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Meh, this article really only discusses lithium ion and lead acid batteries. It is well known both of these are abysmal for grid storage, and are at best relatively expensive solutions for mobile energy.
There are already several energy storage solutions that are starting to be installed that aren’t these and that are far more cost effective. Flow batteries are an example. For the same cost as lithium ion we get 3x the energy storage and 3x the lifespan (and are essentially 100% refurbishable) for the same cost. They just come at a price of weight and volume (which isn’t a problem for most grid or residential storage). There are others as well.
The article does do a good job talking about thermal as a solution, and this is very true. They don’t talk about high temperature thermal energy storage, though that is admittedly more of an industrial use case.
I will also say thag more solar is also something that is compelling and interesting - meaning we significantly overbuild solar capacity to capture the majority of mismatch of demand vs supply. We often think about trying to build the minimum amount of solar to get to match the output we need, but in the end it is probably cheaper to massively outscale what we build vs what we need.
What about using solar to pump water into a reservoir and then using that to run hydroelectric systems at night? Too inefficient?
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Just most places: https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/
Innefficient, can be catastophic to local environments, not feasible in like 70% of places, but that kind of energy storage is in une in a few places in China amd the US where it is a good option in the local geography.
As a bonus, if you over build the solar anyways, now you have excess power that could go to hydrogen generation
We don’t need grid residential we need grid storage full stop. If it doesn’t work at scale and isn’t cost effective then it’s not a solution to get renewables to base supply
Culturally this is never gonna happen, obviously.
Especially since it’s not necessary.
Energy storage tech is only barely in its infancy since fossil fuel corps have stood on its neck for so long.
It’s a really weird take to insist that batteries can’t work when we’ve barely even tried. It’s like the 2 year old saying it’s impossible because he’s been trying to stick the star through the circle hole, and that we should just be happy with stars not being in the box.
Ecologically damaging like lithium is still a case of star in circle hole: we’re only just scratching the surface of grid scale energy storage.
I feel that you have put it best. We are still developing our technology with energy storage. The current technology is not ideal, but as we develop the need we may find ourselves likewise developing energy storage that is more efficient.
I want to see more stuff like grid scale flywheel energy storage. Dead simple tech and if it can live power by even 6 hourait’s immediately useful, 24 and that’s 90% of that you need
Many battery tech are dead simple. It is a rolled layer of specific materials at precise thickness but really not rocket science, especially when you are not concerned about per kg efficiency. Flywheels are much more complicated, requiring well maintained mechanics, a motor and a dynamo.
It takes a 260kg flywheel with all its mass at the edge spinning at mach 0.5 to store 1kWh.
If you want simple supply chains, build a carnot battery. It’ll be half as efficient, but far more compact (if graphite is the storage, more compact than LFP) and long lasting.
If you want a simple machine, buy a battery. The only hard part is high purity.
Afaik flywheels are good for smoothing out fluctuations and peaking but not for real storage.
Flow batteries and pumped hydro seem like the solution for durable storage.
Tragically, you might be right about reduction in consumption being a cultural non-starter.
As it would make many things much easier but as you pointed out, advances in battery technology can fill some of that gap.
At least in the USA the bigger challenge seem to be the energy company’s really fighting back against residential solar. California is facing some serious changes, I don’t think net metering is even an option in just municipal areas even more. I’ve heard around San Francisco they are going to start hitting folks with big grid connection fees every month.
In my area of North Carolina it’s the same thing, with the power company doing everything it can to make switching to solar less and less worth it. Just the cost of the panels are enough to do that for most people!
Net meeting is a gift to the upper middle class and wealthy to stop them nimbying and to develop the industry. If they are complaining about not getting it on new installs, it worked.
What is needed is to stop forcing them to pay $3 to the utility and a salesman for every $0.8 the actual product costs. End any fee for approval, make the sale, install and resale prices publicly available, and the utility has to pay full retail price for any energy that could have been produced by an installed system awaiting approval.
Where I am in Colorado the struggle here is that the local city government has many regulations on what is allowed per their municipal codes to prevent solar panels from being developed in the town. If you live out of town it is good, but living in town there are enough codes that prevent the panels from being built or installed.
This is an interesting article, in places with hydro or wind based electricity I think it’s fine to have the expectation of forever available electricity.
Even in those cases it does make sense to limit our use of appliances and such to locally produced solar electricity. I wish we had standards for neighborhood solar farms for cases where some houses have minimal sun exposure.
in places with hydro or wind based electricity I think it’s fine to have the expectation of forever available electricity.
And what happens when there’s a drought or change in weather patterns?
I think expecting 24-7 electricity, whether it’s available or not, is part of the issue with modern consumption. We expect electricity on demand, so any energy solution has to have backups and grid connections and batteries and all that expensive ecologically damaging infrastructure the article discusses.
The point isn’t that some electricity production is reliable 24/7. The point is, if we want an ethos of reduced consumption, we need to give up the idea that we have the right to power on demand 24-7. We adjust our power consumption to nature’s rhythms and circumstances rather than spending billions extra to guarantee we can consume power whenever we want. And that would have a much bigger impact than adjusting our thermostats or wearing sweaters.
