Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#131

Post by nl » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 12:58 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #91

nl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a South Australian, I'm (very!!) happy to trade a few tax dollars for much lower power prices. The extra tax is more than made up for in savings. On this particular topic, the South Australian government's interests and mine are precisely aligned: We are both getting screwed over by power generators exploiting the intermittent nature of renewables to make bigger profits. Did you know they deliberately keep gas pea…

happy to trade a few tax dollars for much lower power prices That's optimistic . I guarantee you will be paying more for electricity generation because of this battery. There's no way the incumbents would allow this thing to be connected to the grid if there wasn't a dollar (quite a few dollars) in it for them. Giving money and power to politicians is like giving car keys and whiskey to teenage boys. Regards, former…

There's no way the incumbents would allow this thing to be connected to the grid if there wasn't a dollar (quite a few dollars) in it for them.

There are no major non-renewable incumbents left in SA. The renewables love this because it lets them load shift. That's good for them but good for me too.

AGL has a small gas fired station but screwed up during the outage by not firing up one generator. That lost them any friends they have, especially since they blamed high gas prices, which the Federal Government saw as a criticism of them.

The interstate incumbents hated it enough to get the Federal Government to look at stopping it[1]. But then the Victorian Hazelwood coal fired plant closure was announced, and the coal industry lost a lot of credibility with the federal government. Basically the incumbents are suffering and are rapidly losing political power.

[1] http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2017/03/14/south-...

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#132

Post by zyngaro » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 1:02 PM UTC

WJW wrote: post #124

zyngaro wrote: post #115

So basically we are transitioning from a fossil energy based world to lithium based one. Why does media never talk about the sustainability of build lithium ion batteries at large scale? Have the recycling problem been sorted out (I have a couple of lithium ion batteries and I don't know what to do about them) I also heard that lithium is very very scarce on Earth.

It's not talked about in "the media" (at least not front page stuff) because it is not a huge problem. While "scarce" is relative, global demand until the year 2100 is estimated to be between 12 and 20 million tons, while currently known reserves are about 39 million tons. So we should be good for at least 80 years. Recycling is also a solved problem, though we'll have to build a few more factories to keep up with th…

Had you changed the tone of your writing the answer would have been perfect. But thanks anyway very informative.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#133

Post by zyngaro » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 1:04 PM UTC

calafrax wrote: post #130

zyngaro wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a denier. Global warming is a fact regardless of what is causing it. Phasing out fossil fuels is a first step for more innovation in how we produce and consume energy.

Sorry, I was just making fun of the tendency for commercially interested parties to push their products as energy solutions while not asking the kinds of questions that you are.

I got that. No problem :)

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#134

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 1:07 PM UTC

zyngaro wrote: post #115

So basically we are transitioning from a fossil energy based world to lithium based one. Why does media never talk about the sustainability of build lithium ion batteries at large scale? Have the recycling problem been sorted out (I have a couple of lithium ion batteries and I don't know what to do about them) I also heard that lithium is very very scarce on Earth.

Between sodium ion batteries and flow batteries, we aren't likely to end up dependent on lithium.

Sodium ion aren't really commercialized yet but the cost implications provide a whole lot of motivation to figure it out.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#135

Post by vamur » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 1:09 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #119

Can anyone comment more generally on using lithium ion batteries for grid scale storage? It seems nonsensical to me. Lithium makes sense for cars where power density is essential. But with grid scale storage, there are so many drawbacks, including 1.) High fixed cost vs. other batteries 2.) Degradation from dendrite growth 3.) Need for constant cooling 4.) Possibility of catastrophic failure in case of short circuiti…

129MWh is a laughable amount of storage when you need at minimum 10000MWh per day for 1mln people. So you would need at least $12.5bln to build enough plants for just one day per 1mln people. And that's not counting maintenance. For that price 2-3 nuclear plants can be built which can last 30-50 years unlike the 10-20 years of lithium storage.

