3 ms·

IMO you are only partly right. It will have to be a mix until storage can scale to the level nuclear can provide cleanly. I say this because there is a categor

IMO you are only partly right. It will have to be a mix until storage can scale to the level nuclear can provide cleanly. I say this because there is a category of power consumers that is often forgotten by us mere mortals: industry. To produce the things we consume, all kinds of industrial plants and operations exist that we know little about, but that have gigantic power needs. Just one example (out of many more): metal processing. Or industrial fans, where one fan could need 5MW at a time. All I‘m saying is, if you dig deeper and discover what power needs our society has, it is not straightforward. Peak demand, baseload demand, time of day, distribution networks to get it where its needed, location of primary sources (wind/solar/nuclear), etc. It is a difficult optimization problem.

solatic 3y ago
> It will have to be a mix until storage can scale to the level nuclear can provide cleanly. It would, if it were easy and quick to scale up nuclear power. The story for scaling storage is much clearer, simpler, faster, and cheaper than building new nuclear supply.
Qwertious 3y ago
Industry demand is massively overblown (although still a very real problem), because AIUI ~75% of the demand is for heat. Heat can be stored directly, without need for batteries - get a giant (like, 20ish metre diameter) tank of sand (or other thermal mass, but any crappy asbestos-riddled sand will work just fine), wrap it in a metre or two of insulation, and the cube-square law will ensure it stays heated for months when heated. This has drawbacks such as not working well with heat pumps (if you need 1000C temps then heat pumps flat-out don't work, and if you cap your heat at lower then your construction costs go way up, not to mention giant heat pumps are expensive compared to resistive heating, so electricity prices had better be high enough to justify the investment), but they let you turn surplus intermittent renewables into on-demand heating for literally dirt-cheap. If there's any sort of battery crunch, then direct heat storage will win by virtue of being available and trivially deployed wherever there's a construction industry. It's very boring 20th-century (or 19th-century?) tech, and that's an absolute blessing, logistically.

solatic 3y ago

> It will have to be a mix until storage can scale to the level nuclear can provide cleanly. It would, if it were easy and quick to scale up nuclear power. The story for scaling storage is much clearer, simpler, faster, and cheaper than building new nuclear supply.

Qwertious 3y ago

Industry demand is massively overblown (although still a very real problem), because AIUI ~75% of the demand is for heat. Heat can be stored directly, without need for batteries - get a giant (like, 20ish metre diameter) tank of sand (or other thermal mass, but any crappy asbestos-riddled sand will work just fine), wrap it in a metre or two of insulation, and the cube-square law will ensure it stays heated for months when heated. This has drawbacks such as not working well with heat pumps (if you need 1000C temps then heat pumps flat-out don't work, and if you cap your heat at lower then your construction costs go way up, not to mention giant heat pumps are expensive compared to resistive heating, so electricity prices had better be high enough to justify the investment), but they let you turn surplus intermittent renewables into on-demand heating for literally dirt-cheap. If there's any sort of battery crunch, then direct heat storage will win by virtue of being available and trivially deployed wherever there's a construction industry. It's very boring 20th-century (or 19th-century?) tech, and that's an absolute blessing, logistically.