Tesla's Battery Revolution Just Reached Critical Mass (bloomberg.com)

Tesla is all set to cut the ribbon on a massive battery storage facility in the California desert -- the biggest of its kind on earth. It joins similarly huge facilities built by AES and Altagas, which are both set to launch around the same time. Combined, the plants constitute 15% of the battery storage installed globally last year. From a report: Tesla Motors is making a huge bet that millions of small batteries can be strung together to help kick fossil fuels off the grid. The idea is a powerful one -- one that's been used to help justify the company's $5 billion factory near Reno, Nev. -- but batteries have so far only appeared in a handful of true, grid-scale pilot projects. That changes this week. Ribbons will be cut and executives will take their bows. But this is a revolution that's just getting started, Tesla Chief Technology Officer J.B. Straubel said in an interview on Friday. "It's sort of hard to comprehend sometimes the speed all this is going at," he said. "Our storage is growing as fast as we can humanly scale it."

Comments

Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

What doesn't go wrong with Trump as President?!?!?!

</SARCASM>

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[DontBeAMoran]

Anyone who's president should not have any stocks whatsoever. Conflict of interest.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Neuroelectronic]

Surely the head office at the white house should be beholden to foreign interests and lobbyists and not his personal American businesses.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, oil companies are forbidden from investing in alternative energy, and they would never abandon oil no matter how uneconomical it became. /S

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

He got a royalties from books, his money will have been in the hands of some kind of fund manager who was investing it in a blind trust. It doesn't sound implausible, mostly due to the book royalties. At least he is publishing this, unlike some other presidents...

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can read the financial disclosure forms and see. Even arguing it quadrupled is specious though, it might be far less of an increase, depending.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

Royalties are not advances.

Re: Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to do your math properly. Or accounting.

Whatever you call it, you did it wrong.

Here's a hint:. Don't start from zero.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[GLMDesigns]

No. It seems that he's into not sending money to people who want to kill us. The big oil companies make a large portion of their money from refining oil. They will do just fine in a post carbon based energy world. We need to get from "the now" to "tomorrow"; and we should do this without funding the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran.

So the rational solution is to put the pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast refineries; drill over here; have jobs here; and financially starve Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct, the advances are deducted from royalties. It's an "advance against royalties". Publishers love it when a book "earns out" its advance and goes on to generate more royalties. Most first books don't, if a second doesn't, you're looking for another publisher. (It helps if you're a Big Name, either from previous books or some unrelated accomplishment like being President.)

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[CaptainDork]

Perhaps you were on vacay when the fucking oil glut hit ...

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[AvitarX]

That's about index fund rate.

S and P 500 went from 640 - 2100

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Fire_Wraith]

What politicians normally do is submit a plan to an ethics review whereby their savings and investments are in a "blind trust" or equivalent. What this means is that they have no insight into where their money is invested ("blind"), and no control over the decisions that their trusted agent/broker makes regarding those investments, nor any communications with them apart from perfunctory statements or the like ("You currently have X dollars in your accounts" etc). This often involved selling off their existing assets to place them in that trust.

The problem with Trump is that he hasn't done this, and has shown absolutely no intention of doing so. He still knows where his money is invested, and still has control/influence over those investments. He claims that he doesn't, but it's grossly clear since his name is plastered all over it. What's more, it's his children that are now running the business, and if you think he couldn't quietly make his wishes known to them, you're deluding yourself. He therefore can easily take that information into account when he's making decisions, and directly benefit his own financial interests thereby.

To give an example, his travel/immigration ban covers several Middle Eastern countries, and cited terrorist attacks including 9/11 as cause. And yet, none of the countries the 9/11 hijackers came from are included in the ban. Why? Possibly because those countries happen to be ones that the Trump Organization does business in, since there's zero overlap between the banned country list and the list of countries in the Middle East where Trump's business has ties? Now, it's impossible to prove that was the reason why, but wouldn't it be better for everyone involved if we didn't have to even worry about that in the first place?

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[religionofpeas]

It shouldn't really be up to Trump to make ethical decisions. They should be forced upon him. Why isn't this happening ?

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[alex67500]

He got a royalties from books, his money will have been in the hands of some kind of fund manager who was investing it in a blind trust. It doesn't sound implausible, mostly due to the book royalties. At least he is publishing this, unlike some other presidents...

You didn't read the article you are replying to. Here, I'll help sort that out for you: The president received royalties between $35,000 and $115,000 on his three books.

$115,000 != $12,200,000.

From that article that was quoted:

2007: Obama earns $3.3 million off book royalties from Random House and $816,000 from Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[GLMDesigns]

No. But I remember when the media and congressmen were saying that we would never see sub $2.00 gas again.

Oops. I guess increasing supply ruined that foolish prediction.

We do have a "glut". Good. Let's keep crude oil prices to screw Saudi Arabia. How about we drill here, have refineries buy at the reduced price (due to increased supply) and we place a use tax on the gas. Then we use the tax dollars to increase wind and solar production, energy storage (battery, flywheels, whatever).

End result is we don't send money to fanatics; we have blue-collar jobs; we fund solar and wind.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Nemyst]

This is yet another case of "we don't have laws for this because nobody's ever broken the social norm before". It's similar in nature to those idiotic warning labels on things (like that "warning: hot" on coffee cups), whereby nobody thought it was necessary to have it explicitly labeled until someone blatantly didn't get it and sued for it.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[religionofpeas]

Neither the vendor nor the customer wants to get burned on the coffee, but people do want to exploit the power they have to enrich themselves.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[wisnoskij]

Trump did not even have control over the countries on the travel ban list, they were put there years ago, before he even ran for office. And it is really a surprise that Trump does business with the successful stable countries in the Middle east, and not with the ones engulfed in terrorism and civil war?

