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> What we need is more energy storage, whether that's in the form of traditional batteries or more novel forms of energy storage. Batteries are a nightmare at

> What we need is more energy storage, whether that's in the form of traditional batteries or more novel forms of energy storage. Batteries are a nightmare at grid scale from an environmental perspective. Other forms of storage are needed (pumped hydro for example), or nuclear plus renewable on top of a smart-grid capable of adjusting demand instead. It's fundamentally far more difficult and costly to adjust supply (or to buffer with storage) than it is to reduce demand during periods of low renewable generation. As more EVs and their chargers come online, instantaneous load reductions become cheap and easy - and possible.

jfengel 4y ago
Plain old combined cycle can handle a lot of the demand peaks. We already have that in place. If they operate 1% or even 5% of the time, we've still cut vast amounts of carbon. There would be much lower hanging fruit than trying to replace that last fraction with nuclear. We have a solution already in place. That doesn't mean all research on modular reactors should stop. It would have a niche if it worked. It's just not the thing holding back decarbonization, and not an excuse to hold back as much renewables as possible as fast as possible.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  And if they have to operate 1% of the time, they can do that with hydrogen, and the fuel cost will be inconsequential.
coder543 4y ago
> Batteries are a nightmare at grid scale from an environmental perspective. Which part[0], exactly? I think most people dramatically overestimate the level of "nightmare", and battery contents are highly recyclable. We don't have a ton of battery recycling right now because there aren't enough failing batteries yet to support the necessary facilities, but several companies are starting to ramp up. Also worth considering that even after a battery is "too old" to use in an EV, it is perfectly fine to use in stationary storage applications for quite awhile longer ("reuse") even before it is time to recycle and rebuild those components into a new battery. > It's fundamentally far more difficult and costly to adjust supply (or to buffer with storage) than it is to reduce demand during periods of low renewable generation. As more EVs and their chargers come online, instantaneous load reductions become cheap and easy - and possible. I completely agree with this, and most people either can't or won't see this point in discussions about renewables. The more predictable load that comes online, the easier it is to justify more production. Even if that production is using so-called "intermittent" renewables, when the need arises, asking people to voluntarily avoid charging for a day would be equivalent to adding a huge amount of production suddenly, just by removing load. (And EVs have enough range for a week of normal commuting for most people, easily. The few people who need to charge desperately would be able to charge without problems.) If you pay people for volunteering to participate in Demand Response, you will get plenty of volunteers. "Demand response" is a critical part of the grid of the future. [0]: https://cen.acs.org/content/dam/cen/97/28/WEB/09728-cover-schematic.jpg https://cen.acs.org/content/dam/cen/97/28/WEB/09728-cover-sc...
- arcticbull 4y ago
  > Which part[0], exactly? I think most people dramatically overestimate the level of "nightmare", and battery contents are highly recyclable. We don't have a ton of battery recycling right now because there aren't enough failing batteries yet to support the necessary facilities, but several companies are starting to ramp up. Lithium mining is horrible for the environment. [1, 2] We will keep doing it for as long as it remains cheaper to extract than to recycle, which is why we don't recycle. It's the reason we don't recycle that vast majority of what you put into the recycle bin. [1] https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/01/south-america-s-lithium-fields-reveal-the-dark-side-of-our-electric-future https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/01/south-america-s-li... [2] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environmen...
  - coder543 4y ago
    All mining is bad for the environment to some degree or another. Lithium mining allows us to stop doing other harmful forms of mining, and it is infinitely recyclable; it isn't being blasted away into the atmosphere like gasoline. Eventually, we should have enough in the recycling pipeline that mining it becomes relatively uncommon. If people are willing to pay a price premium for it, then it is apparently possible to mine lithium from the seawater directly: https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/Can-seawater-give-us-lithium-to-meet-our-battery-needs/99/i36 https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/Can-seawat... The researchers claim it has the potential to be very cost effective, but that remains to be seen. Their process sounds very environmentally neutral, which is always something to strive for. For it to be an "environmental nightmare", it has to be worse than what we’re already doing. So, no, a couple of articles complaining about lithium mining is not equivalent to evidence that this is worse for the environment than mining coal and oil, or other things you might want to mine instead of lithium. Nickel and cobalt are more of a problem than lithium according to my understanding, but we have some nickel-free and cobalt-free battery chemistries that are becoming more common, like LFP batteries. > We will keep doing it for as long as it remains cheaper to extract than to recycle, which is why we don't recycle. It's the reason we don't recycle that vast majority of what you put into the recycle bin. This is a misunderstanding of the economics, then. The batteries involved are huge, so it is very hard to “lose” these lithium-rich containers. These are not small coke cans which could easily end up in a landfill. But even then, more than 50% of the aluminum in coke cans is made from recycled aluminum. Recycling giant lithium ion batteries should be very profitable for everyone involved compared to mining new lithium. Plastic recycling is unfortunately a bad joke, of course.
jrockway 4y ago
I don't know anything about the electric grid, but I'm surprised we don't have more pumped hydro. Seems like a great way to suck up energy from solar during the day and release it when it's needed. Guess capital costs are high compared to "oh we'll just borrow some power from your electric car if we need it"?
- coder543 4y ago
  Many of the geographically-convenient spots to do pumped hydro in are already being used, which makes this hard to scale beyond what we currently have.
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    There is no hint of a shortage of places good for pumped hydro. What is in short supply is existing hydro-power dams that have not yet been retrofitted with pumps. Retrofitting an existing hydro plant is cheaper than building a hilltop reservoir, penstock, turbine, and pump. The latter might cost more than other alternatives. Anywhere that is true, expect to see one of the others used.
    - coder543 4y ago
      It's not a question of whether you can, it's a question of whether pumped hydro is cheaper than lithium ion batteries, and that price is heavily influenced by the available geography and water supply. Wherever pumped hydro is cheaper, then by all means, we should build a bunch of it.
      - moloch-hai 4y ago
        It is far from clear which will be the cheapest storage medium, in each place. Count on people to install whatever is cheapest where they are at the time they build. Batteries are expensive right now, but costs are still falling. It is conceivable that a substantial fraction of installed storage will actually end up batteries. My favorite medium, at the moment, is heavy weights hung from a disused supertanker moored over a sea trench. Each weight would have its own cable reel, with clutch and brake, sharing a shaft with the rest, the shaft driven by a winch and motor/generator kept out of the weather. A net full of ironstone riprap would serve for the weight. The winch would be whatever is the biggest available off the shelf, with the weights chosen to match the winch. Maybe 1000 tons each? A supertanker is wide enough for multiple shafts, and you can rack together multiple supertankers. A smallish one can hold up 100,000 tons. Taiwan has an excellent trench right off the SE shore, but there are a lot of near-shore trenches, off SE India, SW Mexico, E Korea, SE Japan, and even Monterey and Monaco. Probably a deep trench is not even needed for viability; 1000 meters is probably plenty. A supertanker seems to run $50-100M new, probably a small fraction as scrap. There will be a lot of supertankers to scrap; it is already starting.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
> Batteries are a nightmare at grid scale from an environmental perspective. More tired lies. Diurnal storage provided via LFP requires around a kg of lithium to serve 1kW. 1kg of natural Uranium can provide around 1kW The battery lasts 12-20 years. The Uranium lasts 3-6. Mining a kg of lithium has less environmental impact than mining a kg of Uranium. Meanwhile, in reality, Sodium Ion and Iron batteries are fully abundant and far closer to mass commercialisation than an SMR or even new traditional nuclear.

