3 ms·
Nuclear at $6,000-12,000/kW installed capacity becomes cheaper than solar+battery somewhere between 1-3 days of required backup.
by UltraSane 1y ago
Nuclear at $6,000-12,000/kW installed capacity becomes cheaper than solar+battery somewhere between 1-3 days of required backup.
- pfdietz 1y agoWhich is why you don't use batteries (at least, Li-ion batteries) much beyond diurnal storage. Systems analysis for renewables that assumes batteries are the only storage mode requires massive overbuilding of solar/wind, and this strawman engineering makes the nuclear alternative appear more competitive than it actually would be.
- UltraSane 1y agoSo what do you use instead for storage? This is a very important detail you didn't mention.
- pfdietz 1y agoHydrogen or heat. The former would be stored like natural gas currently is stored, underground. We store months of natural gas consumption. Heat (at 600 C) is potentially even cheaper to store, with a cost of storage capacity as low as $0.10/kWh(th) of capacity. This could yield 365/24/7 heat for $3/GJ, competitive even with cheap natural gas. https://austinvernon.substack.com/p/building-ultra-cheap-energy-storage https://austinvernon.substack.com/p/building-ultra-cheap-ene... https://standardthermal.com/ https://standardthermal.com/ Round trip efficiency if you go back to electricity is nothing great, but this is not important for very long term storage, where capex is king, not RTE.
- zekrioca 1y agohttps://www.tesla.com/megapack https://www.tesla.com/megapack
- UltraSane 1y agoTotal annual global electricity consumption in 2024 was 30,856 TWh so 36GWh of capacity is about one millionth of global electricity consumption.