[tristanj]

I agree, this article is horrifically misleading.

An array of batteries discharging 12,000 megawatts for ... 5 minutes? 1 hour? 1 day? is not comparable to a nuclear power plant generating 1,000 megawatts continuously 24/7 for months without refueling.

Also batteries are storage. They do not generate electricity. They store excess energy produced elsewhere, by actual electrical generation facilities, then release it later. You can't compare batteries to actual power plants.

[rainsford]

> You can't compare batteries to actual power plants.

Sure you can. It makes as much sense as comparing EVs to gasoline powered cars. Which is to say that it's perfectly fine if the question you're trying to answer is whether one can replace the other, which is in fact the question here. As long as the lights come on when it's dark out and your car goes when you hit the accelerator, does it really matter to you as a user whether the power to do those things was created right that second or created hours ago and stored until you needed it? An EV doesn't produce its own energy either, but that's irrelevant to the question of whether it can replace your gas powered car and that's why people directly compare them.

[tristanj]

Batteries can never replace actual electrical generation, which is what the article is misleadingly implying.

Your ICE/EV analogy is flawed and doesn't work here. Neither EVs nor ICE vehicles produce energy. Both release stored energy, produced at an earlier point in time. ICE vehicles release energy stored by photosynthesis millions of years prior. You imply ICE vehicles are classified differently than EVs because they create energy in the moment, which is untrue.