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You’re again not considering electrification of current loads that burn fossil fuels. Unfortunately, a lot of these loads are closer to 24/7 and will require m

by mlyle 1y ago

You’re again not considering electrification of current loads that burn fossil fuels. Unfortunately, a lot of these loads are closer to 24/7 and will require more storage. The IEA net zero scenario assumes 100TWh of storage and may not be enough. Total installed system costs— not batteries alone— are estimated at $300B/TWh. So that is on the order of $30T at current prices (some estimates reach to $100T). And of course, these investments don’t last forever— we can’t be kicking 3pc of GDP to storage. I expect this to improve, but having some clean, always-on generation greatly reduces the amount of storage and overprovisioned production of other types needed.

Veedrac 1y ago
3% GDP over a single decade is certainly not a trivial amount, but it's worth noting the comparison here is spending more than that every year forever. Similarly, 100 TWh sounds like a huge number, and it is, but it's like the equivalent capacity of one base Model 3 per 6 people globally. It's a lot in absolute terms, for sure, but it's by no means a crazy unachievable quantity of battery for a family of 6 to use.
- mlyle 1y ago
  If I wasn’t clear: 3 percent of gdp is the ballpark perpetual capital cost with present technology and a 20 year storage system life. Just capital costs and just storage. Versus all of energy being roughly 5pc of global GDP now. That is assuming we can hit that scale in the next couple decades and that nothing happens to push up costs with increased scale. More likely is a moderate cost increase, but who knows? Putting all our eggs in the battery storage basket is not great. Just a few percent more stable base generation in the mix would greatly reduce the amount of storage needed and open more options (e.g making power to gas more reasonable) It may be cheaper overall; it may not be. But even if you think this is modestly costlier, reducing risk and volatility of outcomes is something that one often chooses to pay for.
  - Veedrac 1y ago
    I find this hard to believe. Let's math it. Let's put grid storage at $200k/MWh, or about 4x current battery prices. Let's keep it at that level for sake of argument. Let's very pessimistically say we need to replace 50% of storage every decade, and again for sake of argument let's say replacing the batteries costs the whole 4x (eg. no reuse of material or converters or grid connections). So the math there gives $1T/y for storage. Idk, it seems like even pretty pessimistic arguments with frozen costs and early retirements suggest this is cheaper than the numbers you gave. > That is assuming we can hit that scale in the next couple decades and that nothing happens to push up costs with increased scale. This strikes me as odd to posit about a technology that has had a steady 23% cost reduction per doubling over the last 6 decimal orders of magnitude.
    - mlyle 1y ago
      Current prices of installed systems at peak scale are 150-350k/MWh. Replacing it all on a 20 year cadence seems like a reasonable assumption. Arguments assuming a positive return to scale 4 orders of magnitude out may be true— or may be unduly optimistic. I don’t like to have too much faith extending the lines too far off the right of the graph. When that is required, I want whatever margin and ways to reduce risk as possible: which is why I would like more nuclear in the mix. A grid with 12pc nuclear and the rest renewable (so about 3-4pc of nameplate power nuclear) would require much less over provisioning and storage.
      - Veedrac 1y ago
        You don't have to go all the way to battery prices scaling to 5% of the price they are today to consider it likely the price continues to fall at all. Replacing the whole system every 20 years still seems really wild to me, especially in worlds where price doesn't fall past the cost of maintenance, because the only wear part is the battery, and batteries are modular. We could, sure, I just showed the cost is a fraction of today's energy spend, it just seems really weird not to do something smarter instead.
        1y ago
ben_w 1y ago
> we can’t be kicking 3pc of GDP to storage. Yes we can, indefinitely, and doing so saves money relative to fossil fuels (which are currently about $8T/year[0]) and nuclear (which is on the expensive side of electricity compared to fossil fuels anyway). [0] https://www.precedenceresearch.com/fossil-fuels-market https://www.precedenceresearch.com/fossil-fuels-market
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
pydry 1y ago
>You’re again not considering electrification of current loads that burn fossil fuels You're not considering cost. >Unfortunately, a lot of these loads are closer to 24/7 The exact opposite is true. Heating, cooling and car charging are just 3 examples of current loads that burn fossil fuels which are already being demand shifted on an electric grid. >The IEA net zero scenario assumes 100TWh of storage Did you assume it was all going to be achieved with batteries? This is a common fallacy perpetuated by nuclear industry propaganda. 350GWh are being built in australia right now with zero batteries, and studies show there is plenty of geography suitable to build plenty more of that around the world. Power2gas+solar+wind is still cheaper than nuclear power even though it's quite expensive. >but having some clean, always-on generation greatly reduces the amount of storage and overprovisioned production of other types needed and there is zero point if the cost is stupidly high (which it is) and we have the imagination to look beyond just batteries as a means of storing power. Nuclear industry propaganda is alas not capable of such.
- mlyle 1y ago
  > Power2gas+solar+wind is still cheaper than nuclear power even though it's quite expensive. The costing mistake people always make is assuming p2g infrastructure can be operated at high duty cycle with an all renewable grid. If you need to amortize the infrastructure over a few hours per day it looks much less favorable. Of course, with a little more stable base generation in the mix, this assumption is less shaky. It doesn’t need to be a ridiculous amount. More base generation simultaneously makes p2g more reasonable and reduces the total need for it (and total need to overprovision everything else) And even if one disagrees that a small amount of additional nuclear reduces total system cost, it absolutely reduces systemic risk vs putting all of our eggs in the battery basket. Pumped hydro is great for Australia, but the capability to increase hydro in most areas is much more limited. We are going to have to mostly do it with batteries and intermediate term storage with p2g.
  - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
    The problem stems form new built western nuclear power costing $190/MWh if it can sell its power 24/7 all year around. Adding that as a base input cost too all storage technology just makes the entire enterprise unfeasible. You also have to answer why this P2G infrastructure should buy your extremely expensive nuclear electricity when renewables and storage delivers way cheaper electricity.

