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The point of the various 100% solar, wind, battery projections that exist is that no new tech is needed. Things won't be 100% Solar, Wind, Battery because othe

The point of the various 100% solar, wind, battery projections that exist is that no new tech is needed. Things won't be 100% Solar, Wind, Battery because other minor techs like nuclear, hydro, tidal, biomass or whatever already exist to some degree and can be part of the system. But current solar, wind and battery tech is enough, we just need to build it. The first 80% is the easy bit, with the greates payback, so there's no need to wait around.

Manuel_D 3y ago
Batteries cannot feasibly achieve the scale required to even out diurnal, let alone seasonal, fluctuations. The amount of batteries produced is nowhere near enough to satisfy demands for grid storage, and it'd massively set back electric vehicle adoption. Even as battery production ramps up, it's mostly going to go the EVs. Furthermore, electricity demand is going to go up too as people move from gas heating to electric heating and combustion vehicles are replaced with EVs. "No new tech is needed" is a pointless statement if it can't reach the required scale. You might as well say "just build more dams". We don't need any more wind or solar. Just build dams everywhere.
- epistasis 3y ago
  This sort of argument does not pay attention to numeracy or the existing plans for battery production within the 2020s. We can't build more dams because there really is a hard limit on the geographical sites. With batteries, we already have commitments for factories to build 1TWh/year within the US alone by 2030. Worldwide production will be several times that. Average US electricity production is 500GW, at 8-10 hours that's only 4TWh. With batteries lasting 20 years, only need 200GWh/year of production to fill that diurnal need. Batteries are cheap and scaling at a scale that we couldn't dream of scaling our construction capacity. Our limited construction capacity should be reserved for high speed rail, subways, and housing in urban centers.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    Battery production will increase, yes, but so will electricity demand as transportation, heating, and industrial processes are electrified. Right now electricity use is only 37% of total energy use [1]. > Average US electricity production is 500GW, at 8-10 hours that's only 4TWh Again, it's 12 hours for diurnal storage not 8 hours. More than 12 hours during the winter, actually. And diurnal storage isn't the only type of storage that's necessary. Factor in storage to even out seasonal fluctuations and you're looking at days maybe even weeks of energy storage. And again, 500 GW is going to turn into 1,300 GW as the rest of our energy use is electrified. Batteries don't last 20 years, not even close. Diurnal storage is going to be cycled daily. A typical lithium ion cell lasts 300-500 charge cycles [2]. You can prolong this by limiting depth of discharge but this has the side effect of reducing the usable capacity. Let's be generous and assume 2,000 cycles that's only 5 and a half years. 200 GWh per year is still a massive amount of batteries. We're talking about over a third of global battery production to provide 8 hours of storage for just one country. And again, in reality we need more than 8 hours of storage and batteries don't last nearly as long as you claim. There's a reason why plans for a primarily renewable grid assume that compressed air, hydrogen, or something else will account for the majority of storage: batteries aren't available in sufficient quantity, and deploying grid storage at any significant scale will severely reduce availability of batteries for EVs. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States 2. https://au.renogy.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-lithium-battery-charging-cycles/#:~:text=How%20Many%20Cycles%20Can%20You,completely%20drained%2C%20and%20wholly%20recharged https://au.renogy.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about....
    - epistasis 3y ago
      In a decade of following plans for 100% renewable grids, compressed air has never made it as a conceivable solution. Similarly hydrogen almost never gets on the list, and it's only there assuming some sort of currently non-existent tech advances far in excess of what is ever allowed to batteries. And yet, batteries make the list on all these plans! As for your link, this is just flat out misinformation for grid batteries. Might apply to phones: > How Many Cycles Can You Get Out Of A Lithium-Ion Battery? >A Lithium-Ion battery's average life span is 2 to 3 years or 300 to 500 charge cycles, whichever comes first. As we put it, a charging cycle is a duration of utilization when the battery is fully charged, completely drained, and wholly recharged. Industrial grid storage is rated to daily discharge for more than 10 years, with warranties typically around 12-14 years and expected life far afterward. 5000-10,000 cycles is more realistic. Every five years, battery production capacity is growing 10x, prices drop dramatically. What is this limit? What is the reason it's suddenly going to stop? There's no answer other that I can see other than "I thought this 10 years ago so it's probably true too."
Paradigma11 3y ago
But if you still need to support the complete gas, hydro.... infrastructure for those few months when wind/solar/battery is not enough, how cheap are those renewables then really?
- _ph_ 3y ago
  Gas plants have their main cost in running them. So if they only fill the gaps, their cost is reduced too. But yes, they are not to be considered "profitable" but rather as part of the infrastructure like powerlines. But as solar and wind costs only a fraction of gas when running, this is a good trade off.

