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If something like "Astrophage"(from Project Hail Mary) would really solve such problem.
Not an electrical engineer so would love to see opinions on cross-continents grids and challenges with it, because I think that could solve lot of storing energy problem but seems like might introduce new transmission problem !
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think as of today the most efficient approach is pumped storage hydropower. However that is severely limited by geography
I wonder how difficult this would be to implement for consumers/smaller deployments. Could someone dig an underground pool sized hole for a tank of hot water that can be converted back to electricity?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Big batteries Invest in Lithium mines.
For static applications, wouldn't we be better off with batteries based on Sodium chemistry? Less efficient, but removing the geopolitics from one of the main components feels like a pretty big compensating factor.
In a sense, fossil fuel has never been needed as energy source. It’s only been needed as a storage vehicle, to be able to move energy around in time and space.
> What do you think is the biggest problem with solar energy? Stupid people. (Also the biggest problem with everything else. It's almost, but not quite, the only problem.) > How can this problem be solved with our existing knowledge and resources? Well we can't throw all the stupid people into a volcano. Let's get that out of the way right off. Instead, we distract and hypnotize them with the Farnsworth device (Philo…
"Claiming to be wise, they became fools" - Proverbs 1:22 (book of wisdom, also thousands of years old)
> 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,[a] in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
I afraid I don't get what you're saying?
I mean, idolatry is wrong, and we should know and love God, of course.
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> book of wisdom, also thousands of years old
It's not a contest.
The economic advantage in delaying. Given the large build outs and that you don't want to replace panels for 15+ years, a Moore's law like rate of improvement often seems like a reason to wait and pay less for better panels that will have a higher productivity.
Storing the energy for when the sun doesn’t shine. There are many options. The DOE is aiming to get the cost down by a factor of 10 by the end of the decade which is ambitious and not necessarily realistic…
If we covering 100% of our needs when the sun does shine, I would get it. But we are nowhere near there right ?
So, storage is an issue. If no storage/grid tie is possible, utilizing the full output of the panels to heat or cool a mass for night/cloudy days could be helpful in a home situation.
Storing the energy for when the sun doesn’t shine. There are many options. The DOE is aiming to get the cost down by a factor of 10 by the end of the decade which is ambitious and not necessarily realistic…
But why is this a big problem now ? If we covering 100% of our needs when the sun does shine, I would get it. But we are nowhere near there right ?
Imagine there is a car that costs $10,000 and works every day, or there is a car that costs $3000 but works only every other day. But you need to drive every day.
Does it make sense to buy both cars and drive the cheaper one on sunny days? No, economically you only buy the reliable car and you don't buy the unreliable car at all. Notice the discontinuity -- until the reliability problem is solved, it makes no economic sense to deploy any solar. This is the economics of fixed costs.
Whereas what you are thinking of are variable costs. So say the unreliable car can be fueled for $1 a day and the reliable one costs $2 dollars a day. In the world of variable costs, it makes sense to use solar up to 100% of sunny capacity.
Whenever there is a battle between fixed and variable costs, what determines the winner is the interest rate. With low enough interest rates, you get to 100% solar on cloudy days. But with high interest rates, you don't go with solar at all because it is too expensive to keep all those fixed assets on standby and pay for twice the capacity you need just because your solar system goes offline.
So it is the relationship between interest rates and energy prices that determine when it makes sense to max out the cheap, unreliable producer and pay the reliable producer to be on standby, or when you only go with the reliable producer.
And interest rates and energy prices differ over time and in different places. There are many individual producers making these binary choices and in aggregate they never end up using 100% of one option or 0% of the other, it is usually something in between. But just because you see that there is something in between doesn't mean that lack of storage capacity is inhibiting the adoption of solar. It is the only thing inhibiting it. On the other hand, if you solve the storage problem, you can go way past 100% usage on sunny days, you can go to 100% total usage.
So because of fixed costs, it's totally wrong to focus on what happens just on sunny days. What prevents the adoption of solar is affordable storage -- and that is inhibiting the adoption of solar right now.
The unwillingness of people to deal with the storage problem, how they handwave it away or just pretend that it's not a blocker in the present is one of the most frustrating aspects of energy discussions. It is all about storage. That is 100% of the problem. Whether renewables succeed or fail is solely determined by the affordability of storage. The storage problem dwarfs every other consideration by a mile.