Instead of hideously expensive (and potentially explosive) lithium storage, solution should be synthesizing and storing some form of gas. This gas can then be produced and stored in underground locations during summer, and then spent during winter.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#136

Post by WJW » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 1:13 PM UTC

philipov wrote: post #129

WJW wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not talked about in "the media" (at least not front page stuff) because it is not a huge problem. While "scarce" is relative, global demand until the year 2100 is estimated to be between 12 and 20 million tons, while currently known reserves are about 39 million tons. So we should be good for at least 80 years. Recycling is also a solved problem, though we'll have to build a few more factories to keep up with th…

What crystal ball are they using to predict the future out for 80 years? Are they making the assumption that there will be no technological paradigm shifts and demand growth will continue along current levels? Do they factor in the effects of climate change and global instability? If you use an estimate of demand to justify increasing demand, you immediately, tautologically invalidate the estimate: the estimate did n…

If you want to know which assumptions they made, why not just read the studies and see for yourself? To be sure, predicting the future is super difficult. If we have a global thermonuclear war in 2020, we will probably not need any tons of lithium at all, what with everyone being dead. Same thing if we get hit by a really large asteroid, etc. Also if someone ever develops man-portable fusion reactors we might not need batteries at all. :)

Your point about the self fulfilling aspect of basing policy on research is well taken, though in this case the researchers used multiple scenarios for policy development, including one where lithium demand is heavily stimulated by eg subsidies on EVs and the like. That is the upper part of the range of 12-20 million tons of demand, which is still well below the lower bound of estimated reserves.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#137

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 1:14 PM UTC

vamur wrote: post #135

aphextron wrote: post #119

Can anyone comment more generally on using lithium ion batteries for grid scale storage? It seems nonsensical to me. Lithium makes sense for cars where power density is essential. But with grid scale storage, there are so many drawbacks, including 1.) High fixed cost vs. other batteries 2.) Degradation from dendrite growth 3.) Need for constant cooling 4.) Possibility of catastrophic failure in case of short circuiti…

129MWh is a laughable amount of storage when you need at minimum 10000MWh per day for 1mln people. So you would need at least $12.5bln to build enough plants for just one day per 1mln people. And that's not counting maintenance. For that price 2-3 nuclear plants can be built which can last 30-50 years unlike the 10-20 years of lithium storage. Instead of hideously expensive (and potentially explosive) lithium storage…

It's a buffer to stabilize the grid though, so making gas wouldn't really solve the problem that the battery is supposed to solve.

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#138

Post by illektr1k » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 1:17 PM UTC

vamur wrote: post #135

aphextron wrote: post #119

Can anyone comment more generally on using lithium ion batteries for grid scale storage? It seems nonsensical to me. Lithium makes sense for cars where power density is essential. But with grid scale storage, there are so many drawbacks, including 1.) High fixed cost vs. other batteries 2.) Degradation from dendrite growth 3.) Need for constant cooling 4.) Possibility of catastrophic failure in case of short circuiti…

129MWh is a laughable amount of storage when you need at minimum 10000MWh per day for 1mln people. So you would need at least $12.5bln to build enough plants for just one day per 1mln people. And that's not counting maintenance. For that price 2-3 nuclear plants can be built which can last 30-50 years unlike the 10-20 years of lithium storage. Instead of hideously expensive (and potentially explosive) lithium storage…

I, for one, can't wait for SI Units and their prefixes (Kilo / Mega / Giga / etc) to be adopted globally.

129MWh / 10GWh / 1M people / 12.5G people

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#139

Post by everyone » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 1:21 PM UTC

When was the truth era?

I get the feeling that revelations similar to the "post truth" idea here, ie. commentators being shocked by the barefaced lying of the powerful, have been happening continuously for thousands of years.

Apocryphal or nor this is apt..

An Assyrian clay tablet dating to around 2800 B.C. bears the inscription: “Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching.”

Re: Tesla’s big battery in South Australia may prove the viability of renewables

#140

Post by jimnotgym » Sat, Jul 08, 2017, 1:22 PM UTC

philipov wrote: post #129

WJW wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not talked about in "the media" (at least not front page stuff) because it is not a huge problem. While "scarce" is relative, global demand until the year 2100 is estimated to be between 12 and 20 million tons, while currently known reserves are about 39 million tons. So we should be good for at least 80 years. Recycling is also a solved problem, though we'll have to build a few more factories to keep up with th…

What crystal ball are they using to predict the future out for 80 years? Are they making the assumption that there will be no technological paradigm shifts and demand growth will continue along current levels? Do they factor in the effects of climate change and global instability? If you use an estimate of demand to justify increasing demand, you immediately, tautologically invalidate the estimate: the estimate did n…

The crystal ball comment is not helpful. The same argument applies to all forecasting. For instance next years budget may be invalidated by a financial crisis, a war, a new invention.

What a forecast does is provide a helpful generalization for questions like, 'can we really use Lithium batteries at that scale'. 80 years of expected availability doesn't mean we can will run out in 80 years, it does mean that in our short to medium term planning the risk of running out of lithium is low. So in the context of the question, 'should we be using lithium, as it is scarce?', the forecast is perfectly reasonably applied.