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> The implication seems to be that batteries will get more expensive at some point. Perhaps. Or more chemistries will be discovered or used. Lithium got very ex

> The implication seems to be that batteries will get more expensive at some point. Perhaps. Or more chemistries will be discovered or used. Lithium got very expensive for a short while, then cheap. The cure for high prices is high prices, because unlike oil there are tons of substitutions available for all aspects of batteries. Such as? Is your proposal that we use lead acid batteries instead of lithium based batteries? Those have much shorter lifespans, which drives up cost. Sodium batteries? 9 GWh of sodium batteries were shipped in 2025. To be blunt, you're just hand waving away the massive disparity in scale between battery production and the storage demands of a predominantly wind and solar grid.

ViewTrick1002 6mo ago
Or an iron air. Or flow battery. Or sodium. Or all manner of different lithium chemistries across NCA, NMC, LFP and so on. We’re seeing the Cambrian explosion of battery technology. From early BEVs utilizing the highest performance to even deliver a viable product to a plethora of options depending on your use case. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/02/25/google-to-deploy-worlds-largest-iron-air-battery-for-us-data-center/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/02/25/google-to-deploy-worl... Wasting trillions of tax money and decades of opportunity cost on new built nuclear handouts is extremely shortsighted.
- Manuel_D 6mo ago
  How about we don't bother with either fission or wind and solar? Just build fusion plants and be done with it. If we're comfortable betting trillions of dollars in infrastructure projects on the hopes that a heretofore unproven technology will pan out, let's be more ambitious than batteries! Of course, there's no guarantee that any of those fission ideas will actually pan out. Likewise with these battery chemistries. Investing loads of money into intermittent sources with just the hope that some future battery chemistry will solve storage at grid scale is not what I'd call a wise plan.
  - rootusrootus 6mo ago
    > heretofore unproven technology Battery technology seems like a proven technology to me?
    - Manuel_D 6mo ago
      We've also performed fusion in a lab. That doesn't mean it'll be viable in production at scale. What's the annual production figures for iron air batteries, flow batteries, etc.? Sodium batteries are at 9 GWh delivered in 2025. Google tells me that flow battery capacity is 500 MWh to 1 GWh, but doesn't provide any figures on actual production deliveries (production capacity is not the same as actual delivered production). There are no iron air battery facilities currently in production, with the earliest plant trying to open in 2028 with 500 MWh per year annual production. None of your suggestions are remotely close to operating at grid scale, and there is zero guarantee that any of them will prove more feasible than lithium based battery chemistry.
      - epistasis 6mo ago
        This sort of moving the goal posts is not convincing at all. First it was "batteries will never scale to grid usage" now it's "early days of production of a brand new chemistry are only at 9GWh". You seem to think that is somehow an indictment of the technology rather than a statement of an amazingly quick scale up, with no signs of stopping. That's just bad judgement to say "a rapidly scaling tech is at GWh scale even without much demand therefore it's useless". Meanwhile, the statement that "fusion has been achieved in a lab" is optimism and wishful thinking beyond words. What energy return did that get? What was the cost? When will there be GE of generation, mic less basic safety engineering? Those who advocate against the shipping reality of batteries, and moreover assume that they will get more expensive, are not using numerical thinking and are not thinking like scientists, engineers, or technologists. They are merely rooting for a tech like a sports team. Nuclear does not need any more fans, it needs engineers and scientists that can achieve some sort of radical breakthrough that makes it a desirable tech.
        6mo ago
epistasis 6mo ago
Just in case anybody else comes back to read this silly thread, here's a 60GWh sodium ion deal from today: https://electrek.co/2026/04/27/catl-sodium-ion-battery-60gwh-energy-storage-deal/ https://electrek.co/2026/04/27/catl-sodium-ion-battery-60gwh... Looking at 9GWh in 2025 and thinking that's representative of the future is just bonkers, and not based in reality. Much less calling the continual growth "handwaving". It is beyond foolish to think that there's some limitation - a never specified limitation - that would stop this massive scaling, just like we've scaled every other industry of importance in human history. It's just wishful thinking to say that batteries will not be an absolutely massive part of the grid in the future.
- Manuel_D 5mo ago
  60 GWh over how many years? You're link doesn't say, but it does include this: > It builds on a broader framework agreement signed in November 2025, when HyperStrong committed to procuring 200 GWh of battery cells from CATL over the period from 2026 to 2035. If this additional 60 GWh deal is over the same time frame, this is just 6 GWh per year. Remember the world uses 60,000 of electricity per day. What's wishful thinking is believing that any industrial process can scale by a factor of a thousand just because you want it to.

