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> The main problem of renewables is that it is intermittent and that fact remains to be solved. It is solved. Grid-scale batteries are being mass-produced tod

by danaris 21d ago

> The main problem of renewables is that it is intermittent and that fact remains to be solved. It is solved. Grid-scale batteries are being mass-produced today. It will continue to get even better, but it is reasonably well solved even now.

raffraffraff 21d ago
This sounds like my friend Mick who developed a gambling habit, but assured me that his method was flawless. If you lose, double your bet next time to cover the loss. If you lose that one, double it again. You can't keep on losing.
- deleted 21d ago
  [deleted]
- Lio 21d ago
  Sorry I’m not quite following what point you’re trying to make. Throughout my life the cost of renewable energy generation and storage has been dropping exponentially whilst growing in capability. That’s been happening for decades now. The cost of fossil fuels just keeps rising with spikes every time someone starts a war. Fossil fuels are already far more expensive. In 10 years no one will consider them seriously and in 20 years they’ll be a specialist novelty used by museums to run classic cars.
  - raffraffraff 21d ago
    Mick thought he could give up his job and live off winnings. No steady state earnings. Just wins and losses. On the bad days he lose, and hope his winnings on other days would see him right. Lose on Monday. Easy: double your bets on Tuesday. Lose on Tuesday too? No problem, double up again on Wednesday. You can't possibly have a 4 day losing streak. If you're talking about renewable tech like a volcanic geothermal system in your back yard then you got me. But that's just like a regular job with a predictable income. It's not what 99% of people mean when they say "renewables" Exactly how big do you think batteries need to be to store a summer's worth of extra sunshine until the bleak winter? Btw Mick is a real person who really did lose all his money because he didn't count on a 10 day losing streak, and almost lost his family in the process. Lucky for him he had a forgiving wife and a steady state income.
    - danaris 21d ago
      You don't seem to understand how renewables actually work. The idea that you need so many batteries to store enough energy to last the entire winter indicates that you don't comprehend how good solar panels are in 2026. (...Or 2006.) The idea that renewables are unpredictable in anything remotely resembling the same way as a casino indicates you don't comprehend how renewables have ever worked. It's true, we don't have 100% control over the output of renewables the way we do with fossil fuels*. But that doesn't mean they're unpredictable enough to cause meaningful problems for grid-scale renewable energy. And if you think that solar panels don't produce power during the winter, well, for one thing, you're going to have to explain to my parents just what was offsetting huge chunks of their energy bill the last several Upstate NY winters. And...batteries are getting better and better. Give them a few years, and it won't be at all unreasonable to store a season's worth of energy, at least for a house, and probably for a town. (I have no idea if the way they scale makes it significantly harder to do that for larger areas and larger storage volumes.) * If we have the fuel. And that's a large and growing "if".
      - raffraffraff 18d ago
        I have 25 panels highly efficient panels on a small house. "Total overkill", even according to the installer who was happily taking my money. For two months in the summer I was generating 4x to 5x what I needed. To store that surplus I would fill five 9kwh batteries PER DAY. These aren't shitty lead-acid or NiCad, they're brand new LiFePo4, and are surprisingly compact. But using them to store two months of surplus would cost me half a million euros and take up most of my yard with 300 batteries. The other question (a more important one) is how much stored power I would actually need for the winter. Which points to your comment "you don't comprehend how good solar panels are in 2026". Yes I absolutely do. My worst performing solar day recently was 5.85kwh on the 27th of August (a bad day, but not a short winter day). Two days in a row like that, and I'd be relying on some external "steady state" power source, like my old nuclear power plant at the end of the garden. (The very next day I generated 30kwh, but the whole point is that it's not economical for me store enough surplus for two consecutive shit days in August, never mind the whole winter). I don't know what my November through to February average will be, or for much of the spring/autumn I'll be "averaging" a surplus. But I guess that maybe €300,000 of batteries in my up yard would hold enough surplus to get me through the winter months? The solar could certainly fill them. Solar isn't the problem. I just can't imagine how this is supposed to scale.
  - econ 21d ago
    We've replaced fuel sources and all related technology many times. You can't reasonably argue we are now at the end of that process.
hurril 21d ago
No it is not solved. Grid-scale batteries are absolutely not being mass-produced today. Let's stick to the truth here. I would LOVE for this to be the case, however. Adding this again so that I am not lumped together with the coal thumpers. What exists, TO BE BUILT that is, is battery farms, sure, but they are nowhere nere big enough. They are nowhere nere close enough to compensate the factor applied to wind farm energy generation. But let's hope good progress can be made in the accumulation aspect of intermittent energy production.
- bryanlarsen 21d ago
  Intermittent production is currently being solved by natural gas and coal production. With very rare exceptions these are not being shut down. Therefore, the immense amounts of wind, solar and batteries that are being added to the grid are purely additive. They are making the grid cleaner & cheaper, they're not impeding in any way the ability of other generation sources to cover the gaps. Once wind/solar/batteries reaches about 90-95% of production, it'll become harder economically and technically to increase that number. I'd love to have that problem, we're far from 90% today.

