this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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As long as you don't care when the electricity is produced
Storage is a solvable problem. Whereas we don't have the resources to power the world with nuclear plants.
I'm not convinced it is. Storage technologies exist for sure, but the general public seems to grossly underestimate the scale of storage required to match grid demand and renewables only production.
I think you underestimate how much storage power is currently being build and how many different technologies are available. In Germany alone there currently are 61 projects planed and in the approval phase boasting a combined 180 Gigawatts of potential power until 2030. Those of them that are meant to be build at old nuclear power plants (the grid connection is already available there) are expected to deliver 25% of the necessary storage capacity. In addition all electric vehicles that are assumed to be on the road until 2030 add another potential 100GW of power.
Of course these numbers are theoretical as not every EV will be connected to a bidirectional charger and surely some projects will fail or delay, however given the massive development in this sector and new, innovative tech (not just batteries but f.e. a concrete ball placed 800m below sea level, expected to store energy extremely well at 5.8ct / kilowatt) there's very much reason for optimism here.
It's also a funny sidenote that France, a country with a strong nuclear strategy, frequently buys power from Germany because it's so much cheaper.
It's not just power that's needed (MW), also stored energy (MWh).
Germany consumes on average 1.4TWh of electricity a day (1). Imagine bridging even a short dunkelflaute of 2 days.
Worldwide lithium ion battery production is 4TWh a year (2).
Isn't that normal? The problems with renewables isn't that they generate cheap power, when they are generating. Today windmills even need to be equipped with remote shutdown, to prevent overproduction.
The problems arise when they aren't generating.
Your estimation goes way off because you still believe lithium ion to be the only viable solution. By now Sodium-Ion batteries are already installed even in EVs and can be produced without any critical resource like lithium.
And then of course there are all the other storage solution. Like I said, there even are storage solutions like concrete balls. Successfully tested in 2016, here an article from 2013.
By now it wouldn't be wise to stifle this enormous emerging market of various technologies by using expensive, problematic technology (not just because the biggest producer of fuel rods is Russia).
The watthours is what gas is for. Germany's pipeline network alone, that's not including actual gas storage sites, can store three months of total energy usage.
...or at least that's the original plan, devised some 20 years ago, Fraunhofer worked it all out back then. It might be the case that banks of sodium batteries or whatnot are cheaper, but yeah lithium is probably not going to be it. Lithium's strength is energy density, both per volume and by weight, and neither is of concern for grid storage.
That's physically impossible for a place the size of Germany, much less Europe.
Another important note about France: They are the second country alongside Germany heavily pushing for an upscaled green hydrogen market in the EU. Because -just like renewables- nuclear production doesn't match the demand pattern at all. Thus it's completely uneconomical without long-term storage.
The fact that we seem to constantly discuss nuclear vs. renewables is proof that it's mostly lobbying bullshit. Because in reality they don't compete. It's either renewables+short-term storage+long-term-term storage or renewables+nuclear+long-term storage. Those are the only two viable models.
That's been the talk in town for 40 years now. Green hydrogen has never gotten beyond proof-of-concept.
Sadly, it's because the political green parties available to me are anti-nuclear.
Why is nuclear+short term storage not an option, according to you?