by darklighter3 on 4/14/15, 5:56 PM with 227 comments
by beat on 4/14/15, 10:10 PM
This gets to another point that bugs me in these discussions... the pushback against wind/solar dominance by the pro-nuclear crowd. Insisting that nuclear power is the right way to go is western-centric. It's fine for the US, Europe, Japan, and other advanced nations that have the infrastructure to support it. But is it a solution for Peru? For Somalia? Of course not. Wind/solar/storage, on the other hand, is totally viable as a solution for even the poorest nations. This alone is an argument for solar over nuclear.
by api on 4/14/15, 7:21 PM
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 build transmission lines, more solar/wind, and more storage even if it were marginally more expensive just to avoid the headaches of nuclear energy.
by greggyb on 4/14/15, 9:10 PM
The cost should be lower for a utility to do this than for individual homeowners to do so for equal capacities.
So I ask are we seeing this behavior?
On a slightly different note, it doesn't seem that the article is addressing vehicles. Battery powered cars are not yet practical enough for the mainstream, and aircraft are still entirely dependent on the energy density of hydrocarbon fuels.
I could see batteries becoming feasible for cars "soon" with the current rate of advance, but charging stations don't make sense to me. You want easily accessed battery packs in cars and battery-swap stations. This is a huge infrastructure change, but for out-of-city travel (i.e. a trip where you would need to charge before you get to your destination), you want the equivalent of a gas station, which is 1-10 minutes for a stop, not 45+.
As for aircraft, I don't see them using batteries soon.
by URSpider94 on 4/14/15, 9:18 PM
The other issue is that our current infrastructure isn't designed for peer-to-peer transmission, with neighborhoods pumping large amounts of power into the transmission lines during peak solar hours. Some areas of Hawaii have had to put a moratorium on installing rooftop solar to prevent potential damage to the branch circuits.
Long story short, it's not simply a matter of storage costs undercutting retail power costs, there are also maintenance costs for the grid that are invariant on demand, which will have to get paid one way or the other.
by cwal37 on 4/14/15, 8:13 PM
It'll be interesting to see if if PSH ever really takes off, or if it really does get left in the dust by batteries and other things.
by IanDrake on 4/14/15, 7:33 PM
Missing in the math is logic. If enough people do this, the price will even out and the arbitrage opportunity will vanish.
It's like an arbitrage trading a model that makes money when paper trading but loses money when live because the effects of live trades on the market wasn't considered.
by fennecfoxen on 4/14/15, 7:14 PM
by mathgeek on 4/14/15, 7:53 PM
Electricity in our homes is so widespread and popular because it just works. We don't need to think short-term about how or when we use it (although we should and can if you want to). You flip a switch, the light comes on, and you flip the switch again when you're done.
In my mind, there are only two factors that need to be there for widespread adoption: the price needs to come down, and the battery or other storage medium needs to just disappear into the background of in-home electricity usage. Most people will just want to see a lower bill without any costs to their ease of use regarding electricity.
by jhallenworld on 4/14/15, 8:18 PM
by nine_k on 4/14/15, 7:54 PM
> Most flow battery companies have $100 / kwh capital cost as a target
With typical power plants generating e.g. 500 MW 24 hours long, the storage is going to be 100000 $/MWh * 500 MW = 50M/hour. If we assume that a solar plant generates power for 12 hours, and the batteries feed the consumers for 12 more hours, it's going to be 600M for storage alone. The solar power plant with a peak power well above 500MW (to feed the day load + charge the batteries for the night) will cost you extra.
I still think that a Thorium molten salt reactor is a strong contender in a price landscape like this. (It also has a nice ability to burn our current stockpiles of radioactive waste from Uranium reactors.)
by D_Alex on 4/15/15, 4:18 AM
By rough calculation, if 10% of cars in my city (Perth, Australia) were electric, their batteries could supply the entire city's demand for duration of about 2 hours (or 10% of demand for 20 hours etc). This could work really well for demand balancing and peak shaving - overcapacity (which in Perth is massive, since the policy is to maintain supply even on extremely hot days, when demand shoots up and generation capacity goes down) and spinning reserve could be tremendously reduced.
I suspect some good software and a little hardware will be needed to account for the owners' needs optimally.
by notlisted on 4/15/15, 12:38 AM
by mrfusion on 4/14/15, 7:32 PM
by mrfusion on 4/14/15, 7:32 PM
by aharonovich on 4/15/15, 6:50 AM
by lancewiggs on 4/15/15, 8:27 AM
Nuclear is not getting cheaper, not significantly, so what does this imply for the next five years? The answers are obvious, and non nuclear.
New Zealand, where I live, declared itself nuclear free in 1984. We are currently generating 70-80% of our electricity using renewable/low/zero emission methods.
by rjurney on 4/15/15, 4:08 AM
by mauricemir on 4/15/15, 10:25 AM
Back when I was an Engineering Technician my thermo fluids lecturer commented that if the main reservoir for the labs compressed air system burst it would flatten the entire lab block.
by fokinsean on 4/14/15, 10:48 PM
/r/april30th2015
by kumarski on 4/14/15, 7:41 PM
There's resource limitations on lithium ion, lest we run into the same scenario.
by melling on 4/14/15, 8:20 PM