[redleader55]

> I think the current fad of peaking plants is somewhat overblown

Do you mean peak powerplants will become obsolete? As far as I know, in many places peak powerplants are hydroelectric, which in the future, aided by local batteries, will allow filling the reservoir lakes to higher limits and covering greater peaks - eg. malfunctions - which in turn will make grids more stable.

The big unknown, as far as I understand, is whether or not we have enough rare minerals to cover enough TWh of the daily peaks of energy-demands so we can have a flat daily curve. I'm sure in 10-15 years time the "renewables" will look a bit different than what we expect them today.

[adgjlsfhk1]

you can make batteries out of iron or sulfur. no rare minerals required.

[redleader55]

You are right: there are a lot of proposals at the moment trying to replace lithium. I'm hopeful, but let's wait until they are widely adopted before claiming victory. Let's not forget the carbon and environmental cost of such alternative batteries are not known because they are not mass built and mass deployed.

[adgjlsfhk1]

I think there is a fairly big difference between these examples. solar panels need pretty complicated semiconductors. Batteries on the other hand can be made by sticking 2 random metals in a jar with some salt water. since grid storage only cares about price per capacity rather than energy density, it seems unlikely for expensive materials to win out.

[Gibbon1]

When I read people talking about replacing lithium batteries I think of the decades of reading about material X replacing silicon in IC's and solar cells.

[timschmidt]

These are available for purchase from a number of companies in mass production today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery