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Re:Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity' by eloff on Monday August 09, 2021 @08:41PM (#28124033)
I think this is a question of what is grid scale. Is the Tesla facility in Australia grid scale? Why not? What about the large facilities being planned currently with lithium ion batteries?
Re:Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity' by sesuximo on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @12:04AM (#28125041)
My source for my previous comment is Bill gates’ book.

Aside, I think a big battery in Australia makes a lot of sense because they have lots of sun year round and lots of unused space. So you are pretty much just storing for night time and can easily build solar panels.

In many other places, you have to store for much longer term which means you need much bigger batteries (and bigger generating plants).

This is to say I think the cost in a place like Australia may be 100s of times less than places in most of the USA (which is where I live).

Re:Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity' by eloff on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @11:15AM (#28129844)
> In many other places, you have to store for much longer term.

Yeah, that doesn't make sense. Overbuild and interconnect rather.

You can't do things like store summer solar energy for the winter. But there are plenty of places in the US where the sun is nearly always shining. If you can share that energy across the county you're in good shape. Likewise with the wind.

Again it helps you have solid baseload power. It's just nuclear is so expensive and takes so long to build that you can build twice the capacity in solar and wind plus a battery, plus a gas plant for a backup in less time and for a similar price.

Re:Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity' by sesuximo on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @11:10PM (#28137494)
I don’t think you can interconnect over very long distances. I know of experimental projects, but nothing proven
Re:Climate change: IPCC report is 'code red for humanity' by eloff on Thursday August 12, 2021 @12:14PM (#28158107)
There are five existing transmission lines in the world of 2000km and up (all in Brazil and China.)

I think a cross USA interconnect is within the reach of current technology.