Yes, they are, at least in California which has an aggressive storage policy: https://blog.ucsusa.org/guest-commentary/five-facts-about-en...

So how much is actually stored? 1.5GW for 10 minutes? 15 minutes? Watts isn't a unit of storage, watts per a unit of time is a unit of storage.

That's not actually the key figure of merit, the problem isn't how long stored sources can be used but peak output.

> 1.5GW for 10 minutes? 15 minutes?

All of it for longer than that (none of the various utility-scale sources have a discharge that quickly), which is why power and not energy is the thing that is targeted. But it varies (utility-scale battery systems have a different profile [and differing within that by specific battery tech] than thermal storage which has a different profile than pumped hydro, etc.)

> Watts isn't a unit of storage

No, it's a unit of power, and the main problem right now is being able to meet needed output levels when other sources are offline. The concern is the depth of the trough that storage can handle, you need breadth too, so a substantial level of that comes inherently with depth, and the main concern is short-term variation.

That is exactly the problem. Yes, output matter, too, but capacity is the main figure people are interested in. If storage system A can output 1.5 GW but only for 1 hour, and system B can output 1.5 GW but for 10 hours then these are very different systems.

> All of it for longer than that

And how long is it? Basically we're trying to find the area of rectangle. You're providing the height, but staying conspicuously mum about the width.

> The concern is the depth of the trough that storage can handle, you need breadth too, so a substantial level of that comes inherently with depth, and the main concern is short-term variation.

No, the concern is both depth and breadth. It's easy to build a battery system that puts out a lot of energy for a short period of time. It's hard to build a battery system that puts out a lot of energy for 12 hours.

We aren't anywhere close and won't be for many years which is why it's so absolutely ridiculous how green activists implicitly endorse using coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels which kill tens of thousands of people every year and are cooking the planet, when we have nuclear, which kills no one, and does not contribute substantively to climate change.

It's almost like the activists care more about posturing and magical thinking than they do "saving the planet"...

So that leaves...Nuclear.

So again, why are you fear-mongering about how "dangerous" nuclear is when it's a tiny tiny fraction of the real danger of fossil fuels?

I thought climate change was like an urgent crisis or something....?

We are being told on the one hand that climate change is an existential threat to tens (hundreds?) of millions of people. Oh but actually we can just refuse to decarbonize our energy production because maybe someday 10, 20, 50 or 100 years from now there's a true "green" renewable energy I guess.

There are good arguments for and against pivoting to nuclear right now. But there is an (I think) unquestionable position presented here that we shouldn't be pivoting away from nuclear and shutting down plants.

Nonsense. It's clear they can, although it's more than just using Li-ion batteries.

It'd probably be helpful to elaborate, rather than just insist that the above commenter is wrong and loosely suggest at other solutions.

Things like hydrogen storage, synthetic methane, and thermal storage remain in the prototyping phase. I think it's not correct to say that they can, seeing as there isn't even a commercial market for these technologies let alone one that we know will scale. By comparison countries have already powered >80% of their electricity with nuclear.

It's clear than nuclear power can completely replace fossil fuels. Renewables might be able to replace it, but that's a gamble based on assuming a new storage solution will work excellent. Not just better, but truly blows-everything-else-out-of-the-water phenomenal. When the stakes at play are stopping climate change, this is a very risky assumption to make.

These technologies exist today and are based on sound thermodynamic principles and existing industrial capability.

I'd say if we could provision 1 hour's worth of storage over the span of a decade, that'd amount to a demonstration of economic feasibility. But few of these upcoming technologies are making it out of the prototyping stage, let alone commerical success on this scale.

No one is presently making these because the policy of the grid was developed around power plants that dig stuff out of the ground and burn it - the markets are based on bidding with the assumption every power plant will have a marginal cost of generation relative to the cost of its fuel. This policy doesn't reflect the nature of renewables which besides their capital cost have very low to 0 marginal cost of production. This has disrupted the energy markets in many ways and policy is still being developed to incentivize storage capacity.

You can listen to the people who work in this industry and have studied it deeply or you can keep googling furiously for webpages that support your magical thinking.

In fact, I didn't see ANY links from you supporting your nonsense about renewables not working, despite them working in many places across the globe.

>literally none of these are currently capable of replacing baseload nuclear and fossil fuel energy generation.

Literally STORAGE will never replace GENERATION, they are two different concepts which most people understand but you apparently don't. STORAGE can supplement INTERMITTENT GENERATION to create DISPATCHABLE GENERATION for far cheaper than nuclear plants.

There is no way that renewable energy can replace baseload power generation of FF and natural gas given current technology.

All you have is magical thinking and science fiction.

I'll save you the time. No one has done it. And no, not because evil mustachio-twirling Koch brothers are pulling the strings. Because the technology does not exist at scale to do this.

Or do you want to continue with your speculative science fiction daydreams?

Your argument is "it hasn't happened yet, therefore it cannot happen". This argument proves entirely too much; it implies no technological change can ever occur. To make this argument, you have to demonstrate that the situations in which the change did not occur are the same in all important respects as the current situation. And you cannot do that. Here's what's different.

(1) The cost of renewables has crashed, especially in the last decade. In the case of PV, by nearly an order of magnitude. This is an extreme rate of change for an energy technology.

(2) The cost of storage has also fallen rapidly, and continues to fall.

(3) Market conditions are now beginning to favor installation of storage, as they didn't before (when there's enough dispatchable gas on the grid vs. renewables storage doesn't pay off.)

(4) The existing infrastructure was largely installed at times when renewables were not competitive. However, it won't be ripped out until it becomes uneconomical to operate it (which means ignoring its capital cost). So observing that the source are still being used doesn't imply renewables are not winning.

(5) Fossil fuels have not, and still large are not, being taxed at a level appropriate for the damage they are going to do. Renewables don't have to beat fossil fuels unburdened by CO2 taxes (although we may have waited long enough with CO2 taxes that they may increasingly do so, at least in some market conditions). CO2 taxes will rise to the level needed to push fossil fuels entirely out of the market, and then the question becomes "which is cheaper, nuclear or renewables (or, possibly, fossil fuels with CCS)"?

(6) Once fossil fuels are out of the way, it is crystal clear from the data that absent some technological breakthroughs, new nuclear power plants are grossly uncompetitive vs. renewables. This (and not ludicrous conspiracy theory) is why you're seeing massive installation of renewables around the world, and nuclear installs are gasping for breath.