I support nuclear, but I don’t think this is a great argument. There are a lot of batter chemistry options other than lithium, and lithium isn’t a great choice for things like fixed power generation anyway.
Which are the better currently-available options for battery-based large-scale storage of energy generated by wind and solar?
Obviously non-battery options like pumped storage exist, but this requires very specific geographic features to be practical, and can't be done everywhere.
Well for one, pumping water uphill during the day using solar/whatever. And then at night the pumps become hydroelectric turbines as the water flows back down.
I mean idk if it exists. Energy storage just means potential energy creation/efficient extraction. Could put a huge heavy fucking weight and lift it up a tower. Then letting it spin motors (maybe some gearing so weight moves slow while turbine spins fast as it falls. Problem with everything is just optimizing efficiency.
The non battery options are often the most cost effective when available. For batteries the molten salt ones look really promising; they are huge and run hot but are very cheap per kWh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_battery
There isn't enough lithium on the planet to run the world on wind and solar with current battery technology, so critical support for nuclear.
I support nuclear, but I don’t think this is a great argument. There are a lot of batter chemistry options other than lithium, and lithium isn’t a great choice for things like fixed power generation anyway.
Which are the better currently-available options for battery-based large-scale storage of energy generated by wind and solar?
Obviously non-battery options like pumped storage exist, but this requires very specific geographic features to be practical, and can't be done everywhere.
Well for one, pumping water uphill during the day using solar/whatever. And then at night the pumps become hydroelectric turbines as the water flows back down.
That's what I meant by pumped storage. This requires hilly terrain.
Yeah didnt read my bad. Another system could be compressing air/some other gas. During the day and using the compressed gas to turn a turbine.
In theory that sounds like a pretty good option, but in the 30 seconds or so it took to type this reply obviously I couldn't research it lol
I mean idk if it exists. Energy storage just means potential energy creation/efficient extraction. Could put a huge heavy fucking weight and lift it up a tower. Then letting it spin motors (maybe some gearing so weight moves slow while turbine spins fast as it falls. Problem with everything is just optimizing efficiency.
https://energyvault.com/
The non battery options are often the most cost effective when available. For batteries the molten salt ones look really promising; they are huge and run hot but are very cheap per kWh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_battery