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Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

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Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#61

Has any production battery become cheaper than LEAC ACID for computer UPS ? I have not seen new cheaper UPS getting launched.

Problem with Lithium ones is that they tend to be quite flammable. Lead acid is mostly inert I believe?

Weirdly, none of the many phones, tablets and laptops I've owned have ever caught on fire.

I guess I've just been lucky.

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cleared of inflation energy costs are lower than 2013, 12 years ago This is not the argument you want to make. Energy prices are a significant component of the basket used to measure inflation. Like yeah, you expect energy prices to sink if you discount for the rise of energy prices. Germany is suffering from high energy prices its the key factor why the country has been stagnating economically for the past 6 years…

Their energy prices are an outcome of incompetence, having tied their energy prices to Russia and a gas supply from them. In hindsight, economic diplomacy is not the path to keeping an authoritarian in check; a strong military and energy independence is. German energy prices will decline with battery storage and more renewables pushing out the last of their coal and fossil gas generation. Should’ve kept the old nucle…

I think this take is too shallow, and based on hindsight.

Germany has had fossil gas ties to Russia since the Soviet time.

https://dw.com/en/russian-gas-in-germany-a-complicated-50-ye...

When the iron curtain fell pretty much all of Central Europe liberalized and democratized. The sole exceptions being Belarus and Russia.

Thinking they wouldn’t choose the same path is revisionist.

I remember growing up and gaming online thinking of Russians as nothing strange compared to anyone else. This changed with first Georgia and then very much Crimea.

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#63

Has any production battery become cheaper than LEAC ACID for computer UPS ? I have not seen new cheaper UPS getting launched.

Problem with Lithium ones is that they tend to be quite flammable. Lead acid is mostly inert I believe?

LFP is a lot safer than NMC. I think it's almost on par with Lead-Acid.

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#64

All nice and beautiful, but I don't understand how will this work in the winter in the temperate areas. You maintain parallel natural gas installations and ramp them up in the winter? Does this doubles the cost?

Wind power. Mix with emergency reserves running on open cycle gas turbines, if deemed necessary, preferably running on with carbon neutral fuel. Optimize for lowest possible CAPEX.

That is contingent on that we’re not wasting money and opportunity cost that could have larger impact decarbonizing agriculture, construction, aviation, maritime shipping etc.

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#65
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's a bad fit. it would be pure marketing. Lipo slowly destroy themselves when charged. Lead acid slowly destroy themselves when not charged.

There are different LIPO chemistries. LFP in particular has little problem with being fully charged. You'll see it get swapped in for lead acid chemistries even in places like car/motorcycle batteries. If you want an Lithium power supply then the keyword to look for is "LFP".

And LFP is also cheaper per unit energy and less of a fire hazard. Hard to imagine why you would use a different lithium-chemistry in a UPS.

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#66
post #58
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t care if German prices for electricity are below inflation. They’re just still expensive. As an EV owner is difficult to find an electricity provider with costs below 0,25€/kWh, and most of them go beyond 0,30€. While I had prices in other European countries for around 0,05€/kWh at night for example. Not only that, Conservatives, Socialists and the Green all managed to increase our electricity CO2 footprint by…

That’s mainly because German has fucked up the smart meter rollout. In their wisdom they separated the meter and the gateway when other countries just combined it. They also made it super secure (good), but then didn’t look at the fact that lots of people live in rented apartments and their meters in the cellars have really poor or no cellular connectivity. When Germany can finally do steerable dynamic loads properly…

>but then didn’t look at the fact that lots of people live in rented apartments

How would the political class know this obvious fact from the top of their ivory McMansions?

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#67
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already cheaper to demolish an existing coal plant that's already paid for and replace it with solar + battery. Solar and battery brand new buildout, plus their maintenance overhead, dominates coal even when you only count coal's maintenance cost. People have it in their heads that this is some bleeding heart, don't ruin the planet thing, but it's plain economics. Non-renewable energy is simply inferior, and wil…

> Non-renewable energy is simply inferior, and will only become more so. you simply can't say this. despite the lobby against it, solar and wind energy have lifespans of around 20 years and afterwards, it's a freaking mess to deal with recycling and often times, garbage we don't know what to do. not even counting the amount of NASTY chemicals going into the production of solar panels. these are sometimes permanent an…

> it's a freaking mess to deal with recycling and often times, garbage we don't know what to do

I love that this is followed by “so go nuclear!”

