[emit_time]

Lol

We have no effective way of storing energy. If you only want energy on sunny windy days during daytime, this is fine. Enjoy the power going out at night and when the wind slows down.

Hopefully we will get much cheaper storage and production soon, but it's not completely viable now.

[sschueller]

We can fill large water dams and store energy easily that way.

This is what Switzerland is focusing on right now to make sure they have enough stored power for January and February when production doesn't suffice the requirements and purchasing electricity from abroad may not be possible.

[Ekaros]

Do we have locations we haven't build those yet? Is there any concerns about building there? Environmental or existing communities? Where to get the water to fill those? Does that have effect downstream? If it is build on existing rivers, is there some minimum amount of water that has to be passed? Or maximum capacity after water has to be passed?

[sschueller]

All valid concerns but if you can find a location that has a small impact on the environment it is hugely beneficial.

[natch]

We can store plenty of energy in car batteries as EVs become more common.

And that is energy that whether it’s available for putting back in the grid or not, (usually not, which is fine) replaces a gas pump.

[SideQuark]

Take number of cars, multiply by storage capacity of an EV battery, compare to daily energy requirements, fall incredibly short.

This is not a solution.

[ceejayoz]

> Take number of cars, multiply by storage capacity of an EV battery, compare to daily energy requirements, fall incredibly short.

This argument falls incredibly short by assuming every EV gets 100% drained daily.

[kitkat_new]

not to mention given today's technology and growing opposition to car centric cities, there won't ever be as many BEVs as there are cars today.

[natch]

Fewer cars, less need for energy. It works out, so no problem even if your theory is correct.

[natch]

So are you claiming it’s not part of the solution? If not, then what is your point?

[SideQuark]

It's clearly not part of the solution as napkin math demonstrates, and that's not even including losses into and out of the batteries, which pushes the numbers into the realm of ludicrous.

If you want to argue otherwise, demonstrate it with an estimate of the energy amounts used.

Because I did the check. I don't think you have.

[natch]

The energy is used to drive the cars, replacing gasoline.

I suspect your napkin math is probably calculating a different use case which is not the most common intended use case of car batteries, but rather, if even practical at all, only a trifling convenience, the scale of which will be lost in the noise when compared to actual driving usage.

Again, what was your point?

[dublin]

I have yet to find ANY EV owners who are willing to let the power company slash their car's already pitiful range by draining their battery (at the grid's convenience) to power the grid. The greediest people I know are EV owners, whose lives must center around keeping their car's batteries constantly topped off.

I've got better things to do with my life that worry about that crap - I can just refill in well under 5 minutes nearly anywhere, and even adding an unreasonable number of chargers (at about $500K/POP, BTW) doesn't get EV users to that kind of worry-free transportation.

[natch]

My charger cost $0 — its a regular 220v outlet that came with my house.

Where do you get the $500k number btw?

I saw the Chargepoint price list a while back when they still had it posted and a single Chargepoint charger station with two connectors was around $11k and a fast charger with two connectors was around $50k.

[natch]

You utterly misunderstand, but you’re not alone. Cars will store energy in the form of electricity instead of storing gasoline. Whether they give some back to the grid or not, this represents a huge storage of energy.

Your refill takes you 5 minutes but my refill takes me 5 seconds. Which is faster?

[timbit42]

It can be stored as heat in stone or sand. There are companies building and selling both solutions. They hold the heat for months, long enough to last through a winter.

[dublin]

It appears you haven't taken a thermodynamics or heat transfer class: Heat has a property called "quality", and low quality (roughly, low-temperature) heat such as you're describing is not really useful for much outside of warming water a bit - you're certainly not going to be generating power that way!

All current heat engines as defined by the 2nd law of thermodynamics require a DELTA T to run, and the small delta T provided by low-quality heat sources cannot generate much power, and drastically slashes the efficiency possible from the system. (Interestingly, there does appear to be a part of the 2nd law which only applies in the quantum realm and has no classical heat engine analog - if that turns out to be true, then it changes things up quite a bit...)

[kitkat_new]

there are effective ways of storing energy, but there isn't a silver bullet that has high efficiency, low cost, long storage duration and high storage capacity

[nuancebydefault]

Energy storage is a part of the problem. The good thing is, if we combine multiple energy production methods and connect it to a smarter grid with a smarter consumption profile, we can do with storing much less. The solutions are already known and are feasible. The ultimate problem is, the transition takes a lot of time, certainly given it needs to be smooth, we don't want too many outages. And we seem be be running out of time.

[Ekaros]

Cost competition is biggest aspect in my mind. Is the storage competitive compared to alternative if power is free is good benchmark in my mind to start with.

And what are political and ecological implications of them. As I doubt even the Greens prepared to build up most effective pumped hydro locations anymore. Effectively flooding quite large areas. And also I take there is questions where to get the water from in parts of the world...

[kitkat_new]

Cost must include environmental costs such as direct destruction of the environment and greenhouse gas emissions.

Competition on the basis of today's market prices which don't include this, is nonsense.