Comment on US grid adds batteries at 10x the rate of natural gas in first half of 2024

• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Just from looking at some government studies. This doesn’t necessarily compare longer-term costs, but it does give some direct comparisons between storage options.

  I’m certainly no expert here, but just throwing out some rough estimates of battery degradation, it doesn’t seem to be cost-effective vs natural gas, which is already only slightly more expensive than solar. So solar plus battery storage seems to be significantly more expensive than natural gas.

  It’s certainly more complex than that (i.e. you’d need less generation if battery backup is plentiful), but that’s the data I’m looking at.

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  • tmjaea@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    But how can one consider natural gas? The whole point is to avoid getting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere?!

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    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      No, the point is to put less greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Natural gas is way cleaner than coal, and it’s quite a bit cheaper (from what I can tell) vs battery storage. Everything has a cost tradeoff, and the cost tradeoff for natural gas is very attractive right now. Maybe we’ll develop some really inexpensive energy storage (sodium batteries look promising), but regardless of what we come up with, there will be a transition period where we roll it out, and natural gas is a fantastic alternative until that’s done because supply lines are already in place.

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      • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        gas turbines are also fantastically versatile. any petroleum fraction lighter than grease, ethanol, biogas, syngas, hydrogen, ammonia, really anything that burns and can get through nozzle can be used as a fuel. if you have a carbon-neutral source of liquid fuel that can be stored, you have carbon neutral peaker plant

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