Manuel_D 3y ago

Batteries cannot feasibly achieve the scale required to even out diurnal, let alone seasonal, fluctuations. The amount of batteries produced is nowhere near enough to satisfy demands for grid storage, and it'd massively set back electric vehicle adoption. Even as battery production ramps up, it's mostly going to go the EVs. Furthermore, electricity demand is going to go up too as people move from gas heating to electric heating and combustion vehicles are replaced with EVs. "No new tech is needed" is a pointless statement if it can't reach the required scale. You might as well say "just build more dams". We don't need any more wind or solar. Just build dams everywhere.

epistasis 3y ago
This sort of argument does not pay attention to numeracy or the existing plans for battery production within the 2020s. We can't build more dams because there really is a hard limit on the geographical sites. With batteries, we already have commitments for factories to build 1TWh/year within the US alone by 2030. Worldwide production will be several times that. Average US electricity production is 500GW, at 8-10 hours that's only 4TWh. With batteries lasting 20 years, only need 200GWh/year of production to fill that diurnal need. Batteries are cheap and scaling at a scale that we couldn't dream of scaling our construction capacity. Our limited construction capacity should be reserved for high speed rail, subways, and housing in urban centers.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  Battery production will increase, yes, but so will electricity demand as transportation, heating, and industrial processes are electrified. Right now electricity use is only 37% of total energy use [1]. > Average US electricity production is 500GW, at 8-10 hours that's only 4TWh Again, it's 12 hours for diurnal storage not 8 hours. More than 12 hours during the winter, actually. And diurnal storage isn't the only type of storage that's necessary. Factor in storage to even out seasonal fluctuations and you're looking at days maybe even weeks of energy storage. And again, 500 GW is going to turn into 1,300 GW as the rest of our energy use is electrified. Batteries don't last 20 years, not even close. Diurnal storage is going to be cycled daily. A typical lithium ion cell lasts 300-500 charge cycles [2]. You can prolong this by limiting depth of discharge but this has the side effect of reducing the usable capacity. Let's be generous and assume 2,000 cycles that's only 5 and a half years. 200 GWh per year is still a massive amount of batteries. We're talking about over a third of global battery production to provide 8 hours of storage for just one country. And again, in reality we need more than 8 hours of storage and batteries don't last nearly as long as you claim. There's a reason why plans for a primarily renewable grid assume that compressed air, hydrogen, or something else will account for the majority of storage: batteries aren't available in sufficient quantity, and deploying grid storage at any significant scale will severely reduce availability of batteries for EVs. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States 2. https://au.renogy.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-lithium-battery-charging-cycles/#:~:text=How%20Many%20Cycles%20Can%20You,completely%20drained%2C%20and%20wholly%20recharged https://au.renogy.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about....
  - epistasis 3y ago
    In a decade of following plans for 100% renewable grids, compressed air has never made it as a conceivable solution. Similarly hydrogen almost never gets on the list, and it's only there assuming some sort of currently non-existent tech advances far in excess of what is ever allowed to batteries. And yet, batteries make the list on all these plans! As for your link, this is just flat out misinformation for grid batteries. Might apply to phones: > How Many Cycles Can You Get Out Of A Lithium-Ion Battery? >A Lithium-Ion battery's average life span is 2 to 3 years or 300 to 500 charge cycles, whichever comes first. As we put it, a charging cycle is a duration of utilization when the battery is fully charged, completely drained, and wholly recharged. Industrial grid storage is rated to daily discharge for more than 10 years, with warranties typically around 12-14 years and expected life far afterward. 5000-10,000 cycles is more realistic. Every five years, battery production capacity is growing 10x, prices drop dramatically. What is this limit? What is the reason it's suddenly going to stop? There's no answer other that I can see other than "I thought this 10 years ago so it's probably true too."

Paradigma11 3y ago

But if you still need to support the complete gas, hydro.... infrastructure for those few months when wind/solar/battery is not enough, how cheap are those renewables then really?

_ph_ 3y ago
Gas plants have their main cost in running them. So if they only fill the gaps, their cost is reduced too. But yes, they are not to be considered "profitable" but rather as part of the infrastructure like powerlines. But as solar and wind costs only a fraction of gas when running, this is a good trade off.