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"current costs of solar + LiFePo battery power" At what scale? Can you even build enough batteries to supply, say, entire Europe for 1 hour?

ben_w 3y ago
> At what scale? Can you even build enough batteries to supply, say, entire Europe for 1 hour? Personally? No. As a species? Sure, why not. Looks like China makes most of them, but looking at this graph, the world total battery production last year was 5-EU-hours: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/lithium-ion-battery-manufacturing-capacity-2022-2030 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/lithium-ion-b... https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=2%2C753%2C320GWh%2F1year+*+1+hour https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=2%2C753%2C320GWh%2F1yea... With significant production increases forecast. Those things will probably last in the order of ten years before needing replacement/refurbishment/recycling, which would mean around 50-EU-hours steady-state capacity today Worldwide is more interesting than just the EU. Current production is global production per year of storage sufficient for storing 30m of global electricity demand, with the same 10-year assumption that's a steady-state level of 5 hours; assuming the forecast growth is correct, the annual production in 2030 rises to 6.79 TWh/year, which is storage for 2.33 hours of global electricity demand made in that year or 23.3 hours with the same 10-year-steady-state assumption.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  Interesting, thank you. The graph that you linked to is interesting in more than one way. If/when China decides to take Taiwan by force, the democratic world is going to be screwed. We've already had a massive gas supply shock in Europe when Russia attacked Ukraine. We were able to overcome it, but it required kowtowing to disgusting regimes such as Qatar and Azerbaijan. Sure, batteries last longer than gas. An immediate rupture in supply wouldn't be catastrophic, unless the Chinese vendors can somehow turn off/disable batteries remotely. But just replacing the ones that fail would probably overwhelm our current manufacturing capability. We've slept on an eco-bio-financial cushion too long.

ben_w 3y ago

> At what scale? Can you even build enough batteries to supply, say, entire Europe for 1 hour? Personally? No. As a species? Sure, why not. Looks like China makes most of them, but looking at this graph, the world total battery production last year was 5-EU-hours: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/lithium-ion-battery-manufacturing-capacity-2022-2030 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/lithium-ion-b... https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=2%2C753%2C320GWh%2F1year+*+1+hour https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=2%2C753%2C320GWh%2F1yea... With significant production increases forecast. Those things will probably last in the order of ten years before needing replacement/refurbishment/recycling, which would mean around 50-EU-hours steady-state capacity today Worldwide is more interesting than just the EU. Current production is global production per year of storage sufficient for storing 30m of global electricity demand, with the same 10-year assumption that's a steady-state level of 5 hours; assuming the forecast growth is correct, the annual production in 2030 rises to 6.79 TWh/year, which is storage for 2.33 hours of global electricity demand made in that year or 23.3 hours with the same 10-year-steady-state assumption.

inglor_cz 3y ago
Interesting, thank you. The graph that you linked to is interesting in more than one way. If/when China decides to take Taiwan by force, the democratic world is going to be screwed. We've already had a massive gas supply shock in Europe when Russia attacked Ukraine. We were able to overcome it, but it required kowtowing to disgusting regimes such as Qatar and Azerbaijan. Sure, batteries last longer than gas. An immediate rupture in supply wouldn't be catastrophic, unless the Chinese vendors can somehow turn off/disable batteries remotely. But just replacing the ones that fail would probably overwhelm our current manufacturing capability. We've slept on an eco-bio-financial cushion too long.