Who likes battery power?

Battery storage is quickly moving from the margins to near the center of the U.S. energy system.

In 2021, the market added 3,508 megawatts of battery storage capacity, an amount more than double from the prior year, according to a report issued last week by the research firm Wood Mackenzie and the American Clean Power Association, a trade group. The total includes grid-scale storage and smaller storage systems at homes and businesses.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31032022/inside-clean-ene…

https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Bat…

That is more than 3 nuclear reactors.

Jaak

Batteries 3 - Nukes 0 in 2021

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A friend lost power for most of a week during the 2021 winter storm here in Austin. Last summer he installed panels and batteries. He never wants to go through that again, and Texas hasn’t really done anything to insure it doesn’t happen again. I think he said he can live indefinitely without the grid, and for about 3 days w/o sunlight.

Unfortunately that helps only a little if you also lose water (some people lost fresh water too) or natural gas (most homes here are heated by gas, not electricity).

I just hope he can recoup most of that when he eventually sells that house.

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In 2021, the market added 3,508 megawatts of battery storage capacity…That is more than 3 nuclear reactors.

But surely there is a significant difference between generation and storage.

DB2

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But surely there is a significant difference between generation and storage.

DB2

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Texas has found that the cheapest new generation is solar. So with solar and batteries they are on the their way to nirvana. You can find the facts on the Texas electricity charts.

Jaak

In 2021, the market added 3,508 megawatts of battery storage capacity…That is more than 3 nuclear reactors.
—
But surely there is a significant difference between generation and storage.
—
Texas has found that the cheapest new generation is solar.

Umm, OK, but getting back to batteries and nuclear reactors – the batteries would be able to supply those megawatts for a limited time. If it were for, say, an hour then those batteries would be the same as a nuclear reactor operating for just three hours. That was the significant difference I was trying to address.

DB2

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Now a 2 unit nuclear power plant costs over %30 billion and takes more than 11 years to build.

Batteries and solar can be built for half that amount and in half the time.

That is the point I am trying to make. Batteries are sized for 4 hours - 8 hours.

Jaak

That was the significant difference I was trying to address.

Two entirely different approaches to solving the same problem each with is advantages and disadvantages which makes the direct comparison difficult.

The Captain

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But surely there is a significant difference between generation and storage.

Sure there is; solar generation is pretty well understood, has had several decades of development, and is still getting incremental improvements year over year.

Battery storage - on a large scale - is far behind but coming up pretty quickly. The development of EVs is the driver (ha ha, the driver, get it?) as the need for super-storage has become evident. More to the point, EV batteries are said to have a 10-year or so life in a car, at which time they can only hold about 80% of their original charge.

But while 80% is insufficient for travel, it still has plenty of life left for places where “size and density” are not such critical issues. Estimates are that there is another 12 years of life left in EV batteries post-auto, so once EVs begin coming off the lines in significant numbers - and aging out the batteries, there will be a very large supply of lithium batteries available for mass storage.

Problems include the occasional “bad cell” which must be removed and replaced, and the incompatibility of the battery packs of the various manufacturers in an aftermarket, but I suspect those difficulties will be overcome simply because there is a LOT of value left in those batteries. How that value will be realized remains to be seen, but somebody is going to figure out how to monetize these blocks of energy worth several thousands of dollars each.

(Of course there are also mass storage options being developed for new batteries, but I am looking for the day when tens of thousands of large battery packs become available for either centralized or distributed storage applications.)

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Jaak: Now a 2 unit nuclear power plant costs over %30 billion and takes more than 11 years to build.

Odd how the Chinese are able to do it so much cheaper and faster isn’t it? Perhaps their engineers are better at their jobs? I suspect there is less political meddling as well?

Anymouse

As of 30 June 2020, China has 47 operational nuclear power units and 11 nuclear power units under construction. Nuclear power accounted for 4.88% of the total electricity mix in 2019, and two units (Yangjiang-6 and Taishan-2) were connected to the grid in 2019.

OT - Wow, I just noticed that POTUS is still riding around in old Sikorsky S-61’s. Must be time for another boondoggle attempt to replace them soon? They have been at it for just over 60 years … which is a very long time for helicopters.

Odd how the Chinese are able to do it so much cheaper and faster isn’t it? Perhaps their engineers are better at their jobs? I suspect there is less political meddling as well?

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Funny that you do not post the cost and schedule data for nuclear power plants in China. Maybe you just buy their propaganda. To make your point you should at least provide some data on their cost and schedule. Otherwise you are just arm waving.

Jaak

Odd how the Chinese are able to do it so much cheaper and faster isn’t it? Perhaps their engineers are better at their jobs? I suspect there is less political meddling as well?

China refines rare earths and creates some of the worst toxic sites in the world doing it. They don’t care. They let many of their largest cities become smog and pollution filled death traps because they don’t care. They have some of the highest worker suicide rates of in their assembly factories, and the answer so far has been “putting out nets for jumpers” rather than address the grinding work schedule for low pay.

Because they don’t care. It’s in the culture. Siting and building a nuclear plant in China is easier because safety is a secondary concern, and of course citizens don’t protest if they know what’s good for them.

It sounds like you like that system. I’m going to guess that the next “once every decade” nuclear accident will happen in China. I’ll come back to this post when it does.

