4 ms·

Wind and solar power are proving very cheap and good at the margin, but it doesn't solve for the massive needs of a modern grid. Unlike plants, we do not necess

Wind and solar power are proving very cheap and good at the margin, but it doesn't solve for the massive needs of a modern grid. Unlike plants, we do not necessarily have the option of turning society off when it's not sunny or windy. Energy storage is far from a solved problem. Tesla produces ~40 gigawatts of storage capacity an entire year. California alone consumes ~800 gigawatts of power in a day. Even if Tesla dedicated every bit of lithium it had to building storage capacity for just one state, and demand didn't increase, it would realistically still take over a decade to keeping the lights on purely with renewables for a 24 hour period. At which point the first battery packs would be nearing the end of their service life.

roenxi 2y ago
Also if we're planning for the long term; wind and solar sound like bad options for going into major global catastrophes like large asteroid hits or a nuclear war. It'd be better as a matter of principle to be using systems that can cope with massive climate disruptions. I like to bring up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer - an event like that will happen sooner or later and it'd be pretty rough if we've all gone too heavy with solar. One of those hopefully-you-don't-need-it concerns but it is starting to become a more pressing with the uptick in wars and unrest that seems to be going on.
- Pooge 2y ago
  More[1] reading material. The volcanic winter of 536 made it one of the worst years for humanity. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
- SiempreViernes 2y ago
  Sorry, how is having a few, very delicate, power sources more resilient than an abundance of mechanically simple and widely distributed power sources?
  - roenxi 2y ago
    They work if light is massively cut down for 12 months. And can be fortified to the nth degree.
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      This has to be the most hilariously desperate anti-renewable argument yet.
      - roenxi 2y ago
        In what way is it anti-renewable?
        pfdietz 2y ago
        "Renewables (or, at least, PV) are bad because they won't work after a K/Pg-level asteroid impact."
        roenxi 2y ago
        Why would that make them bad? They're still good. It just isn't clever to rely only on one source of power. It is like chicken being a good thing to have in the fridge. That doesn't make a sack of potatoes in the cupboard bad. On a 1:500 year time horizon we know there are threats that dim the sun (possibly quite a bit shorter now that nuclear weapons are on the table and we seem to be incapable of dealing with that threat productively - the number of actors with nukes is growing). Planning for that isn't anti-renewable, it is just cautious. And nobody was talking about K-Pg events. You'll notice the years quoted were all after the Roman Empire was founded.
gpm 2y ago
Battery production/year is following an exponential curve right now. Tons of new research on promising new directions is continually being produced and incorporated into batteries. Projecting only continued production at the current rate isn't "realistic", it's wildly pessimistic.
- vlovich123 2y ago
  The total electricity grid requirements are also growing - it’s at 30TWh annually and before the AI explosion was ~2-3% (let’s conservatively estimate 2030 as 40TWh). Let’s say 20% of that is satisfied direct from renewables without storage leaving 32TWh. Aggressive predictions have us generating ~6-10TWh of batteries by 2030 meaning we’re going to still need about another 3-6 years to actually satisfy demand (ignoring complexity of hooking up the batteries). On top of that, the batteries require rare earth metals that companies are gearing up to satisfy by strip mining the ocean floor for those polymetallic nodules, operations which have a very real risk of completely destroying deep ocean life. It seems to me like it’s slow and ecologically potentially more destructive than even global warming. Is it really wise to be betting on batteries at this scale vs tried and true nuclear fission which doesn’t carry any of these risks?
  - spockz 2y ago
    Hang on. So the reaction to companies intending to perform actions that will destroy the economy system of the oceans is to prevent more demand? Why this instead of just forbidding that mining?
    - vlovich123 2y ago
      Well without that mining batteries will run out of cost effective materials quite quick and temper the ability to hit the demand necessary to decarbonize the grid. There’s also complicated legal matters since a lot of this happens in international waters. Oh, and the body that nominally regulates the matter has been clearly regulatory captured and is handing out mining licenses left and right. So while it might be nice to hypothesize what a sensible regulatory framework might look like, what’s actually happening is “full steam ahead” mining. It’s really bleak.
jonah 2y ago
There are so many more cost-effective grid-scale options like pumped storage. I think it's daft to "waste" the energy density of lithium batteries on stationary applications.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  Battery storage has become cheaper than pumped hydro, I believe, at least for diurnal storage. The price declines in Li-ion cells have been remarkable, particularly recent decline in LFP cell prices.
energy123 2y ago
This is an incredibly misinformed and outdated opinion. Tesla produces 40 gigawatts of storage capacity only because demand for storage capacity is currently quite low, and because China is more cost effectively producing storage. As demand increases, production will increase to match demand. Most states currently only care about installing solar and wind -- not storage -- because they are still majority fossil fuels, and at the current moment it makes no sense to install storage if you still have fossil fuel to dislodge. The only exception is really California, who are installing storage, but their bottleneck is not the market's ability to deliver enough supply. There are also many storage options beyond lithium ion if you only spent a moment to look.
- nradov 2y ago
  Grid scale storage holds potential but for now it isn't economically viable for industrial base load. Residential customers are probably manageable but factories and data centers have to run 24×7: they can't shut down just because the sun isn't shining and wind isn't blowing. It's clear that the USA has to rapidly reindustrialize if we want to keep having stuff. For political and demographic reasons we won't be able to count on China as a reliable supplier much longer. Domestic electricity demand is going to grow much faster than the storage supply can keep up. The only realistic current options for that base load are a mix of fission and natural gas. Maybe fusion will be an alternative someday but for now it's just a fantasy. We need to act based on what's proven to work today.
  - energy123 2y ago
    "Base load" can be achieved with renewables, batteries and natural gas. There have been lots of simulation studies demonstrating this. Not only is it achievable, it's also significantly cheaper and faster than fission with natural gas, even after accounting for all costs related to renewables such as the need for more transmission lines. This is especially true in the United States, which is uniquely blessed with abundant solar resources and well diversified wind resources. Fission as a solution is something that is popular on social media, for reasons that are utterly mystifying to me. The arguments are invariably a few words that reach sweeping conclusions with no actual data backing it up, and lots of data contradicting it that the individual appears oblivious to.