ViewTrick1002 6mo ago

Or an iron air. Or flow battery. Or sodium. Or all manner of different lithium chemistries across NCA, NMC, LFP and so on. We’re seeing the Cambrian explosion of battery technology. From early BEVs utilizing the highest performance to even deliver a viable product to a plethora of options depending on your use case. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/02/25/google-to-deploy-worlds-largest-iron-air-battery-for-us-data-center/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/02/25/google-to-deploy-worl... Wasting trillions of tax money and decades of opportunity cost on new built nuclear handouts is extremely shortsighted.

Manuel_D 6mo ago
How about we don't bother with either fission or wind and solar? Just build fusion plants and be done with it. If we're comfortable betting trillions of dollars in infrastructure projects on the hopes that a heretofore unproven technology will pan out, let's be more ambitious than batteries! Of course, there's no guarantee that any of those fission ideas will actually pan out. Likewise with these battery chemistries. Investing loads of money into intermittent sources with just the hope that some future battery chemistry will solve storage at grid scale is not what I'd call a wise plan.
- rootusrootus 6mo ago
  > heretofore unproven technology Battery technology seems like a proven technology to me?
  - Manuel_D 6mo ago
    We've also performed fusion in a lab. That doesn't mean it'll be viable in production at scale. What's the annual production figures for iron air batteries, flow batteries, etc.? Sodium batteries are at 9 GWh delivered in 2025. Google tells me that flow battery capacity is 500 MWh to 1 GWh, but doesn't provide any figures on actual production deliveries (production capacity is not the same as actual delivered production). There are no iron air battery facilities currently in production, with the earliest plant trying to open in 2028 with 500 MWh per year annual production. None of your suggestions are remotely close to operating at grid scale, and there is zero guarantee that any of them will prove more feasible than lithium based battery chemistry.
    - epistasis 6mo ago
      This sort of moving the goal posts is not convincing at all. First it was "batteries will never scale to grid usage" now it's "early days of production of a brand new chemistry are only at 9GWh". You seem to think that is somehow an indictment of the technology rather than a statement of an amazingly quick scale up, with no signs of stopping. That's just bad judgement to say "a rapidly scaling tech is at GWh scale even without much demand therefore it's useless". Meanwhile, the statement that "fusion has been achieved in a lab" is optimism and wishful thinking beyond words. What energy return did that get? What was the cost? When will there be GE of generation, mic less basic safety engineering? Those who advocate against the shipping reality of batteries, and moreover assume that they will get more expensive, are not using numerical thinking and are not thinking like scientists, engineers, or technologists. They are merely rooting for a tech like a sports team. Nuclear does not need any more fans, it needs engineers and scientists that can achieve some sort of radical breakthrough that makes it a desirable tech.
      - 6mo ago

epistasis 6mo ago

Just in case anybody else comes back to read this silly thread, here's a 60GWh sodium ion deal from today: https://electrek.co/2026/04/27/catl-sodium-ion-battery-60gwh-energy-storage-deal/ https://electrek.co/2026/04/27/catl-sodium-ion-battery-60gwh... Looking at 9GWh in 2025 and thinking that's representative of the future is just bonkers, and not based in reality. Much less calling the continual growth "handwaving". It is beyond foolish to think that there's some limitation - a never specified limitation - that would stop this massive scaling, just like we've scaled every other industry of importance in human history. It's just wishful thinking to say that batteries will not be an absolutely massive part of the grid in the future.

Manuel_D 5mo ago
60 GWh over how many years? You're link doesn't say, but it does include this: > It builds on a broader framework agreement signed in November 2025, when HyperStrong committed to procuring 200 GWh of battery cells from CATL over the period from 2026 to 2035. If this additional 60 GWh deal is over the same time frame, this is just 6 GWh per year. Remember the world uses 60,000 of electricity per day. What's wishful thinking is believing that any industrial process can scale by a factor of a thousand just because you want it to.