The problem with intermittent power and batteries is that you don't have to equal the capacity of an on demand or base load system, you have to have higher capacity. This does vary dramatically between different areas. For example, Nevada doesn't have the same requirements as New England. Nevada has fairly consistent seasons and isn't as subject to storms, thus they don't need much excessive storage. On the other hand New England suffers frequent heavy seasonal storms and long winters that make storage more difficult. Even more so when we are talking about the frequency of these events increasing due to climate change.

The problem is complicated.

> A pet gnawing at it and getting sick? Not happening.

Power outages are often caused by animals. 11% are from squirrels[0]. SQUIRRELS!

> Also operating environments can be dictated, such as temperature, humidity, water cooling or say if the battery technology required a contraption the size of a house, etc.

This just adds to the nuance from above. Because now you need to power your containment. This needs priority over powering homes actually. So now you need more excess and more backups because this is going to be expensive if it fails and take a long time to get back up.

A lot can be reduced if people start building battery systems in their homes. But most people don't have $5k-$15k to drop on a powerwall. But that is shifting the burden to consumers and I'm not sure that's a fair comparison because this consumer cost isn't included in our pricing comparisons. Though this would be a much more robust system (assuming we ignore increase in risk of fire) and greatly reduce damage done by events like what we saw in Texas, even if there is a lot of human error involved.

Climate and power is an extremely difficult topic. Anyone saying otherwise is uninformed.

[0] https://gesrepair.com/what-are-the-most-common-causes-of-pow...

Right. The point is mass produced consumer devices we're familiar with have different constraints than a power grid so most people's existing familiarity with low cost retail batteries isn't all that relevant.

For instance Lithium–air batteries have about the energy density of oil but comes with loads of problems that make them currently impractical for consumer devices. There's fewer hurdles however in making it power station ready.

Same thing with liquid electrodes research. There could be large reservoirs that are on multiday flow cycles for capacity smoothing.

It's like comparing a drainage pipe to a hydropower river dam, it's fundamentally a different problem space

Yes, exactly. Your battery that is in your phone that dies after 2 years of use is the main driver of battery innovation. If you quick draw from these your battery will light on fire (no joke, please don't test because lithium fires are not good, even if you manage to put it out... i.e. let it burn).