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their energy prices are an outcome of incompetence, having tied their energy prices to Russia and a gas supply from them. In hindsight, economic diplomacy is not the path to keeping an authoritarian in check; a strong military and energy independence is. German energy prices will decline with battery storage and more renewables pushing out the last of their coal and fossil gas generation. Should’ve kept the old nucle…

I think this take is too shallow, and based on hindsight. Germany has had fossil gas ties to Russia since the Soviet time. https://dw.com/en/russian-gas-in-germany-a-complicated-50-ye... When the iron curtain fell pretty much all of Central Europe liberalized and democratized. The sole exceptions being Belarus and Russia. Thinking they wouldn’t choose the same path is revisionist. I remember growing up and gaming onl…

‘We were all wrong’: how Germany got hooked on Russian energy - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/germany-depend... - June 2nd, 2022

> An arrangement that began as a peacetime opening to a former foe has turned into an instrument of aggression. Germany is now funding Russia’s war. In the first two months after the start of Russia’s assault on Ukraine, Germany is estimated to have paid nearly €8.3bn for Russian energy – money used by Moscow to prop up the rouble and buy the artillery shells firing at Ukrainian positions in Donetsk. In that time, EU countries are estimated to have paid a total of €39bn for Russian energy, more than double the sum they have given to help Ukraine defend itself. The irony is painful. “For thirty years, Germans lectured Ukrainians about fascism,” the historian Timothy Snyder wrote recently. “When fascism actually arrived, Germans funded it, and Ukrainians died fighting it.”

> When Putin invaded Ukraine in February, Germany faced a particular problem. Its rejection of nuclear power and its transition away from coal meant that Germany had very few alternatives to Russian gas. Berlin has been forced to accept that it was a cataclysmic error to have made itself so dependent on Russian energy – whatever the motives behind it. The foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, says Germany failed to listen to the warnings from countries that had once suffered under Russia’s occupation, such as Poland and the Baltic states. For Norbert Röttgen, a former environment minister and member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union (CDU), the German government bowed to industry forces pressing for cheap gas “all too easily”, while “completely ignoring the geopolitical risks”.

> In February this year, German Green economic affairs and climate action minister Robert Habeck said that gas storage facilities owned by Gazprom in Germany had been “systematically emptied” over the winter, to drive up prices and exert political pressure. It was a staggering admission of Russia’s power to disrupt energy supplies.

> “I was wrong,” the former German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, says, simply. “We were all wrong.”

We win or we learn.

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the few problem of nuclear is summer time water use. Combining solar with nuclear would be the best option in my opinion.

Nuclear plants, like most large thermal plants, are almost always located near large bodies of water and return that water downstream so it doesn't really matter?

It matters when the level of that body of water drops by a lot in summer and the water temperature rises at the same time. Add environmental laws (cooking the fish is discouraged), and your nuke plant needs to go into safety shutdown pretty reliably every summer.

Re: Analysis finds anytime electricity from solar available as battery costs plummet

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this take is too shallow, and based on hindsight. Germany has had fossil gas ties to Russia since the Soviet time. https://dw.com/en/russian-gas-in-germany-a-complicated-50-ye... When the iron curtain fell pretty much all of Central Europe liberalized and democratized. The sole exceptions being Belarus and Russia. Thinking they wouldn’t choose the same path is revisionist. I remember growing up and gaming onl…

‘We were all wrong’: how Germany got hooked on Russian energy - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/germany-depend... - June 2nd, 2022 > An arrangement that began as a peacetime opening to a former foe has turned into an instrument of aggression. Germany is now funding Russia’s war. In the first two months after the start of Russia’s assault on Ukraine, Germany is estimated to have paid nearly €8.3bn for Ru…

See also: Gazprom, Gerhard Schröder (”Putin’s man in Germany” according to NYT) and the German nuclear power shutdown.

https://atomicinsights.com/gazprom-profiting-mightily-from-g...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-ger...

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