roenxi 2y ago

Also if we're planning for the long term; wind and solar sound like bad options for going into major global catastrophes like large asteroid hits or a nuclear war. It'd be better as a matter of principle to be using systems that can cope with massive climate disruptions. I like to bring up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer - an event like that will happen sooner or later and it'd be pretty rough if we've all gone too heavy with solar. One of those hopefully-you-don't-need-it concerns but it is starting to become a more pressing with the uptick in wars and unrest that seems to be going on.

Pooge 2y ago
More[1] reading material. The volcanic winter of 536 made it one of the worst years for humanity. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
SiempreViernes 2y ago
Sorry, how is having a few, very delicate, power sources more resilient than an abundance of mechanically simple and widely distributed power sources?
- roenxi 2y ago
  They work if light is massively cut down for 12 months. And can be fortified to the nth degree.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    This has to be the most hilariously desperate anti-renewable argument yet.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      In what way is it anti-renewable?
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        "Renewables (or, at least, PV) are bad because they won't work after a K/Pg-level asteroid impact."
        roenxi 2y ago
        Why would that make them bad? They're still good. It just isn't clever to rely only on one source of power. It is like chicken being a good thing to have in the fridge. That doesn't make a sack of potatoes in the cupboard bad. On a 1:500 year time horizon we know there are threats that dim the sun (possibly quite a bit shorter now that nuclear weapons are on the table and we seem to be incapable of dealing with that threat productively - the number of actors with nukes is growing). Planning for that isn't anti-renewable, it is just cautious. And nobody was talking about K-Pg events. You'll notice the years quoted were all after the Roman Empire was founded.

