The watthours is what gas is for. Germany’s pipeline network alone, that’s not including actual gas storage sites, can store three months of total energy usage.
…or at least that’s the original plan, devised some 20 years ago, Fraunhofer worked it all out back then. It might be the case that banks of sodium batteries or whatnot are cheaper, but yeah lithium is probably not going to be it. Lithium’s strength is energy density, both per volume and by weight, and neither is of concern for grid storage.
Imagine bridging even a short dunkelflaute of 2 days.
That’s physically impossible for a place the size of Germany, much less Europe.
Wouldn’t it be better to go fossil free. Given, you know, climate change.
Gas can be synthesised and we’re going to have to do that anyway for chemical feedstock. Maintaining backup gas plant capacity is cheaper than you think, they don’t need much maintenance if they’re not actually running.
That’s physically impossible for a place the size of Germany, much less Europe.
Unless we use a different technology, that is not renewables + storage?
It’s not technology it’s physics. It is impossible for there to be no wind anywhere, at least as long as the sun doesn’t explode and the earth continues to rotate and an atmosphere exists. If any of those ever fail electricity production will be the least of our worries.
Technology comes into play when it comes to shovelling electricity from one end of the continent to the other and yes we need more interconnects and beefier interconnects but it’s not like we don’t know how to do that, or don’t already have a Europe-wide electricity grid. The issues are somewhere in between NIMBYism regarding pylons and “but we don’t want to pay for burying the cable earthworks are expensive”.
The watthours is what gas is for. Germany’s pipeline network alone, that’s not including actual gas storage sites, can store three months of total energy usage.
…or at least that’s the original plan, devised some 20 years ago, Fraunhofer worked it all out back then. It might be the case that banks of sodium batteries or whatnot are cheaper, but yeah lithium is probably not going to be it. Lithium’s strength is energy density, both per volume and by weight, and neither is of concern for grid storage.
That’s physically impossible for a place the size of Germany, much less Europe.
Wouldn’t it be better to go fossil free. Given, you know, climate change. And the fact that the gas needs to be shipped all the way from the US.
Unless we use a different technology, that is not renewables + storage?
Gas can be synthesised and we’re going to have to do that anyway for chemical feedstock. Maintaining backup gas plant capacity is cheaper than you think, they don’t need much maintenance if they’re not actually running.
It’s not technology it’s physics. It is impossible for there to be no wind anywhere, at least as long as the sun doesn’t explode and the earth continues to rotate and an atmosphere exists. If any of those ever fail electricity production will be the least of our worries.
Technology comes into play when it comes to shovelling electricity from one end of the continent to the other and yes we need more interconnects and beefier interconnects but it’s not like we don’t know how to do that, or don’t already have a Europe-wide electricity grid. The issues are somewhere in between NIMBYism regarding pylons and “but we don’t want to pay for burying the cable earthworks are expensive”.