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Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

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Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#101

Post by stickfigure »

pixl97 wrote: post #93
classicsnoot wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my limited experience [1 windmill that i am currently working on] the biggest issue we are facing is lightning strike. The windmill is located on a small island .6 miles off of the coast of Maine. the structure rises 20+ feet over the tops of the trees. The Seawind is pretty consistent so wind seemed like a good idea, but the first strike fried the innards of the turbine and compromised the lines running to the ba…

Like the other poster said, lightning can be dealt with, but I'm very glad I don't have your problem. You are dealing with the worst possible combinations of landscape and expense. My honest answer is you need a specialist with the proper testing equipment measure the resistance to earth at your location. If it is very high you will likely need deep holes dug (reading about one mountain top location that needed 600'…

I'm certain there's a perfectly logical answer to this question, but I couldn't find it in 5 minutes of googling:

Why can't the ocean be used as ground?

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#102

Post by exelius »

afarrell wrote: post #96
exelius wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually; cheap storage makes the argument for nuclear energy even better. Nuclear is very bad at responding to demand because it can take weeks or months to restart a nuclear reactor. Under any scenario, you're going to need some kind of power grid. That grid is going to have a non-zero "base" load as batteries charge, etc. Nuclear is perfect for generating this base load - it's reliable, clean and not subject to th…

The problem for nuclear is that with the way the bulk electricity market works, shaving off the peaks could hurt the ROI of building a new nuclear plant significantly. In New York and New England, suppliers bid in how much power they are willing to supply at a given price, the market operator runs a giant LP solver over the bids and transmission constraints between locations in order to satisfy demand in each locatio…

Those economics change drastically when cheap, mass storage of electricity is available. Spend all day charging your batteries with solar and wind, then discharge them in the evening. You could afford to underbid conventional fuels with renewables at similar margins and still negative-price nuclear. But that's the great thing about capitalism: it adapts to small efficiency gains in commodities production very quickly.

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#103

Post by notlisted »

Silly question perhaps… If alternative energy sources in combination with batteries increase independence from those who supply it, and reduced demand during peak times allows rates to fall, isn't there a point where investments in infrastructure (or maintenance thereof) will stop being profitable, etc etc.

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#104

Post by oldmanjay »

diminoten wrote: post #99
wallyhs wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, they can't, because the folks who are commenting at what you think is that level are actually completely unqualified to do so. > The folks who are qualified to write articles and papers on the topics that might interest you, do exactly that. How could you possibly know who is qualified and who is not? Given that the authors of submitted articles frequently comment on HN themselves, it must be true that at least…

So you think I'm speaking to you as an authority figure?

I'm not a part of this conversation but I was assuming you were playing the role of the condescending nerd who tells other people how to think. was I wrong?

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#105

Post by iamcurious »

beat wrote: post #81

One of the best things about the solar/wind + storage combination is that it's decentralized and cheap at small scale. This makes serious electrification of remote and impoverished places viable. It reminds me of the wildfire spread of cell service in places that didn't have phones before, only on a larger and more important scale. Give a village cheap electricity, and awesome things will happen. This gets to another…

Please do not use "western" when you mean "developed".

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#106

Post by Terr_ »

api wrote: post #3

If we do get cheap scalable energy storage, it's pretty much game over (in the long run) for everything but solar and wind. We are basically drenched in free energy, but we can't store it cheaply enough. If that's fixed, we're done here. Nuclear fission may still have on-paper advantages in some markets/climates, but the high PITA (pain in the aXX) factor would probably mean we wouldn't bother going there. We'd just…

Partly, but it isn't just storage, it's also the losses in transmitting the energy from A to B, especially if we're discussing areas which are relatively dim or windless.

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#107

Post by the8472 »

IgorPartola wrote: post #40
toomuchtodo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind and solar have a fairly beneficial failure scenario (ie nothing happens, save for the few turbines that have destroyed themselves during adverse conditions). You'll never be able to compete with that, fission, fusion, whatever. We still don't know where to put the waste, we still refuse to acknowledge the ability to reprocess said waste, and so forth. You don't even need more storage to run wind and solar as bas…

So cold fusion (as in cold enough to run on Earth, not cold enough to power your laptop) may compete with it, depending on what it will end up being. Unlike fission, fusion requires very specific parameters and if those are not present the reaction stops. My understanding and memory of this subject is rather dim, but I remember discussion benefits of fusion over fission as a potential power source in college. Relevan…

Cold fusion is totally the wrong term here, no matter how you twist it.

Artificial fusion actually requires higher temperatures than fusion in the core of the sun[1] because other parameters are less beneficial than at the center of the sun.

[1]: https://www.iter.org/mach/heating

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#108

Post by dang »

melling wrote: post #46

Got any real numbers to back that up? I'm guessing that it just feels good to bang on your chest and make that call. The reality is probably a lot different. How are all the megacities going to get enough solar and wind power, for example? Tokyo, NYC, Mexico City, Shanghai, etc. all running from solar? How big will the grid need to be to power NYC? Anyway, I'd love to see a deeper analysis and less chest pounding.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9376627 as off-topic.

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#109

Post by brownbat »

teamonkey wrote: post #94
jhallenworld wrote: post #43

Push a train up a hill to store energy. Yes, someone is really doing this: http://www.aresnorthamerica.com/

That uses more-or-less the same principle as pumped-storage hydroelectricity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity

Except it takes a really big train to weigh as much as a lake.

Pumped hydro is unbelievable. Tour a pumped hydro facility if you ever get the chance, and ask about the economics. They're buying a dollar of energy at night in Spring and selling it on hot summer days for something like five hundred. (Probably not quite that much, but it was a crazy ratio, to the point where efficiency barely matters - also, free energy from rain!)

Re: Why Energy Storage Is About to Get Big – And Cheap

#110

Post by DennisP »

beat wrote: post #81

One of the best things about the solar/wind + storage combination is that it's decentralized and cheap at small scale. This makes serious electrification of remote and impoverished places viable. It reminds me of the wildfire spread of cell service in places that didn't have phones before, only on a larger and more important scale. Give a village cheap electricity, and awesome things will happen. This gets to another…

I wrote a couple pro-nuclear comments here. I'm perfectly happy with wind and solar and think we should roll it out as fast as we can, as well as nuclear.

Many of the wind/solar advocates, on the other hand, are strongly anti-nuclear. Given the state of the climate that just doesn't make sense to me. All these technologies have their own advantages, and we should use each where it's most effective.

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