gpm 2y ago

Battery production/year is following an exponential curve right now. Tons of new research on promising new directions is continually being produced and incorporated into batteries. Projecting only continued production at the current rate isn't "realistic", it's wildly pessimistic.

vlovich123 2y ago
The total electricity grid requirements are also growing - it’s at 30TWh annually and before the AI explosion was ~2-3% (let’s conservatively estimate 2030 as 40TWh). Let’s say 20% of that is satisfied direct from renewables without storage leaving 32TWh. Aggressive predictions have us generating ~6-10TWh of batteries by 2030 meaning we’re going to still need about another 3-6 years to actually satisfy demand (ignoring complexity of hooking up the batteries). On top of that, the batteries require rare earth metals that companies are gearing up to satisfy by strip mining the ocean floor for those polymetallic nodules, operations which have a very real risk of completely destroying deep ocean life. It seems to me like it’s slow and ecologically potentially more destructive than even global warming. Is it really wise to be betting on batteries at this scale vs tried and true nuclear fission which doesn’t carry any of these risks?
- spockz 2y ago
  Hang on. So the reaction to companies intending to perform actions that will destroy the economy system of the oceans is to prevent more demand? Why this instead of just forbidding that mining?
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    Well without that mining batteries will run out of cost effective materials quite quick and temper the ability to hit the demand necessary to decarbonize the grid. There’s also complicated legal matters since a lot of this happens in international waters. Oh, and the body that nominally regulates the matter has been clearly regulatory captured and is handing out mining licenses left and right. So while it might be nice to hypothesize what a sensible regulatory framework might look like, what’s actually happening is “full steam ahead” mining. It’s really bleak.

jonah 2y ago

There are so many more cost-effective grid-scale options like pumped storage. I think it's daft to "waste" the energy density of lithium batteries on stationary applications.

pfdietz 2y ago
Battery storage has become cheaper than pumped hydro, I believe, at least for diurnal storage. The price declines in Li-ion cells have been remarkable, particularly recent decline in LFP cell prices.

energy123 2y ago

This is an incredibly misinformed and outdated opinion. Tesla produces 40 gigawatts of storage capacity only because demand for storage capacity is currently quite low, and because China is more cost effectively producing storage. As demand increases, production will increase to match demand. Most states currently only care about installing solar and wind -- not storage -- because they are still majority fossil fuels, and at the current moment it makes no sense to install storage if you still have fossil fuel to dislodge. The only exception is really California, who are installing storage, but their bottleneck is not the market's ability to deliver enough supply. There are also many storage options beyond lithium ion if you only spent a moment to look.

nradov 2y ago
Grid scale storage holds potential but for now it isn't economically viable for industrial base load. Residential customers are probably manageable but factories and data centers have to run 24×7: they can't shut down just because the sun isn't shining and wind isn't blowing. It's clear that the USA has to rapidly reindustrialize if we want to keep having stuff. For political and demographic reasons we won't be able to count on China as a reliable supplier much longer. Domestic electricity demand is going to grow much faster than the storage supply can keep up. The only realistic current options for that base load are a mix of fission and natural gas. Maybe fusion will be an alternative someday but for now it's just a fantasy. We need to act based on what's proven to work today.
- energy123 2y ago
  "Base load" can be achieved with renewables, batteries and natural gas. There have been lots of simulation studies demonstrating this. Not only is it achievable, it's also significantly cheaper and faster than fission with natural gas, even after accounting for all costs related to renewables such as the need for more transmission lines. This is especially true in the United States, which is uniquely blessed with abundant solar resources and well diversified wind resources. Fission as a solution is something that is popular on social media, for reasons that are utterly mystifying to me. The arguments are invariably a few words that reach sweeping conclusions with no actual data backing it up, and lots of data contradicting it that the individual appears oblivious to.