• azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Batteries ain’t cheap when you need them to output GIGAWATTS of power for 12 hours. “Keeping the lights on” is figurative, in reality you need to keep enormous industrial capacity running. Li-Fe batteries have gotten cheaper, but not cheap enough that it makes any kind of sense for that application (even in developed countries we’re just beginning to see battery storage, and the goal is smooth momentary changes in demand, not to power the entire grid at night. That’s still a faraway dream).

    • Guntrigger@feddit.ch
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      1 year ago

      True, but the entire sustainable grid shouldn’t be solar. There’s wind, hydroelectric and geothermal which don’t turn off at night and even nuclear is preferable to burning fossil fuels.

      • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Totally agree in principle. I don’t know about India, but geothermal is not feasible in many places on Earth, same goes for hydro (and with climate change, hydro has become increasingly unreliable in mountain areas due to the lack of snowfall). Wind usually doesn’t do much at night and in winter, so it’s not much help to solar in that regard.

        So yeah, nuclear and batteries will have to work together to fully decarbonize our economies. Unfortunately greenfield nuclear is dead in the water almost everywhere for political reasons; even just keeping existing nuclear reactors running has been a losing battle here in Europe. Maybe Chinese designs will power India, I’m not up-to-date on the latest developments there.