[ZeroGravitas]

Wind, solar and batteries dominating electricity generation isn't a 'jump', why would you think that? That's been the consensus for about a decade.

Only the relative dominance has changed, with 80% being commonly accepted for a few years and 100% now broadly accepted as reasonable.

[k8wk1]

There are many different consensuses. In this case the most important consensus is what is the opinion shared by the operators of electricity grids and the like, because ultimately they will need to match energy supply and demand.

Their consensus is that specifically batteries are completely nonviable for long-term balancing of intermittent energy sources. Physics simply do not add up.

[ZeroGravitas]

Batteries aren't used for long term balancing, so that bit is correct. They are great at short term balancing though.

So they'll still use mostly wind/solar/batteries. This is what grids are rolling out right now around the world.

[Manuel_D]

Batteries are not produced at a scale nearly large enough to be impactful. The world consumes 2,500 TWh of electricity per hour. And that's set to increase as less wealthy countries develop and start demanding A/C, street lights, etc. And on top of that, electricity production is only ~40% of carbon emissions (meaning, electrifying heating, transport, metallurgy, etc. will drive up electricity demand even further).

By comparison, the world produces 300-400 GWh of batteries each year. Most of which is going to electronics and electric vehicles. Battery production has been increasing, but it's unclear if the supply of input materials can keep up. The price of lithium jumped 400% last year: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium

In short, the chart on the right is not something to be taken for granted: https://www.tsungxu.com/content/images/size/w1600/2022/01/so...

Moore's law is the exception, not the norm, because making chips faster works by making transistors smaller. This doesn't apply to most products, as even zero manufacturing costs cannot bring cost below input materials. Imagine the cost of a car went from $500,000 in 1910, $50,000 in 1920, and $5,000 in 1930. Is is safe to assume that a car would cost $5 in 1960 and $0.50 in 1970?

[flgb]

> “And on top of that, electricity production is only ~40% of carbon emissions.”

We are electrifying heating and transport. As a result about 80% of end-use energy will end up being electricity.

[Manuel_D]

That's my point: electrifying heating and transportation will increase electricity use beyond the current 2.5Tw and make it even harder to provision the same duration of grid storage. I added the content in parentheses in case this was unclear.

[ZeroGravitas]

Higher Electricity demand isn't really a problem though.

The motto "electrify everything" is used. It is not a big surprise that this, and developing nations growth, requires electricity.

That's why everyone is really pleased that renewables and batteries are the cheapest way to deploy electricity generation in history.

[Manuel_D]

Higher electricity demand is a problem is you're trying to. Build grid storage. And no, not everyone is onboard with the idea that battery cost is going to plunge by orders of magnitude. In fact, the opposite trend is happening. Battery costs have increased recently: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-battery-storage-co...

[ZeroGravitas]

Your cite says:

> the state's higher storage target and DPS and grid operator support will slash costs to $150-$200 kWh by the end of the decade, based on BloombergNEF estimates.

They have dropped an order of magnitude since 2008, so I'd maybe expect a few more years before it does it again but that does appear to be the current prediction.