[thelastgallon]

Yes, scare mongering for panels and batteries which last 25 - 50 years or forever with zero input fuel needed after the install. Yay to fossil fuels which are needed continuously, billions of tons per year.

Nobody can prevent your country/region from developing own solar or battery supply chains. Alternatively, buy from other countries that are not China for a little bit more.

[leonidasrup]

https://www.auxsol.com/blog/how-long-do-solar-inverters-last...

" String Inverters: The most common residential choice, lasting 10–15 years on average and boasting impressive cost-performance.

Microinverters: Mounted directly on individual solar panels, these often reach 25 years—nearly matching the lifespan of solar panels themselves. Industry data highlights lower failure rates for microinverters, though they come with a higher upfront cost.

Central Inverters: Typically used for larger residential or commercial and industrial systems, central inverters last 10–15 years. "

Without an solar invertor a solar panel is just a black panel.

https://digitalpower.huawei.com/en/blogs/how-long-will-a-lit...

"Generally, lithium-ion batteries used in ordinary consumer electronics have a cycle life of about 300 to 500 times. After reaching this number of cycles, the battery capacity will drop to about 80% of its initial capacity. For example, if the lithium-ion battery of a smartphone undergoes a full charge-discharge cycle every day, its performance will significantly decline after approximately 1 to 1.5 years.

In contrast, lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, due to advancements in technology and craftsmanship, can achieve 1,000 to 2,000 charge-discharge cycles, with a correspondingly longer service life of 5 to 8 years or even more. Lithium-ion batteries for data centers have an even longer cycle life of approximately 5,000 cycles and a service life of up to 10 years, meaning there’s no need to replace batteries during the UPS’s full lifecycle. However, these are only theoretical estimates, and the actual service life is affected by various factors."

[revolvingthrow]

Damn, those li-ion sure seem like a bad long-term solution. Very convenient that you use lifepo4 for at-home battery storage, and either lifepo4 or possibly sodium for grid scale.

Inverters aren’t a problem. China produces roughly half of them worldwide iirc. They’re dominant but you can source from elsewhere without an issue.

LiFePO4 is almost purely China, but those will last you 20 years, which is roughly 365 times as long as if you’re cut off from oil.

[defrost]

There are many battery chemistries, LiFePO4 is but one .. the lithium batteries tend to be lighter in weight and more optimal for cars and mobility.

Grid storage has yet to find the cheapest storage per acre regardless of weight (which doesn't matter if they're not going to move) and solar -> thermal (underground) -> electricity (months later) is still being trialled (sort of, there's been decades of such usage at one site (IIRC)).

[thelastgallon]

Perhaps its time to rethink about every component in the new energy ecosystem. Perhaps use a charge controller and directly charge a battery instead of converting DC/AC back and forth. A battery is readily available in the form of a EV, which sometimes can also be used for driving!

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Even 1 year is still a lot longer than "immediately getting burned". Fuel gets consumed immediately when it's used, it doesn't keep being re-used for a year or more.

[belorn]

Sweden is currently going through an election year and its very clear how different the energy discussion is compared to HN. At one side you got parties advocating nuclear, and on the green/far left side the advocacy is wind and thermal power plants fueled by fossil fuels.

We used to have a battery developer, but they went instant bankrupt when the almost exclusive funding through government subsidizes stopped. They even rejected an offered loan from the government as not being what they wanted.

There is zero party platforms advocating for wind and batteries for weeks/months long storage. No party advocating a overprovisioning of solar either, possible because output during worst winter month generally reaching single digit percent.

The only political platforms that exist currently are either wind and thermal power plants to burn fuel during non-optimal weather conditions, or to expand the nuclear fleet, and it seems fairly similar when you look at other nearby European countries. Batteries are used as a grid balancer when switching between different form of production, but not as a replacement for the natural gas which is the primary form of fuel being burned in the thermal power plants. Election prediction is that voters are going to demand that construction of something is getting started as the Iran war is likely to trigger new spikes in fossil fuel prices, and thus this will be one of the major issues for the election. Other European countries will likely see similar election debates.

The consumption numbers for the worst month is a bit over 16 000 GW/h of electricity, with a steady growth each year (despite the transport sector being quite slow to electrify), and for a seasonal battery storage you would likely need capacity a few times of that. I would welcome it if a political party would adopt such strategy however, if nothing else because then we would have an alternative to the current two strategies being debated. They could calculations on what it would cost, either by buying it from china or building the production domestically.

[leonidasrup]

Have you looked into CAPEX and OPEX costs of seasonal battery storage? If it's more expensive than nuclear, then it's not an alternative.