by mlyle 1y ago

Veedrac 1y ago

3% GDP over a single decade is certainly not a trivial amount, but it's worth noting the comparison here is spending more than that every year forever. Similarly, 100 TWh sounds like a huge number, and it is, but it's like the equivalent capacity of one base Model 3 per 6 people globally. It's a lot in absolute terms, for sure, but it's by no means a crazy unachievable quantity of battery for a family of 6 to use.

mlyle 1y ago
If I wasn’t clear: 3 percent of gdp is the ballpark perpetual capital cost with present technology and a 20 year storage system life. Just capital costs and just storage. Versus all of energy being roughly 5pc of global GDP now. That is assuming we can hit that scale in the next couple decades and that nothing happens to push up costs with increased scale. More likely is a moderate cost increase, but who knows? Putting all our eggs in the battery storage basket is not great. Just a few percent more stable base generation in the mix would greatly reduce the amount of storage needed and open more options (e.g making power to gas more reasonable) It may be cheaper overall; it may not be. But even if you think this is modestly costlier, reducing risk and volatility of outcomes is something that one often chooses to pay for.
- Veedrac 1y ago
  I find this hard to believe. Let's math it. Let's put grid storage at $200k/MWh, or about 4x current battery prices. Let's keep it at that level for sake of argument. Let's very pessimistically say we need to replace 50% of storage every decade, and again for sake of argument let's say replacing the batteries costs the whole 4x (eg. no reuse of material or converters or grid connections). So the math there gives $1T/y for storage. Idk, it seems like even pretty pessimistic arguments with frozen costs and early retirements suggest this is cheaper than the numbers you gave. > That is assuming we can hit that scale in the next couple decades and that nothing happens to push up costs with increased scale. This strikes me as odd to posit about a technology that has had a steady 23% cost reduction per doubling over the last 6 decimal orders of magnitude.
  - mlyle 1y ago
    Current prices of installed systems at peak scale are 150-350k/MWh. Replacing it all on a 20 year cadence seems like a reasonable assumption. Arguments assuming a positive return to scale 4 orders of magnitude out may be true— or may be unduly optimistic. I don’t like to have too much faith extending the lines too far off the right of the graph. When that is required, I want whatever margin and ways to reduce risk as possible: which is why I would like more nuclear in the mix. A grid with 12pc nuclear and the rest renewable (so about 3-4pc of nameplate power nuclear) would require much less over provisioning and storage.
    - Veedrac 1y ago
      You don't have to go all the way to battery prices scaling to 5% of the price they are today to consider it likely the price continues to fall at all. Replacing the whole system every 20 years still seems really wild to me, especially in worlds where price doesn't fall past the cost of maintenance, because the only wear part is the battery, and batteries are modular. We could, sure, I just showed the cost is a fraction of today's energy spend, it just seems really weird not to do something smarter instead.
      - 1y ago

ben_w 1y ago

> we can’t be kicking 3pc of GDP to storage. Yes we can, indefinitely, and doing so saves money relative to fossil fuels (which are currently about $8T/year[0]) and nuclear (which is on the expensive side of electricity compared to fossil fuels anyway). [0] https://www.precedenceresearch.com/fossil-fuels-market https://www.precedenceresearch.com/fossil-fuels-market

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

pydry 1y ago

>You’re again not considering electrification of current loads that burn fossil fuels You're not considering cost. >Unfortunately, a lot of these loads are closer to 24/7 The exact opposite is true. Heating, cooling and car charging are just 3 examples of current loads that burn fossil fuels which are already being demand shifted on an electric grid. >The IEA net zero scenario assumes 100TWh of storage Did you assume it was all going to be achieved with batteries? This is a common fallacy perpetuated by nuclear industry propaganda. 350GWh are being built in australia right now with zero batteries, and studies show there is plenty of geography suitable to build plenty more of that around the world. Power2gas+solar+wind is still cheaper than nuclear power even though it's quite expensive. >but having some clean, always-on generation greatly reduces the amount of storage and overprovisioned production of other types needed and there is zero point if the cost is stupidly high (which it is) and we have the imagination to look beyond just batteries as a means of storing power. Nuclear industry propaganda is alas not capable of such.

mlyle 1y ago
> Power2gas+solar+wind is still cheaper than nuclear power even though it's quite expensive. The costing mistake people always make is assuming p2g infrastructure can be operated at high duty cycle with an all renewable grid. If you need to amortize the infrastructure over a few hours per day it looks much less favorable. Of course, with a little more stable base generation in the mix, this assumption is less shaky. It doesn’t need to be a ridiculous amount. More base generation simultaneously makes p2g more reasonable and reduces the total need for it (and total need to overprovision everything else) And even if one disagrees that a small amount of additional nuclear reduces total system cost, it absolutely reduces systemic risk vs putting all of our eggs in the battery basket. Pumped hydro is great for Australia, but the capability to increase hydro in most areas is much more limited. We are going to have to mostly do it with batteries and intermediate term storage with p2g.
- ViewTrick1002 1y ago
  The problem stems form new built western nuclear power costing $190/MWh if it can sell its power 24/7 all year around. Adding that as a base input cost too all storage technology just makes the entire enterprise unfeasible. You also have to answer why this P2G infrastructure should buy your extremely expensive nuclear electricity when renewables and storage delivers way cheaper electricity.