Some key insights from the article:
Basically, what they did was to look at how much batteries would be needed in a given area to provide constant power supply at least 97% of the time, and the calculate the costs of that solar+battery setup compared to coal and nuclear.
That last graph is very impressive, but the shortfalls worry me. They’re too small to make it cost effective to have an alternative source handily available, but if you don’t you’re resigning yourself to major power outages.
I’d quite like to know how much we need to overbuild capacity to remove them completely.
Absolutely can’t wait for new battery tech for grid storage too! Sand batteries that can use otherwise-unusable sand, sodium-Ion batteries (or mainly inverters that can handle the expanded voltage range compared to Lithium-based), expansion of pumped water batteries where it works. This is about to be THE time for government-funded alternative batteries across the world. Energy would get so plentiful that it wouldn’t even be profitable for fossil fuels anymore. That is the dream. Of course there is a 99% chance that every single government in the world drops the ball completely.
And yet America is regressing because stupidity is celebrated here.
Nobody does stupid like they do! The best stupid! Many people say so!
We celebrate stupidity. It needs to be burned to the ground.
I don’t get the third graph, isn’t it saying that we’d need less battery capacity to flatten out the energy usage in Birmingham than in sunnier cities, how does that make sense?
Less sun -> Less electricity produces -> Less electricity needs to be stored
Basically in Birmingham you need a lot more solar panels to have the same impact.
Ah ok that makes sense!
i honestly don’t get that either :-/
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