We're told solar and wind future
But when wind is not blowing and sun not shining?
Batteries!
Yet
The world uses 51GWh/minute and has 64GWh of battery storage: enough for 1m:15s
2030: 10m:24s
After that, need 100% backup, mostly fossil fuels
woodmac.com/reports/power-…
Batteries won't save the US
The US has batteries able to supply 3:24 of average electricity consumption now and about 10 minutes in 2030
Batteries won't save Asia
Asia has batteries able to supply just 31 seconds of average electricity consumption now and about 10 minutes in 2030
Batteries won't save Europe
Europe has batteries able to supply a little more than 1 minute of average electricity consumption now and about 12 minutes in 2030
Lots of people suggesting we can fix this
Yes, but it makes 𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘄𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗿 because we need to pay for backup
More realistic solar costs are 4-7x higher
from cheap but very unreliable
to very expensive (and only less unreliable)
lazard.com/perspective/le…
Most people don't appreciate that
most renewables (RE) to date are only possible because they are backed up by modern fossil (MF) fuel tech
(such as Combined Heat and Power and Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle)
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
People suggest that "it is always windy somewhere", but
1) not sufficient throughput between regions
2) European 2021 wind drought showed us it can be less windy almost everywhere
depleting other sources of energy and end up costing us a fortune
ft.com/content/d53b58…
How much are 3-10 minutes of electricity storage?
Not much
Every year in Germany, there are more than 5 days (7,320 minutes) with almost no wind, and every 10 years almost 8 days without wind (11,160minutes)
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108…
Perhaps not surprisingly, most people like power 24/7
Yet, most climate policy seems to be driven by crossing our fingers:
just build lots of wind and solar
& hope to fix intermittency later
But not enough batteries
And leads to much higher prices
reuters.com/markets/commod…
The first slide says 10.6 minutes, but it should be 10.4 minutes or 10m:24s
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