You do not use lithium ion batteries for seasonal storage. Use something else, or build enough generation for the weakest season.
1/5 of one year of GDP is not unreasonable for a major component of energy infrastructure. It's not going to be built all at once. I can't find the exact numbers for Australia, but the US has a similar GDP, similar use, much cheaper electricity, and pays 6-8% of GDP for energy. That does include more than electricity, but it's all relevant expenditure.
A fraction of 20% of GDP, because it's across many years, is firmly inside the realm of possibility. If we had to double energy costs it would still be feasible, but that's overkill. We need less than that feasible amount to fund all the necessary construction.
>You do not use lithium ion batteries for seasonal storage. Use something else
Like what?
You think I'm saying these things because I hate renewables. I'm trying to understand what people are arguing for! So you say Lithium ion batteries shouldn't be used for seasonal storage. News to me. News to a ton of people who believe that Tesla battery site can scale to that level. What is the battery technology that can store enough energy for weeks at national-scale.
Maybe there is no battery technology? Then why are coming up with these examples that you know don't work! If you look at my original post that all I said is that there is no battery technology that scales to economy-size and therefore you need fossil fuel backup for solar and wind... Which part of that is wrong?
This is my frustration because regular people and experts just handwave the answers. Germany is all on in solar and wind and fighting climate change and is hailed as a model for the world and also invest billions into gas pipelines to Russia to provide them with huge volumes of natural gas for decades!!!
What the fuck is going on? I just want to know. I'll post something, told I'm wrong but nobody will post the answer.
Most of that is negated by the rest of the sentence you cut off.
If you build enough generators for the weakest season, then you don't need to store energy for seasonal variations.
It's an option that exists as a worst case, and it's not that bad. If you're extremely worried that all your renewable generation might fail for over a week then you can have backup fossil power plants that run an average of a couple days per year.
It's not cheap but it's not outrageously expensive either. It's entirely possible to afford if it was a priority. I might even argue that it's easy for the US to afford it, if we increased electricity prices to match Australia's...
But as for long term storage, there are a few options. Other kinds of batteries exist, and are in development. Producing hydrogen or other fuels is possible, and would be carbon neutral. Even if it has bad efficiency, we'd have tons of extra electricity during the good seasons.
> all I said is that there is no battery technology that scales to economy-size and therefore you need fossil fuel backup
Well that's not the post I was arguing with. The post I was arguing with was calling it impractical to store energy for a few hours!
If we can't store for a few hours, then we need a base load backup half the time.
If we can store for a few days but not more, then we need a base load backup 1% of the time.
Huge difference. We can do the former. We can maybe do seasonal storage, but it's the former that matters.
1/5 of one year of GDP is not unreasonable for a major component of energy infrastructure. It's not going to be built all at once. I can't find the exact numbers for Australia, but the US has a similar GDP, similar use, much cheaper electricity, and pays 6-8% of GDP for energy. That does include more than electricity, but it's all relevant expenditure.
A fraction of 20% of GDP, because it's across many years, is firmly inside the realm of possibility. If we had to double energy costs it would still be feasible, but that's overkill. We need less than that feasible amount to fund all the necessary construction.