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Given how rapidly the price of batteries and solar are falling, it seems absurd to think it will make any economic sense to spend tens of billions of dollars on
by grecy 2y ago
Given how rapidly the price of batteries and solar are falling, it seems absurd to think it will make any economic sense to spend tens of billions of dollars on a monster fusion plant.
China are churning out regular old fission plants, and have 27 under construction right now. Even still, the average build time is 7 years.
So even if we get some breakthrough and figure out how to build a commercial fusion plant, it's a certainty it won't be up and running for something like 10-15 years. Solar and batteries will be so cheap there won't be any discussions.
- cubefox 2y ago> Given how rapidly the price of batteries and solar are falling Battery prices are pretty stable, which is huge problem for wind and solar energy.
- olddustytrail 2y agoThat's just so bizarrely wrong I don't even know where it came from. The price of batteries has declined by 97% in the last three decades: https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline
- cubefox 2y agoThis article is outdated. The price has been relatively stable in the last ~4 years: https://assets.bbhub.io/professional/sites/24/fig1battery.png https://assets.bbhub.io/professional/sites/24/fig1battery.pn... Prices are decreasing much slower now. At this pace, large scale energy storage for replacing stable energy sources like coal and fission power plants is far out of reach.
- grecy 2y ago> The price has been relatively stable in the last ~4 years Your linked source shows the price in the last 4 years going from cell: $128->$107 Pack: $55->$32 Real: $183->$139 So the price has dropped 25% in the last 4 years. That is NOT relatively stable by any definition.
- cubefox 2y agoIf you look at the beginning of the chart, the price decrease (from $780 to $258 in 2017) over the same four year period was 67%. And for 2023 it was only 24%. So progress has slowed a lot. In 2022 there was even a year-over-year price increase. That's bad news when you want to build massive energy storage systems that can replace power plants.
- grecy 2y agoSo what you're trying to say is - "In the past prices fell extremely fast, now they're falling just regular fast".
- cubefox 2y agoI'm saying that prices are falling increasingly more slowly and that using solar+batteries to replace coal, gas and fission power plants will probably not happen.
- grecy 2y ago> using solar+batteries to replace coal, gas and fission power plants will probably not happen That ship already sailed, many countries are already doing it.
- cubefox 2y agoNo, no country is doing it because batteries are far too expensive to replace stable energy sources.
- grecy 2y agoThe UK has been burning coal since 1882, and their last coal fired power plant just got it's last delivery of coal [1] Germany is shutting down it's nukes [2] Actually, lots of countries are very quickly increasing how much of their energy needs come from green sources [3] You can't deny reality [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckkg0wl7dkro https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckkg0wl7dkro [2] https://www.base.bund.de/EN/ns/nuclear-phase-out/nuclear-phase-out_node.html https://www.base.bund.de/EN/ns/nuclear-phase-out/nuclear-pha... [3] https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/11-countries-leading-the-charge-on-renewable-energy/ https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/11-countries-leading-the-c...