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 3 weeks agoJust 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.
tmjaea@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
But how can one consider natural gas? The whole point is to avoid getting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere?!
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks 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.
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks 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
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Which is why hydrogen is so interesting to me, especially solar-generated hydrogen. It’s a pain to store, but if it’s used relatively quickly, the losses should be small enough to make it worthwhile. AFAIK, most hydrogen generation is powered by fossil fuels, but there is a path for shifting to renewable generation. I’m a big fan of warehouses generating their own hydrogen and supplementing it with grid-powered hydrogen generation because there’s a path toward full renewable hydrogen.
I don’t know how hard it is to transition a natural gas plant to a hydrogen plant (or other fuel source), but I do think any step that reduces our emissions is a step we ought to seriously consider taking. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of better.