|
|
|
|
|
|
by applied_heat
971 days ago
|
|
|
What factory that produces X is so cheap to build in relation to the cost of energy on a daily basis that it is worth producing less X at different times of day due to the price of energy? The cost of the energy is usually such a small component of total costs it is not worth altering behavior for daily small energy price fluctuations, and nobody is advocating for energy prices to change by 10x throughout the day. |
|
|
When solar hits a certain ratio of production there will be a daily peak where electricity will be very cheap because there’s too much of it, regardless of what people “advocate”.
Electrochemistry things are where it’s at, metal refining specifically.
Aluminum production from ore has one step where you literally just make what is effectively an enormous battery out of aluminum ore and “charge” it, when it’s fully charged you’ve turned aluminum oxide into pure aluminum. It can even be run backwards to produce electricity because it’s literally a battery (a really shitty one). So there’s not a huge capital investment or complex process and electric input is actually a significant portion of the cost.
Other simple electrochemistry things that do have a major portion of the cost in electricity can do the same when costs get low enough. There’s a lot of recycling that becomes possible with cheap clean energy that you would never do with fossil fuel electricity.