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I don't know about India, but China's capacity factor is falling at about the same rate that they're building plants. They're only running their coal plants w

I don't know about India, but China's capacity factor is falling at about the same rate that they're building plants. They're only running their coal plants when the sun doesn't shine. Coal isn't a great peaking source, but as you said energy security is what's important to them. Luckily for the environment, batteries became cheaper than coal for peaking within the last year or two, and China is starting to really ramp up battery grid storage which should displace their coal usage.

alephnerd 2y ago
The issue is heavy industry in both China and India. Expanding battery capacity helps, but it's a relative drop in the bucket compared to the needs for heavy industry, which used 5,700tWH/yr in China in 2022, and needs to be continuous. And given that Coal is US$1-1.50/kg, heavy industry will continue to use that because it is cheap and available. Battery Grid Storage at heavy industry scale is best case still a decade away in China, which is too late from an ecological perspective. This is because assuming China was able to mass produce Sanborn sized battery grid storage systems (875MW), that's still 6,500,000 to be built across China just to meet 2022's heavy industry requirements alone. And India's GDP is expected to grow at 6-9% for the foreseeable future, so there will be a similar expansion in heavy industry in India as well.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  > 5,700tWH/yr IOW 650 GW average. Which would be 743 Sanborns. China could churn that out in a couple of years. Your math is out by a factor of 365*24. > And given that Coal is US$1-1.50/kg, heavy industry will continue to use that because it is cheap and available. I think your numbers must be off, because that's crazy expensive. It takes over a pound of coal to generate a kWh of electricity, so that's over 50 cents per kWh, 100X as expensive as solar.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    The $1-1.50/kg includes the capex for infra and land (eg. a coal plant, or a solar array). Alternative energy sources are not cost effective until they hit the $1.50/kg limit. Solar has hit that in the mid-2010s, but land acquisition remains a major blocker in both China and India. > China could churn that out in a couple of years. "Could" is carrying a lot of the weight in this sentence. China hasn't fully built and commissioned a Sanborn sized battery grid project yet (but will in the next 1-2 years). It will still take at least a decade to roll out countrywide, and within a decade, China's secondary industry will have grown beyond the size that it is today. Just having capacity alone doesn't equal a battery grid overnight. A significant portion of that battery capacity is devoted to the automotive industry as well as exports, plus financing remains a potential blocker, as battery grid projects tend to be public-private projects initiated by provinces within China. Furthermore, if financing and batteries are already allocated, it still takes time to build out and commission a battery grid. Plus this ignores India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and plenty of other countries rapidly building out heavy industry capacity.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      > "Could" is carrying a lot of the weight in this sentence. No it's not. China will have the capacity to produce > 2500 Sanborns worth of batteries in 2025 alone.

alephnerd 2y ago

The issue is heavy industry in both China and India. Expanding battery capacity helps, but it's a relative drop in the bucket compared to the needs for heavy industry, which used 5,700tWH/yr in China in 2022, and needs to be continuous. And given that Coal is US$1-1.50/kg, heavy industry will continue to use that because it is cheap and available. Battery Grid Storage at heavy industry scale is best case still a decade away in China, which is too late from an ecological perspective. This is because assuming China was able to mass produce Sanborn sized battery grid storage systems (875MW), that's still 6,500,000 to be built across China just to meet 2022's heavy industry requirements alone. And India's GDP is expected to grow at 6-9% for the foreseeable future, so there will be a similar expansion in heavy industry in India as well.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
> 5,700tWH/yr IOW 650 GW average. Which would be 743 Sanborns. China could churn that out in a couple of years. Your math is out by a factor of 365*24. > And given that Coal is US$1-1.50/kg, heavy industry will continue to use that because it is cheap and available. I think your numbers must be off, because that's crazy expensive. It takes over a pound of coal to generate a kWh of electricity, so that's over 50 cents per kWh, 100X as expensive as solar.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  The $1-1.50/kg includes the capex for infra and land (eg. a coal plant, or a solar array). Alternative energy sources are not cost effective until they hit the $1.50/kg limit. Solar has hit that in the mid-2010s, but land acquisition remains a major blocker in both China and India. > China could churn that out in a couple of years. "Could" is carrying a lot of the weight in this sentence. China hasn't fully built and commissioned a Sanborn sized battery grid project yet (but will in the next 1-2 years). It will still take at least a decade to roll out countrywide, and within a decade, China's secondary industry will have grown beyond the size that it is today. Just having capacity alone doesn't equal a battery grid overnight. A significant portion of that battery capacity is devoted to the automotive industry as well as exports, plus financing remains a potential blocker, as battery grid projects tend to be public-private projects initiated by provinces within China. Furthermore, if financing and batteries are already allocated, it still takes time to build out and commission a battery grid. Plus this ignores India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and plenty of other countries rapidly building out heavy industry capacity.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    > "Could" is carrying a lot of the weight in this sentence. No it's not. China will have the capacity to produce > 2500 Sanborns worth of batteries in 2025 alone.