[belorn]

Thats seems to be the logical conclusion and explanation why battery and solar are not an option for central/northen part of Europe, despite how panels and batteries are dropping in price. The reason why the only two debated options are nuclear or a combination of wind and natural gas, is that any other alternative is prohibitively expensive. With natural gas becoming a geopolitical and environmental impossibility, that then leaves only one option left for grid growth and expansion, but politically that is a hard pill to take so the debate rages on despite there being no other realistic option.

[leonidasrup]

It's politically a hard pill and debates rage because for multiple decades many German politicians said that the nuclear phaseout will not be coupled with large costs and the increased consumption of natural gas will be just temporary. It's very hard for an politician to say I made a grave error and you all will carry the consequences.

Germany has directly funded anti-nuclear groups in other European countries.

https://www.ege.fr/sites/ege.fr/files/media_files/German_Int...

[yostalex]

Let's evaluate some basic constants.

Replacing fossil fuels with renewables is a shift in the vulnerability vector. The issue isn't even that China controls the production of solar panels and batteries. Production can be launched domestically. China controls 70-90% of refining - the processing chains of critical minerals (rare earth metals, polysilicon, lithium).

Renewables work perfectly for low-density consumers (residential sector, regular commerce). For heavy infrastructure, this won't work.

For example, let's look at AI data centers. AI data centers consume gigawatts of dense energy. Renewables are low-density energy. The problem comes down to spatial energy density (Watts per square meter — W/m²). A server rack for AI training consumes up to 40-100 kW. Solar and wind energy are diffuse (scattered) sources. Their density is about 5-20 W/m². A hyperscaler data center is a concentration of colossal energy in a minimal area (hundreds of megawatts per building).

Training LLM models cannot be interrupted when the sun goes down or the wind dies down. AI requires 24/7 baseload (base generation). The capacity factor of solar is 15-25%, wind — 30-45%. Batteries can smooth out peaks for 2-4 hours, but cannot provide seasonal or multi-day baseload.

Where do we plan to build solar and wind parks? - In deserts and offshore zones. This will require a radical expansion of the grids. We will run into a copper deficit (and things aren't smooth with aluminum either).

Long-term structural capital will go into nuclear energy, gas generation (as a backup), and copper/uranium mining.

[frm88]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/iaea-says-drone-targete...

May 3 (Reuters) - The Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Sunday that a drone had targeted its external radiation control laboratory.

This is not the first event targeting nuclear plants/laboratory. Given the current geopolitical situation, nuclear plants are in danger of being targeted on purpose and the damage would be considerable.

[yostalex]

If we look at the situation through the lens of news headlines and tail risks in an active war zone — I completely agree. Drones over the Zaporizhzhia NPP do indeed create a powerful media picture.

But let's look at how Big Tech assesses the risks. Hyperscalers employ top-tier analysts; they perfectly see the difference between media noise and actual damage.

Attacking an NPP is fundamentally unprofitable. It’s an asset worth tens of billions of dollars, and any rational capital (just like a state) will protect it. What we’re seeing right now — and I’d like to point out this isn't the first time — are strikes on non-critical external nodes. It’s a tool for informational pressure, not an attempt to trigger a second Chernobyl.

In reality, a direct strike on the reactor's containment is a taboo. In military doctrine, it’s equated to the use of radiological weapons, which instantly triggers protocols for uncontrolled escalation. None of the key actors want that.

Has Big Tech already poured money into nuclear? Fact? Fact. Not because they’re blind to geopolitics, but because the math of deterrence works: the risk of deliberately destroying an NPP equals the risk of starting World War III, at which point nobody is going to care about the fate of AI investments anyway.

Let's also take this fact into account: the risk of an attack on an NPP in an active war zone (Ukraine) is simply not comparable to the risk for an NPP in Pennsylvania or Texas.

Personally, I have nothing against green energy, but economics and physics are harsh realities.

[frm88]

In reality, a direct strike on the reactor's containment is a taboo. In military doctrine, it’s equated to the use of radiological weapons, which instantly triggers protocols for uncontrolled escalation. None of the key actors want that.

I'd love to trust this, I really do, but there are political leaders publicly threatening to erase civilisations. I live in Europe. It is still forbidden here to harvest wild mushrooms. Dead animals are burned, not eaten. To us, this is a possible reality

[dalyons]

> Long-term structural capital will go into nuclear energy

nearly zero capital will go into nuclear energy, unless it can be made a lot more affordable. It is structurally completely uncompetitive, and uninvestable without massive state backing.