jfengel 4y ago

Plain old combined cycle can handle a lot of the demand peaks. We already have that in place. If they operate 1% or even 5% of the time, we've still cut vast amounts of carbon. There would be much lower hanging fruit than trying to replace that last fraction with nuclear. We have a solution already in place. That doesn't mean all research on modular reactors should stop. It would have a niche if it worked. It's just not the thing holding back decarbonization, and not an excuse to hold back as much renewables as possible as fast as possible.

pfdietz 4y ago
And if they have to operate 1% of the time, they can do that with hydrogen, and the fuel cost will be inconsequential.

coder543 4y ago

> Batteries are a nightmare at grid scale from an environmental perspective. Which part[0], exactly? I think most people dramatically overestimate the level of "nightmare", and battery contents are highly recyclable. We don't have a ton of battery recycling right now because there aren't enough failing batteries yet to support the necessary facilities, but several companies are starting to ramp up. Also worth considering that even after a battery is "too old" to use in an EV, it is perfectly fine to use in stationary storage applications for quite awhile longer ("reuse") even before it is time to recycle and rebuild those components into a new battery. > It's fundamentally far more difficult and costly to adjust supply (or to buffer with storage) than it is to reduce demand during periods of low renewable generation. As more EVs and their chargers come online, instantaneous load reductions become cheap and easy - and possible. I completely agree with this, and most people either can't or won't see this point in discussions about renewables. The more predictable load that comes online, the easier it is to justify more production. Even if that production is using so-called "intermittent" renewables, when the need arises, asking people to voluntarily avoid charging for a day would be equivalent to adding a huge amount of production suddenly, just by removing load. (And EVs have enough range for a week of normal commuting for most people, easily. The few people who need to charge desperately would be able to charge without problems.) If you pay people for volunteering to participate in Demand Response, you will get plenty of volunteers. "Demand response" is a critical part of the grid of the future. [0]: https://cen.acs.org/content/dam/cen/97/28/WEB/09728-cover-schematic.jpg https://cen.acs.org/content/dam/cen/97/28/WEB/09728-cover-sc...

arcticbull 4y ago
> Which part[0], exactly? I think most people dramatically overestimate the level of "nightmare", and battery contents are highly recyclable. We don't have a ton of battery recycling right now because there aren't enough failing batteries yet to support the necessary facilities, but several companies are starting to ramp up. Lithium mining is horrible for the environment. [1, 2] We will keep doing it for as long as it remains cheaper to extract than to recycle, which is why we don't recycle. It's the reason we don't recycle that vast majority of what you put into the recycle bin. [1] https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/01/south-america-s-lithium-fields-reveal-the-dark-side-of-our-electric-future https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/01/south-america-s-li... [2] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environmen...
- coder543 4y ago
  All mining is bad for the environment to some degree or another. Lithium mining allows us to stop doing other harmful forms of mining, and it is infinitely recyclable; it isn't being blasted away into the atmosphere like gasoline. Eventually, we should have enough in the recycling pipeline that mining it becomes relatively uncommon. If people are willing to pay a price premium for it, then it is apparently possible to mine lithium from the seawater directly: https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/Can-seawater-give-us-lithium-to-meet-our-battery-needs/99/i36 https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/Can-seawat... The researchers claim it has the potential to be very cost effective, but that remains to be seen. Their process sounds very environmentally neutral, which is always something to strive for. For it to be an "environmental nightmare", it has to be worse than what we’re already doing. So, no, a couple of articles complaining about lithium mining is not equivalent to evidence that this is worse for the environment than mining coal and oil, or other things you might want to mine instead of lithium. Nickel and cobalt are more of a problem than lithium according to my understanding, but we have some nickel-free and cobalt-free battery chemistries that are becoming more common, like LFP batteries. > We will keep doing it for as long as it remains cheaper to extract than to recycle, which is why we don't recycle. It's the reason we don't recycle that vast majority of what you put into the recycle bin. This is a misunderstanding of the economics, then. The batteries involved are huge, so it is very hard to “lose” these lithium-rich containers. These are not small coke cans which could easily end up in a landfill. But even then, more than 50% of the aluminum in coke cans is made from recycled aluminum. Recycling giant lithium ion batteries should be very profitable for everyone involved compared to mining new lithium. Plastic recycling is unfortunately a bad joke, of course.

jrockway 4y ago

I don't know anything about the electric grid, but I'm surprised we don't have more pumped hydro. Seems like a great way to suck up energy from solar during the day and release it when it's needed. Guess capital costs are high compared to "oh we'll just borrow some power from your electric car if we need it"?

coder543 4y ago
Many of the geographically-convenient spots to do pumped hydro in are already being used, which makes this hard to scale beyond what we currently have.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  There is no hint of a shortage of places good for pumped hydro. What is in short supply is existing hydro-power dams that have not yet been retrofitted with pumps. Retrofitting an existing hydro plant is cheaper than building a hilltop reservoir, penstock, turbine, and pump. The latter might cost more than other alternatives. Anywhere that is true, expect to see one of the others used.
  - coder543 4y ago
    It's not a question of whether you can, it's a question of whether pumped hydro is cheaper than lithium ion batteries, and that price is heavily influenced by the available geography and water supply. Wherever pumped hydro is cheaper, then by all means, we should build a bunch of it.
    - moloch-hai 4y ago
      It is far from clear which will be the cheapest storage medium, in each place. Count on people to install whatever is cheapest where they are at the time they build. Batteries are expensive right now, but costs are still falling. It is conceivable that a substantial fraction of installed storage will actually end up batteries. My favorite medium, at the moment, is heavy weights hung from a disused supertanker moored over a sea trench. Each weight would have its own cable reel, with clutch and brake, sharing a shaft with the rest, the shaft driven by a winch and motor/generator kept out of the weather. A net full of ironstone riprap would serve for the weight. The winch would be whatever is the biggest available off the shelf, with the weights chosen to match the winch. Maybe 1000 tons each? A supertanker is wide enough for multiple shafts, and you can rack together multiple supertankers. A smallish one can hold up 100,000 tons. Taiwan has an excellent trench right off the SE shore, but there are a lot of near-shore trenches, off SE India, SW Mexico, E Korea, SE Japan, and even Monterey and Monaco. Probably a deep trench is not even needed for viability; 1000 meters is probably plenty. A supertanker seems to run $50-100M new, probably a small fraction as scrap. There will be a lot of supertankers to scrap; it is already starting.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

> Batteries are a nightmare at grid scale from an environmental perspective. More tired lies. Diurnal storage provided via LFP requires around a kg of lithium to serve 1kW. 1kg of natural Uranium can provide around 1kW The battery lasts 12-20 years. The Uranium lasts 3-6. Mining a kg of lithium has less environmental impact than mining a kg of Uranium. Meanwhile, in reality, Sodium Ion and Iron batteries are fully abundant and far closer to mass commercialisation than an SMR or even new traditional nuclear.