by danaris 21d ago

raffraffraff 21d ago

This sounds like my friend Mick who developed a gambling habit, but assured me that his method was flawless. If you lose, double your bet next time to cover the loss. If you lose that one, double it again. You can't keep on losing.

deleted 21d ago
[deleted]
Lio 21d ago
Sorry I’m not quite following what point you’re trying to make. Throughout my life the cost of renewable energy generation and storage has been dropping exponentially whilst growing in capability. That’s been happening for decades now. The cost of fossil fuels just keeps rising with spikes every time someone starts a war. Fossil fuels are already far more expensive. In 10 years no one will consider them seriously and in 20 years they’ll be a specialist novelty used by museums to run classic cars.
- raffraffraff 21d ago
  Mick thought he could give up his job and live off winnings. No steady state earnings. Just wins and losses. On the bad days he lose, and hope his winnings on other days would see him right. Lose on Monday. Easy: double your bets on Tuesday. Lose on Tuesday too? No problem, double up again on Wednesday. You can't possibly have a 4 day losing streak. If you're talking about renewable tech like a volcanic geothermal system in your back yard then you got me. But that's just like a regular job with a predictable income. It's not what 99% of people mean when they say "renewables" Exactly how big do you think batteries need to be to store a summer's worth of extra sunshine until the bleak winter? Btw Mick is a real person who really did lose all his money because he didn't count on a 10 day losing streak, and almost lost his family in the process. Lucky for him he had a forgiving wife and a steady state income.
  - danaris 21d ago
    You don't seem to understand how renewables actually work. The idea that you need so many batteries to store enough energy to last the entire winter indicates that you don't comprehend how good solar panels are in 2026. (...Or 2006.) The idea that renewables are unpredictable in anything remotely resembling the same way as a casino indicates you don't comprehend how renewables have ever worked. It's true, we don't have 100% control over the output of renewables the way we do with fossil fuels*. But that doesn't mean they're unpredictable enough to cause meaningful problems for grid-scale renewable energy. And if you think that solar panels don't produce power during the winter, well, for one thing, you're going to have to explain to my parents just what was offsetting huge chunks of their energy bill the last several Upstate NY winters. And...batteries are getting better and better. Give them a few years, and it won't be at all unreasonable to store a season's worth of energy, at least for a house, and probably for a town. (I have no idea if the way they scale makes it significantly harder to do that for larger areas and larger storage volumes.) * If we have the fuel. And that's a large and growing "if".
    - raffraffraff 18d ago
      I have 25 panels highly efficient panels on a small house. "Total overkill", even according to the installer who was happily taking my money. For two months in the summer I was generating 4x to 5x what I needed. To store that surplus I would fill five 9kwh batteries PER DAY. These aren't shitty lead-acid or NiCad, they're brand new LiFePo4, and are surprisingly compact. But using them to store two months of surplus would cost me half a million euros and take up most of my yard with 300 batteries. The other question (a more important one) is how much stored power I would actually need for the winter. Which points to your comment "you don't comprehend how good solar panels are in 2026". Yes I absolutely do. My worst performing solar day recently was 5.85kwh on the 27th of August (a bad day, but not a short winter day). Two days in a row like that, and I'd be relying on some external "steady state" power source, like my old nuclear power plant at the end of the garden. (The very next day I generated 30kwh, but the whole point is that it's not economical for me store enough surplus for two consecutive shit days in August, never mind the whole winter). I don't know what my November through to February average will be, or for much of the spring/autumn I'll be "averaging" a surplus. But I guess that maybe €300,000 of batteries in my up yard would hold enough surplus to get me through the winter months? The solar could certainly fill them. Solar isn't the problem. I just can't imagine how this is supposed to scale.
- econ 21d ago
  We've replaced fuel sources and all related technology many times. You can't reasonably argue we are now at the end of that process.

hurril 21d ago

No it is not solved. Grid-scale batteries are absolutely not being mass-produced today. Let's stick to the truth here. I would LOVE for this to be the case, however. Adding this again so that I am not lumped together with the coal thumpers. What exists, TO BE BUILT that is, is battery farms, sure, but they are nowhere nere big enough. They are nowhere nere close enough to compensate the factor applied to wind farm energy generation. But let's hope good progress can be made in the accumulation aspect of intermittent energy production.

bryanlarsen 21d ago
Intermittent production is currently being solved by natural gas and coal production. With very rare exceptions these are not being shut down. Therefore, the immense amounts of wind, solar and batteries that are being added to the grid are purely additive. They are making the grid cleaner & cheaper, they're not impeding in any way the ability of other generation sources to cover the gaps. Once wind/solar/batteries reaches about 90-95% of production, it'll become harder economically and technically to increase that number. I'd love to have that problem, we're far from 90% today.