[tokipin]

the obvious solution is batteries, which improve all sources of power generation including traditional ones by serving as support during peak times. in principle you only need <average energy used per house> stored per house during night time, which may be a much lower bar than it sounds. if the utilities serve a role later it may just be them acting as high-volume energy storage facilities, but even that might not really be necessary if individuals can make money by investing in extra batteries.

i think once solar crosses a certain cultural/economic threshold it will just take over everything. it's just way, way too good. there's no other power source that even compares to the potential it already has.

what's interesting is not whether it's going to take over everything, but what kind of economy/world you will have when electricity is orders of magnitude cheaper than it currently is.

[mightybyte]

Batteries aren't the only solution here. Any kind of efficient energy storage will work. For example LightSail Energy has been working on compressed air storage for several years now.

[bryanh]

There is another interesting class of power storage called "pumped-storage hydroelectricity" [1] - for example - there is one in use in Missouri that actually burst in 2005 [2]. Li-ion batteries have a round-trip efficiency of 80-90% - pumped-storage has ~70-80%.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taum_Sauk_Hydroelectric_Power_...

[thebmax]

I'm all for innovation in storage and think there might be a breakthrough at some point. But this goes to the heart of it. Right now a fully renewable grid that matches what we currently have is not financially viable. Not saying it won't become so at some point but it's a high hurdle. All things considered having close to 100% reliable electricity in every home in America for less than ~$100/month is hard to compete with.

[greglindahl]

That totally makes sense -- although renewable energy and energy storage have been making huge strides recently, let's assume that no further improvements will happen.

[thebmax]

Not questioning whether innovation can and will occur. Question is whether the innovations to be developed can compete with what is the present reality which is ~10cents/kWh price that we currently pay for power.

All things considered that is pretty cheap and even a minor improvement on price won't change the sunk costs of current infrastructure. The service of getting electricity is pretty cheap around the country and any replacement will have to be substantially cheaper. 'Better' doesn't count for much here because its just electricity and without government mandates people generally don't really care where it comes from.

Idealists like to say that we 'should' be getting power from somewhere else or in a different way. These idealists tend to ignore the market reality that our current situation isn't that bad for almost everyone.

[pdkl95]

> cheap

This is the big problem that a lot of these discussions tend to ignore. Not only does our market tend to always pick the cheapest options, the real challenge is the developing world that is going to massively increase their power needs in the next few decades. This well have significant benefits for the world in general if we can pull it off. Unfortunately, given the economic realities of these areas that means coal unless we can provide a cheaper option. Unless some breakthrough happens with storage, that means nuclear.

> Idealists

It's easy to be an idealist when your lifestyle already benefits from massive amounts of cheap energy. As Hans Rosling[1] puts it,

    When I lecture to environmentally concerned students, they tell me "No! Everybody
    in the world cannot have cars and washing machines!" ... Then I ask my students,
    "over the last two years, how many of you doesn't use a car," and some of them 
    proudly raise their hands and say, "I don't use a car". Then I put the really tough
    question, "how many of you hand wash your jeans and your bedsheets, and no-one
    raises their hand. Even the hardcore in the green movement use washing machines.
    [...]
    Until they have the same energy consumption per-person, they shouldn't give advice
    to others on what to do and what not to do.
  

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

[DennisP]

Yes, it makes about as much sense as the assumption by many renewables advocates that nuclear technology can't improve.