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Odd how the Chinese are able to do it so much cheaper and faster isn’t it? Perhaps their engineers are better at their jobs? I suspect there is less political meddling as well?

Actually China’s economy has been in the country’s demand side cycle for the last 37 years. China has had trade surpluses. We gave them up to enter supply side econ. China is building facilities with USD.

That is changing currently. The US is heading towards demand side econ and the Chinese slowly towards supply side econ. Chinese inflation rates echo 1974 and 1979 American rates and worse.

As for their engineers? It is our technology.

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They don’t care.

Who is they? Using the word they in this instance is a bigoted response.

China cares deeply about the pollution. In the Chinese build out the country has smog like the US had it is major cities over 100 years ago. Silicon Valley has our worst toxic waste sites.

In our thirst for cheap labor and cheap products Americans have exported our pollution primarily to China. It is not a fair trade.

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Funny that you do not post the cost and schedule data for nuclear power plants in China. Maybe you just buy their propaganda. To make your point you should at least provide some data on their cost and schedule. Otherwise you are just arm waving.

Jaak

Jaak: Now a 2 unit nuclear power plant costs over %30 billion and takes more than 11 years to build.

Link please?

It sounds like you like that system. I’m going to guess that the next “once every decade” nuclear accident will happen in China. I’ll come back to this post when it does.

I’m pretty sure you know me better than that? Just tired of the slant coming from from our nuclear engineer that hates nuclear power.

Batteries don’t produce power, I’m pretty sure you know that? California is facing another drought, there goes hydro power for awhile. Natural gas is a fossil fuel … pretty sure you know that as well? It is cleaner than coal but still not clean. Solar nice when it works but I’ve just been through a miserable winter where any sign of the sun would have people blinded by the light. Another blizzard yesterday …

Meanwhile Germany and several others are having to give up their cheap Russian Nat Gas that was supposed to be an interim step before the sun and wind show up to save their sorry butts.

Tim

https://ecojungle.net/post/lithium-extraction-environmental-….

The entire lithium extraction process contributes to an increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Lithium miners cut down trees and remove all other life forms from their targeted mining areas to eliminate obstructions. Dec 31, 2021

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Batteries don’t produce power, I’m pretty sure you know that?

It is not like that makes sense. There is excess alternative energy. Storing it creates delayed power usage. In essence that ads power to the system. While batteries are only a tool to add power for usage so is a nuclear power plant.

I get you have me blocked. Reaching you with the truth is problematic…probably for many people.

Uranium, coal, NG, wind, solar, these are potential energy. They are stores of energy. They do not produce energy. Mother nature stored it with them eons ago. With wind and solar the sun is real time
kinetic additions of energy. Batteries are a man made tool to store energy.

The bar to be more efficient in electricity production than with the usage of fossil fuels is very low. Because in general in the US only 8% of the fossil fuels energy reaches the end point usage. Meaning your light bulb is running on 8% of the energy out of the coal or NG being extracted, refined, used to generate the electricity and send it down the line.

To develop a wo/man made system based on batteries is taking advances in science to make the enterprise profitable in the long run.

The big thing economies of scale as battery technology comes of age will be very deflationary. Fossil fuels are inflationary over the long run. Worse the clean up after fossil fuels is the worst expense on the planet.

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Jaak: Now a 2 unit nuclear power plant costs over %30 billion and takes more than 11 years to build.

Tim: Link please?

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Vogtle 3&4 nuclear power plant.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21012022/georgia-power-vo…

https://www.augustachronicle.com/story/news/2021/11/04/georg…

Now it is your turn to provide cost and schedule for a recent large Chinese nuclear power plant.

Jaak

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I just hope he can recoup most of that when he eventually sells that house.

Probably not. Even very likely not. But that isn’t the reason he put the system in, he put the system in to make his own life easier during power outages, and hopefully the system will do that for him.

I looked at a bunch of houses in CA a couple of years ago, and some of them advertised that they “had solar”, and many of the ones with solar put copies of the last year of electric bills in the kitchen (I don’t know why, but all those that displayed their bills did so in the kitchen for some reason). Most of them showed VERY low bills per month, negligibly low in all cases. BUT, after some easy analysis over the months of looking, I determined that “having solar” and not having solar, didn’t affect the price of the house in any measurable way. And, in fact, at least once or twice, “having solar” was viewed by potential buyers as a negative because “it’s just another thing that’ll break down and need constant repairs, and then I’ll have to pay to have it removed someday.”

But it shouldn’t matter. You also don’t recoup the $100k kitchen renovation and the $30k bathroom renovation that you put in. You put it in for your own enjoyment, and it hopefully increases the desirability, and maybe value, of the house for some period of time. About the only thing that generally is recouped is when you add square footage to the home.

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Tim posts:

https://ecojungle.net/post/lithium-extraction-environmental-…

The entire lithium extraction process contributes to an increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Lithium miners cut down trees and remove all other life forms from their targeted mining areas to eliminate obstructions. Dec 31, 2021

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But you purposely did not include the recommendation at the end of the article:

The bottom line is that we should make electric cars truly safe by supporting the efforts to develop environment-friendly batteries and adopting sustainable extraction processes.

Jaak