The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without increasing consumer bills

Re:The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without in... by manfredo on Sunday June 21, 2020 @12:20AM (#23589723)

Solar thermal plants [1] effectively already use this system. They heat a model salt container, which drives a heat engine. The molten salt remains hot enough enough to keep producing energy through the night. However this scheme requires both solar collectors (in the form of mirrors) as well as the molten salt tank plus a heat engine. The resulting levelized cost is about the same as nuclear power [2].

If this startup does manage to produce energy storage at the efficiencies and costs as advertised that'd make intermittent sources more viable. Ultimately building solar and wind is betting that we'll be able to build efficient, cheap, and massively scalable energy storage.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power

2. https://www.lazard.com/media/450784/lazards-levelized-cost-o...

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Re:The US can reach 90% clean electricity by 2035 without in... by cinquemb on Sunday June 21, 2020 @12:44AM (#23589828)

Yes, I had CSP in mind, however most CSP systems today use the kn03+ nano3 eutectic mixtures, and the LCOE is based on that assumption, as well as assuming you can have no baseload from the storage, and cannot distribute storage separately from collection. And even with their assumptions the range for solar thermal capital costs/kwh is about 20% less than nuclear on the top end, 41% less on the bottom end. One also has to consider the political costs that nuclear comes with and that CSP doesn't.

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