There are many medical applications which need power when the sun doesn’t shine. Likewise there are places where the sun doesn’t shine for months at a time. I don’t think the answer is capitulation. The answer is innovating better storage which addresses the challenges in the article.
Reducing consumption is “capitulation”? To whom or what?
Reducing consumption is orthogonal to whether we can operate essential devices when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow. The capitulation is deciding that the problem is too hard to solve and instead of solving it we should not try.
It’s not all or nothing. Running the 200MW industrial drying machine when it’s sunny doesn’t mean you can’t have a battery for your 20W CPAP.
I don’t know if storage is more efficient at point of consumption or point of generation. Aggregated storage has more options than a device with a battery. Sending power through a grid has plenty of losses too. Of course it’s logical to use power when it’s in surplus.
I don’t know if storage is more efficient at point of consumption or point of generation
Some time in the recent past or very near future, an incremental addition of capacity became more resource intensive than incremental new generation and battery.
So the ideal is actually have some at both, because this minimises the most wasteful part allowing transmission to run at average rather than peak generation or consumption.
It’s still better to incur mild inconvenience and eliminate storage and transmission for many applications though.
I think, when you have a problem, changing your expectations so that you no longer consider it a problem is a valid solution.
For example, say you crash your car and it’s totaled. You could solve that problem by buying a new car. But if you look at your travel patterns and local public transit and decide you can live your life without a car, you’ve also solved that problem.
In this case, the problem is the expense and resource use of a 24/7 electricity. Society could solve that problem by making better batteries and more efficient transmission and more renewable energy sources. Society could also solve that problem by changing our expectation that everyone needs 24/7 electricity. Both of those are solutions, and really, we could use both.
And talking about better technology, the article goes into solutions for heating, cooling, refrigeration, cooking, and so on that provide 24/7 solutions based on intermittent power - for example, the solar refrigerators that are so efficient they can stay cool for up to a week and be powered by a single 200 W solar panel. Medical technology and other vital stuff can be adjusted similarly or run off battery banks charged intermittently rather than relying on 24/7 electric grids. It’s not as if we have to throw out all our batteries - but if we adjust our consumption habits, we can use fewer batteries and save them for the important things.
That is a better balanced take on the problem. Reduction, efficiency, targeting. Still, storage is the crux of all energy problems we have. There’s plenty of energy on earth, but it’s not distributed as we need it in time and space.
we need to give up the idea that we have the right to power on demand 24-7
If that’s the green transition plan, then we will continue burning fossil fuels until everybody dies in the climate wars.
We need to create electricity abundance, not scarcity, to have any hope of success. Far too many people will only give up their A/C when you pry it from their cold dead hands.
I’m theory, yes. But for every person that believes this, there are 10 more who will not budge. “I need to set my air conditioning to 60 degrees to sleep.”
Sure, and that’s why I say over and over again, reducing your personal consumption is a moral issue, and we need a moral/ethical/spiritual movement to reduce consumption. Because lots of people, reasonably, prioritize their comfort over their electric bill or the objectively tiny marginal benefit to the environment that turning off their air conditioner would provide. But if we teach people that unnecessary consumption is morally wrong, and your neighbors start shaming you for keeping your air conditioning at 60, you’re going to start setting it higher.
And that’s the neat thing about Low Tech Magazine. What it promotes is a moral transition, away from complex high resource use technologies and towards older, simpler, people powered or wind powered technologies. Not because those technologies are more efficient, but because they use less fossil fuels and nonrenewable resources, and so are morally superior. And a society that bases its technology use on ethical principles instead of financial efficiency is precisely what solarpunk idealizes.
I wasnt agreeing at first with you but I can agree with you on the moral take of energy consumption. Nevertheless I don’t think it makes any sense to remove constant electricity from the equation. Human development and prosperity is greatly increased by that availability aswell as communication. Let’s say the goal is a post capitalism, non hierarchical decentralized society that outgrows capitalism’s growth needs and achieves post scarcity. In order to for this to be real you need constant access to electricity and communications, otherwise you are isolating people and dampening your efforts towards it. I do think you are right and there needs to be some morality in spending but it should be a moral choice not a matter of not being available
None of this justifies running the aluminium smelter 24/7 rather than redesigning it slightly and running it 20/6. You’re straw manning.
Lowtechmagazine is a meditation on this concept and you are pretending that means anyone thinking this way wants to break into grandma’s home and switch off the ventilator in the middle of the night.
I’m not sure you are straw manning yourself or you have me confused with another comment. I was agreeing with the commenter. Moral consumption of power is a concept I completely accept. But @stabby_cicada did start the argument with this:
The point isn’t that some electricity production is reliable 24/7. The point is, if we want an ethos of reduced consumption, we need to give up the idea that we have the right to power on demand 24-7.
I was answering to that complemented with another comments and agreeing with the whole should use power with a moral attitude. What an aggressive response…
That’s a great way to feel good about yourself, but does literally nothing to solve the problem. Personal usage of a small percentage of the problem, and it’s the most important usage. The government and large companies are the ones who can actually change and should be held accountable.
Blaming personal use is how fossil fuel companies have gotten away with all the pollution that they do.
Uh yes, we need energy on demand 24/7 lol. We’re not going to regress to the stone age, and it will always be a requirement.
