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https://www.moderndescartes.com/essays/factobattery/ https://www.moderndescartes.com/essays/factobattery/ I looked at a variety of these ideas and most of them
by brilee 3y ago
https://www.moderndescartes.com/essays/factobattery/ https://www.moderndescartes.com/essays/factobattery/ I looked at a variety of these ideas and most of them are bad. Desalination is another one I looked at quickly (did not add it to the blog post), but I recall it being at least 10-100x more expensive than just buying batteries.
- cogman10 3y agoI think the desal math changes a bit because it also produces a product beyond just batteries. For particularly arid or water poor locations where you need desal anyways, seems like this could be a win (think islands or the middle east). That said, you'd probably still want batteries to supply power to things like a desal plant when water levels are low.
- thelastgallon 3y agoThe lifetime of a Li plant is just 10 years? Batteries lose a bit of capacity at 10 years, maybe still have 80 - 90% capacity. These can run for decades.