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Q: “Are we doomed?” A: “We would be, if not for the amazing developments in renewable energy.” (powering-the-planet.ghost.io)

submitted 5 months ago by LesserAbe to c/technology

45 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I wasn't aware just how good the news is on the green energy front until reading this. We still have a tough road in the short/medium term, but we are more or less irreversibly headed in the right direction.

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[–] Cocodapuf 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Grid scale storage has come a long way. There are saltwater batteries and flow batteries in use now, those technologies are here, they're just still being iterated on and improved. And as the renewables get increasingly affordable, the demand for storage will rise with it. Now we're still mostly deploying expensive lithium batteries, but as more of that gets installed, the demand for cheaper storage will skyrocket. And production generally follows demand.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Do you have any data how much of those batteries are in fact in use? For example, Slovenia needs something north of 1.5 * 24 GWh energy for a day. And we are 2 mills population. Plus during winter you need to charge them. With short days of like 5 hours of less than ideal sun if no clouds or fog ... good luck. Perhaps eventually we'll get there, but it's really far far away.

[–] Cocodapuf 3 points 5 months ago

Well if there's not enough sun, wind could be a better option. I don't know much about the climate in slovenia, so either could make more sense.

As for these new kinds of batteries, I don't have the hard numbers on hand, but I know the current installed capacity is really small. So as a product, they're still really new.