The tech for sodium ion batteries have been around since the 1970's or 80's. The problem is capacity fade- the most stable anodes require titanium or molybdenum, and even then they're not a great deal better than lead acid batteries.
The cheapest low-end estimate for sodium-ion batteries is $40 per kw/h of capacity. The Texas grid at any point had about 85 gigawatts of available generation capacity in 2021 (100% would be around 115, but solar and wind aren't always producing, plants are sometimes offline for maintenance, etc).
So, with no nuclear or fossil fuel production, you're looking at $27 billion just to buy the batteries (not counting installation or maintenance costs) to keep the lights on for 8 hours in Texas on a windless night.
That's at the cheapest option, so you can figure that you'll need to pay roughly 1/4 of that a year making up for batteries that have lost capacity. If you double it, that drops to 1/5 to 1/6 the total cost, unless a miracle occurs in anode tech or the weather is wonderful and they don't cycle as frequently.
Of course, three days of mild, cloudy weather means brownouts or blackouts, because 8 hours of storage is not very much at all. If it were connected to other grids, they could import excess energy from across the continent, but that means those places won't be recharging their own batteries, and you now need to factor in more HVDC lines, and over-provisioning to cover transmission losses into your base price.
Nobody is saying replace ALL energy generation with wind and solar. It’s ok to have a baseline to keep the basics running at least.
Also I never understood why is the default that we all have to have as much energy at our disposal as we want, with a bit of preparation on our end we can easily deal with any intermittent power issues. This is such a consumerist, comfort-over-everything view
> This is such a consumerist, comfort-over-everything view
I wish this bad-faith nonsense would vanish, and people would stick to issues.
I was in South Africa when the blackouts really started, in 2014 and 2015, and every person and business that could afford it bought a diesel generator. Not for their comfort, except in an extreme definition of the word. For their survival. Businesses cannot survive without power. Hospitals cannot. Communications networks cannot. Electric cars cannot.
But diesel and petrol generators and vehicles can. That's the most likely "preparation on our end".
I’m not talking about those extremes for fucks sake. A smart grid can prioritize hospitals and industry while not allowing you to spend energy on cooling your whole house at 19 Celsius. I’m not talking about going to the level of South Africa, I’m just saying we can be much smarter and deliberate about our energy usage.
We should do anything that is necessary to have power available anytime, even a bit in excess in case of potential spikes that are not usually accounted for.
I do not believe "smart-grids" or blackouts are the solution. And especially not having my power cut because someone somewhere decides that I should cook inside my house because the power consumption priority lies elsewhere.
Your baseline has to come from somewhere, which means the cost of that baseline has to be added into solar and wind. It's been my central point all along; intermittent generation can only complement, not replace, nuclear or fossils. At that point, you're better off building nuclear at scale using reproducing designs (or as close to as possible) to bring costs down like South Korea.
There's a solar install not too far from the Canadian border that has produced zero energy for months. It had to be shut down because, despite the panels being 16 feet tall, there are 12 feet of snow around them from accumulation and drifting. Over the next two days, they're getting another 6-12 inches of snow and sleet- conditions which cause wind turbines to draw energy from the grid to heat the blades so they don't build up ice and get damaged.
Is the answer to everyone not on the coast north of Arkansas to move somewhere else? For the whole of Canada to just get fucked?
No. All these answers use some extreme example. Fossil fuels are very useful, but they come with drawbacks. Let's not use them for everything just because it's currently conventient, let's make a scientific, engineering and manufacturing push to mitigate the bad effects as much as possible and use smart grids, renewable energy, nuclear and behaviour changes where possible. What a stupid answer. Don't put solar where it's covered in snow for months at a time, nobody is saying that.
So you want a future where the electric energy supply is unreliable. Such an infrastructure is orders of magnitude less useful (read cost efficient) than the current one.
There’s big difference in 95 percent reliability and 100 percent. Also with a smart grid we can prioritize industry but limit the cooling of the house to something like 25 degrees C. I’m talking about doing smart things with energy without just having a free for all
> Also I never understood why is the default that we all have to have as much energy at our disposal as we want
And there it is. Active hostility to improving our civilisational capabilities, celebrating decline. "People shouldn't have so much", and of course they never mean themselves. Politburo mindset.
Yes let's improve it but not by boiling the planet and destroying it for the next generations so we can be nice and comfy. I honestly don't understand your point - either development is sustainable or it's not. If it's not it's selfish. IF you think that any care for others or a sense of responsibility leads to communism, you're the one that's brainwashed
Every generation since the dawn of time has had its doomsday prophets. The underlying psychology is "I can not imagine a world without me", in other words: pure narcissism. There is a reason its called "Extinction Rebellion" - look at their manifest [0], and tell me this is isn't a death cult.
I'm not saying climate change isn't real or that it isn't a problem, but we're certainly not "boiling the planet", and attacking the most vital foundation our societies are based on, namely reasonably cheap energy (everything depends on this), is insanely dangerous.
If the medicine is worse than the illness, its time to get rid of the doctor.
Funny how all rationalizations we come to are conveniently the ones that alleviate us from any responsibility or blame. I'm advocating for taking responsibility, tackling the problem seriously and making sacrifices if necessary. I believe we can solve the problem and I'm all for improving the world of atoms instead of everybody working on stupid service industry jobs or pushing ads and widgets, but I don't see it happening - especially looking at responses to my post.
> Funny how all rationalizations we come to are conveniently the ones that alleviate us from any responsibility or blame.
See, you accuse me of rationalizing, because I apparently choose „the easy way out“. Making sacrifices is a feature, not a bug! This tells me climate activism satisfies a deep human need, the need for redemption, now that Christianity is dead. We sinned, and thus must atone. I get it, we all like to feel like Good People.
The problem is just that so much is at stake, namely our energy supply.
Man I don't know how to talk to people like you. It's like I'm going crazy. Imagine we're a tribe and most people are burning all wood supplies and wasting food having parties constantly. And some people are saying "hey winter is coming, we have to prepare, we'll be hungry and die" and all you get is "but look how comfy we are, look at all the warm jacuzzis we made, stop bugging me." Depressing.
To repeat myself: I'm not saying climate change isn't real or that it isn't a problem. We need to get off fossil fuels due to climate impact, finite deposits and health reasons. There are several ways how this can be done without dooming our children to significantly worse prosperity.
I take issue with the "if it doesn't hurt, it doesn't count" sentiment I so often encounter in these discussions. This tells me that it is not about solving a physics problem, which it is, but something different and potentially much more dangerous.
They had a real problem with cattle diseases -- and a more imaginary problem with Europeans in "their" land -- and somehow imagined killing ALL their cattle would help solve both problems.
(Both the Xhosa and the Europeans were recent immigrants to the area.)
The only question is is it sustainable or not. I'd be very happy if there were many kWh of energy cheap and easy energy available to all. With how we currently approach the issue, the supporting systems will give out way before we reach that point. So, when your grandchildren ask why did you let things get to a point where whole cities need to be rebuilt, parts of the ecosystem have collapsed and constant wars are occurring over resources and migrations, show them this post and say hey at least I was comfortable.
You mean you will show them all of recorded human history?
Humans have always fought over resources. The idea that we should sacrifice advancement for purported sustainability is a very recent idea.
I’m overall still very happy the Industrial Revolution happened (despite global warming effects) and that we aren’t still living in an 1800s society where I have to worry about dying from an infected papercut or toiling away with a pickaxe.
We are living in the most peaceful time ever recorded. It’s hubris to think we are the “problem generation” or that the problems we face today aren’t solvable.
