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We're told solar and wind future

But when wind is not blowing and sun not shining?

Batteries!

Yet

Asia uses 25GWh/minute and has 13GWh of battery storage: enough for just 31 seconds

2030: 9m:55s

After that, need 100% backup, mostly fossil fuels

woodmac.com/news/opinion/the-growth-and-growth-of-the-global-energy-storage-market/
This is similar to what we see in Europe, with batteries able to supply a little more than 1 minute of average electricity consumption now and about 12 minutes in 2030


Lots of people commented suggesting we can fix this

Yes, we can, but it makes 𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘄𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗿 because we need to pay for backup

Solar costs go up 4-7x, from being some of the cheapest electricity to very expensive

www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-h...
People suggest that 'it is always windy somewhere', but

1) not sufficient throughput between regions

2) European 2021 wind drought showed us it can be less windy almost everywhere

depleting other sources of energy and end up costing us a fortune

www.ft.com/content/d53b5843-dbe0-4724-8adf-75c66127ea80
How much is a couple of minutes of electricity storage?

Not much

Every year in Germany, there are more than 5 days (120hr/7,320 minutes) with almost no wind, and every 10 years almost 8 days without wind (186hr/11,160minutes)

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab91e9/pdf
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