Have you ever heard of batteries?

UltraSane 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Nuclear at $6,000-12,000/kW installed capacity becomes cheaper than solar+battery somewhere between 1-3 days of required backup.

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zekrioca a day ago | parent | next [-]

https://www.tesla.com/megapack

	▲	UltraSane 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Total annual global electricity consumption in 2024 was 30,856 TWh so 36GWh of capacity is about one millionth of global electricity consumption.

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pfdietz a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Which 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.

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UltraSane a day ago | parent [-]

So what do you use instead for storage? This is a very important detail you didn't mention.

	▲	pfdietz a day ago \| parent [-]
		Hydrogen 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-ene... 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.

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ackfoobar 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Have you done the math of how insufficient battery tech is, if we are to go 100% renewable? I'm so tired of renewable proponents just use the thought terminating cliche "BATTERIES!" when intermittency is brought up.

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latentsea 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Even if you can't get to 100%, it would still make sense to strive for as large a % of renewables as you could achieve. So, that's going to involve batteries necessarily.

For context I work at a company in Japan working on this problem. The entire reason the company exists is Japan's energy policy in response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Batteries are severely underutilized in Japan at this point in time, so we can at least vastly improve on where we are.

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ackfoobar 2 days ago | parent [-]

My question is a few math operations away from "how much batteries capacity can we deploy to support how much % of renewables in the short-medium term, while still having a stable grid". My "100%" phrasing was sloppy, no need to index too much on it.

Since you're in the industry, maybe you can answer this question and change my mind.

	▲	latentsea 18 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I forget the exact numbers but from my recollection it relies on widespread adoption of EVs and being able to leverage their batteries as part of the grid.
	▲	pfdietz a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Batteries alone cannot handle all storage use cases, but also including an alternative long term storage mode (syngas, thermal) can get to a 100% renewable grid. Use of hydrogen vs. just batteries cuts the cost of an all renewable grid in Europe in half.

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zekrioca a day ago | parent | prev [-]

https://www.tesla.com/megapack

	▲	ackfoobar 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Asked for numbers, got a link. Let's see. They can manufacture 80 GWh a year. To get through dunkelflaute with moderate renewable percentage we need tens of TWh. Not to belittle Tesla, but that's 3 orders of magnitude difference. Are you changing your mind or can you give me numbers to change mine?