those commodities, and by extension every product using those commodities, gets more expensive. Increasing the cost of steel by 30% because we can't power our arc furnaces all year round is a massive cost that isn't captured when you just look at levelized cost of generation. What form of storage are you referring to? The only popular forms of storage are batteries and hydroelectricity. The former isn't produced in nearly enough quantities, and the latte ris geographically restricted.
  - pydry 4y ago
    >If we need to resort to demand shaping (read: turning off the power) then the cost of that needs to be accounted for. Of course, but the amount of low hanging fruit in this regard is A) ridiculously high B) zero, according to the nuclear and carbon industry models (they think demand cannot be shaped and only expensive batteries can deal with intermittency). >If you only run your smelters, chemical industries, etc. for part of the year then the cost of those commodities, and by extension every product using those commodities, gets more expensive. If you produce 2x as much as normal aluminum on a Tuesday when it's sunny and 1/5th as much on a Wednesday you've created more aluminum. The solar driven smelter can produce more at a much lower cost because electricity is such a large % of the overall product. There are plenty more applications like that where 5x cheaper electricity that "decides" when you use it is way better than 5x more expensive electricity that you can use any time.

epistasis 4y ago

Every model I have seen shows 80%-90% renewables with almost no storage. Where are you getting your estimates? Fusion is not a realistic power source for decades, and there's no reason to think it will be cheaper than fission, or that it could ever be cheaper than massive amounts of storage.

Manuel_D 4y ago
Demand for storage varies greatly depending on overproduction, geography, and willingness to continue using fossil fuels. Plans for an 80% renewable grid in the he US are estimated at 12 hours of storage and "just" 3 weeks of storage. 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... The problem is, even 12 hours of storage is a prohibitively large amount. The US uses 12,000 GWh of electricity per day. 12 hours of storage is 6,000 GWh. The entire world produces 400 GWh of batteries each year. Most of it is going to EVs and electronics, not grid storage. Even if we stopped building EVs entirely and directed the world's supply of battery production to just America's grid storage needs were talking about a decade of production. And worse yet these batteries are good for a couple thousand cycles, and will have to be replaced after a few years of use. And even with this 6 terawatts of stotage, in the end we'll still have a fifth of our grid still dependent on fossil fuels. Again, this is why plans for a renewable grid assume some other form of energy storage will be orders of magnitude better than lithium batteries. That'd be great if hydrogen, molten sand, compressed air, or something else delivers. But that's a big if on which to gamble the energy grid, especially when alternative paths to decarbonization that we have more than half a century operating are within our reach.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

80-90% of electricity from renewables is achievable in many regions with no storage other than increasing the intermittency of existing hydro, existing interconnects, and adding dispatchable loads to soak up the curtailed energy which is effectively free. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z An example is heating which is a huge portion of emissions and is also a dispatchable load.

Manuel_D 4y ago
That's great for regions with hydroelectricity, but the significant majority of the world is not lucky enough to have that geography. Also, the places that do have good geography for hydroelectric storage also usually generate their electricity from dams anyway and thus don't benefit from storage.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Well when you find a region witout hydro or interconnects or sufficient renewable resource that neither are necessary to exceed 75% penetration just by adding variable loads then let us know and we can put the chemical batteries there first.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Most of the USA, for one. Some states like mine are fortunate enough to have 70%+ hydroelectric generation. But in aggregate, the country creates 6% of it's electricity through hydropower. If our plan is to use hydro when wind and solar aren't producing we're very limited in terms of renewable production. The US uses about 12,000 GWh of electricity per day. The entire world produces about 500 GWh of batteries per year and this price is climbing as lithium shortages impact the supply chain. Batteries aren't going to cut it. That's why plans for a renewable grid either comes with either plans for extensive blackouts or some silver bullet solving storage. Again, "variable loads" is a pretty euphemism for "shut off the power". If we're going to be shutting off power to industries the cost of reduced economic output needs to be counted.

pydry 4y ago

>80-90% of energy generated from intermittent source would require immense amounts of storage to even out intermittency. If a silver bullet like hydrogen or compressed air solves storage, this may be feasible. The silver bullets are called demand shaping, pumped storage and batteries and theyre already here. The fact that renewables are 5x cheaper than nuclear means that any storage that is, overall, less than 4x the cost of generation makes dispatchable solar/wind energy cheaper than nuclear energy when the sun isnt shining and the wind isnt blowing. Almost every form of storage is cheaper than that. There is no need for an if. The if is here.

Manuel_D 4y ago
If we need to resort to demand shaping (read: turning off the power) then the cost of that needs to be accounted for. If you only run your smelters, chemical industries, etc. for part of the year then the cost of those commodities, and by extension every product using those commodities, gets more expensive. Increasing the cost of steel by 30% because we can't power our arc furnaces all year round is a massive cost that isn't captured when you just look at levelized cost of generation. What form of storage are you referring to? The only popular forms of storage are batteries and hydroelectricity. The former isn't produced in nearly enough quantities, and the latte ris geographically restricted.
- pydry 4y ago
  >If we need to resort to demand shaping (read: turning off the power) then the cost of that needs to be accounted for. Of course, but the amount of low hanging fruit in this regard is A) ridiculously high B) zero, according to the nuclear and carbon industry models (they think demand cannot be shaped and only expensive batteries can deal with intermittency). >If you only run your smelters, chemical industries, etc. for part of the year then the cost of those commodities, and by extension every product using those commodities, gets more expensive. If you produce 2x as much as normal aluminum on a Tuesday when it's sunny and 1/5th as much on a Wednesday you've created more aluminum. The solar driven smelter can produce more at a much lower cost because electricity is such a large % of the overall product. There are plenty more applications like that where 5x cheaper electricity that "decides" when you use it is way better than 5x more expensive electricity that you can use any time.