181–190 of 275 posts
What I find really interesting is the huge growth in stationary storage - I believe it's the fastest growing segment.
Does anyone here think Stem Inc. has any chance of becoming the Microsoft of stationary batteries?
Follow-up: At what point is continued operation of existing coal become uneconomical (to simplify the question assume decent solar generation locations are available/ grid connected nearby).
If battery growth is exponential, but mining of ore isn't, that's a pretty big red flag imo. Once raw material production hits a wall, prices go back up, profits droop, advancement declines. After a while there'll probably be a new OPEC for batteries. Batteries are here to stay, but the growth rate isn't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given the dramatically lower costs of utility-scale solar vs. residential rooftop solar, is it not better at a society level for state policy to incentivize utility over residential solar? Utility-scale battery installations likewise should be much cheaper.
This argument ignores the cost of transmission and distribution, which are higher costs than the generation itself. And as electricity prices are driven down even further, T&D will come to dominate over energy generation costs. Few models account for this, but Christopher Clack made one, and the lowest cost energy path was a small amount of investment in distribution now, paired with massive deployment of solar on ho…
But that is a PG&E problem (well problem for the consumer and great for their bottom line).
Generation is the majority of the cost across the US: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/prices-and-f...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How much fuel is needed to charge them? The eventual goal would be zero.
in what year?
Regarding price, leading manufacturers are already selling at a price below what was always understood as the point where EVs win in terms of economics: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/01/ev-lfp-battery-price-w... The recent price war in China is a testament to that.
> the point where EVs win in terms of economics If ubiquitous and cheap charging infrastructure is not being priced in, which is still a blocker for many. For example, I cannot reasonably run lengths of 110v extension cords down the block to charge a car overnight, and acquiring my own house with a garage is dramatically more expensive than any fuel savings. :p
I don't have a garage attached to my house, it's a shared garage building. But once a few owners got EVs, and it became clear to others that EVs were the future, we got some minimal renovations done that allowed anyone to pay to have a slow AC charger installed.
Oslo has been rolling out street-side AC charging poles. There's never quite enough but the growth is steady.
Other countries may not have the same incentives, but that just shifts the point where the rapid transition starts by a few years I think, since cars get cheaper and better all the time. And remember that Norway is fairly cold, which is brutal on range in the winter, so it's not really a fully ideal place for EVs (though at least the car starts reliably every time unlike diesel)
And they think there'll be 800Wh/kg in 2030? Wasn't that well beyond what's needed for medium-range electric flight?
Is that even possible, chemically speaking?
This is a great set of charts and analysis, although I have two problems with it. 1. On the chart of energy density, I'd like to see the the energy density of petrol for comparison. It's much higher, and even though extrapolation is dangerous, I'd like to see how long it could take to reach parity given some of the different forecasting models they mention. Specifically regarding their mention of air travel, I'd like…
The mention of air travel was strange. I wasn't aware of anyone who thought long range flight would ever be electrified. At least not without some fundamental breakthrough. S-curves are hard to predict. Basically every time someone attempts to do it, they are way off. This [0] is a neat paper that addresses the question. We've blown past every single prediction. [0] https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/files/energy_transition_p…
It does say batteries will start to take market share in 2030. That's almost certainly true. It's a high priority for the Norwegian company to electrify the short distance airplane network in the next coming years. There are already battery electric planes coming out. And battery chemistries suitable for short range planes are starting early production.
I suspect battery electric plane will get a surprisingly good range once we start to get highly optimized battery chemistries and optimized airplane designs for that market. The hardest part is to get the first few products to mass market.
They might creep into the medium range market by 2050.
But long range? It might never happen. Unless we get something like aluminum-air batteries that can exploit oxygen in the air somehow. But it doesn't matter. Long range flights are not the majority of flights. It's a small enough market that e-fuels could cover it.
Since flying battery electric will be so much cheaper it's also possible people will have to switch planes multiple times on a journey. Maybe there will be some innovations/optimizations that make that faster and easier.
This is a great set of charts and analysis, although I have two problems with it. 1. On the chart of energy density, I'd like to see the the energy density of petrol for comparison. It's much higher, and even though extrapolation is dangerous, I'd like to see how long it could take to reach parity given some of the different forecasting models they mention. Specifically regarding their mention of air travel, I'd like…
> I'd like to see the the energy density of petrol for comparison. Petrol's higher energy density doesn't matter as much as people think. Electric vehicles are around four times as efficient as petrol. In a petrol car, only 20% of the energy is converted to motion. In electric cars, this is around 80% (with some variation dependent on regenerative braking). I wrote about this extensively in a previous article: https:…
We have 500Wh/kg batteries by now? And they think there'll be 800Wh/kg in 2030? Wasn't that well beyond what's needed for medium-range electric flight? Is that even possible, chemically speaking?