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US grid adds batteries at 10x the rate of natural gas in first half of 2024 (arstechnica.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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[–] thebestaquaman 5 points 3 months ago

Of course, Li-ion batteries will never cover large-scale power demand. Not primarily because of lack of lithium, but because it's a technology that scales far too poorly into the MWh/TWh scale, and has a far too short lifetime.

The battery tech we need for truly large scale storage is different from what we need for small, portable storage. Stuff like redox-flow batteries are looking promising.

There's also hydrogen, with different storage methods being actively researched- from direct storage to using ammonia as a carrier.

The issue with using mechanical storage (like pumped hydropower) is threefold (off the top of my head):

It has ridiculously low energy density
Even after > 100 years of pumps and turbines, the power loss in a pump/release cycle is very high.
It's heavily limited by geography

I'm not saying pumped hydropower isn't part of the solution: I believe the solution is that we need many solutions. I just think it's important to point out that battery tech isn't some monolithic thing, and that there are issues with pumped hydropower (and mechanical storage in general).