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially now that he might get 19% of Rosneft, Russia’s state oil company ( https://medium.com/@yonatanzun... )

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

There have always been laws for this. You're only know seeing that those laws never applied to people in power.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump did not even have control over the countries on the travel ban list, they were put there years ago,

He had full control. He decided to use that particular list. He could have used another list, he could have written a brand new list. Instead he picked a list that conveniently did not impact any of his business partners.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[MightyMartian]

So long as the glut continues, you're not going to be making a lot of people rich, and where the oil is more expensive to get at, like oil sands in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Dakotas, or even North Sea oil, you're finding production falling off because the lower prices reduces the economic argument for grabbing the oil. That's the real problem here. Cheap oil is great if you're a consumer, it's probably pretty damned good if you're a refiner as well, but if you're a producer it sucks really bad, and while technology has indeed allowed cheaper access to some sources like shale oil, all in all low oil prices have actually had a pretty shitty effect, to the point where Shell is selling its North Sea assets.

It's the great irony of oil production that it seems it is low prices, rather than high prices, that are causing the industry problems, and may in the medium term lead to more development of renewables. The Saudis, at least, seem to know this, which is why they've set up their massive sovereign wealth fund. They're going to grab the money while they can, because they know in the long term, fossil fuels are a dead end.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

No one from those countries has killed someone on american soil in a terrorist attack for at least 40 years.
Unlike countries not on his list like saudi and pakistan.
The whole "its obama's list" talking point is just there to give cover to people who like the idea of banning muslims but don't want to admit it publicly. Don't be a pawn.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[budgenator]

The Saudis, at least, seem to know this, which is why they've set up their massive sovereign wealth fund. They're going to grab the money while they can, because they know in the long term, fossil fuels are a dead end.

That's what they said about the olive oil trade, back when Christ was a corporal.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[erapert]

I couldn't help but notice how the Clintons and Obama became multi-millionaires while "serving" long careers in public office...

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[GLMDesigns]

I think most oil men everywhere realize that. You see the Koch Bros heavily invested in wind project. I think I read that they were investing in a few energy storage projects (flywheel in NY state).

Oil will be done as an energy supply in a generation or so (20-40 years). Solar production has been increasing exponentially since the late 1970s. We just haven't noticed it since early doubles 2 to 4 to 8 are not noticed as clearly as later ones 2048 to 4096 to 8192.

You're correct that when crude oil prices drop too low it hurts producers. I would prefer that we pay crude oil prices of $50 /barrel to US/Canadian producers than $35/ barrel to Saudi Arabia. But that's me.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[mean pun]

Trump did not even have control over the countries on the travel ban list, they were put there years ago,

He had full control. He decided to use that particular list. He could have used another list, he could have written a brand new list. Instead he picked a list that conveniently did not impact any of his business partners.

There are liberals, and then there are leftist lunatics.

This would be the latter.

Please explain what is so lunatic about the point he's making. This but Obama made me do it argument is so staggeringly dumb that nobody with a mental age above 5 takes it serious. I mean, Trump? Accepting recommendations from Obama? That's almost as dumb as the whole spiel about the `huge' inauguration attendance.

That leaves the adults wondering what the real reason is. The business interests explanation is not very convincing to me, but it is miles ahead of the but Obama made me the list explanation.

And that's ignoring the blatant insinuation that the Obama administration made that list for the kind of asshole measures that Trump has now ordered.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Fire_Wraith]

Several reasons:

1) The voters didn't care (enough) that this was his long-running modus operandi (using any position of influence or power for personal gain, even at the expense of everyone else around him, has been a consistent theme for him), or that he made a particular point of ignoring/flouting political norms and expected behavior (this was seen as a plus by many, in fact).
2) Congress has become so completely polarized that it is at best hindered in, and at worst incapable of, acting as a check on a president of the same party.
3) Independent ethics groups hold no sway over him because he has no apparent shame, although they have resorted to suing him over the matter (whether that amounts to anything at all is another matter entirely).

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Harlequin80]

Just a comment on the price. Oil prices are reflective of global supply and demand, and unless there are geographic constraints on a particular supply, ie no access to export points, changing where you buy the oil from won't change the price.

Lets say the US decides to only buy its oil domestically, this would have the immediate effect of pushing the domestic price up and the international price down. But it would be a fleeting change, as anyone who was buying from the US will shift to the now cheaper international supply. This will raise the international price and lower the US domestic price. The net effect is that the price ends up exactly the same.

The only case where this wouldn't happen is if the US domestic production is unable to ramp to US demand. In which case US price will be higher and international lower.

This is one of the big issues with oil embargoes on target countries. They are never world wide. So while the US and its allies may refuse to buy oil from country X, China and Russia won't have the same problem. No price change, just customer change.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[CaptainDork]

This, and look at what's happening to a boom in the Bakken oil fields:

Extraction is way faster than distribution, so transporting the shit is a golden job.

Trucks, rail, boats and barges used to ship the product have attracted the boomers who live in tiny trailers because the surrounding cities refuse to provide municipal services like water, gas, sewage, and electricity, and fire and police protection.

The cities know that all those jobs are going to disappear once pipelines become the transport of choice.

Building the pipelines themselves is labour and material-intensive, but that all goes away after it comes on line.

What America needs to do is EXPORT that shit to oil-hungry nations.

That would call for increased refinement, building new refineries and updating ports ... all along the Gulf, particularly.

Specifically, the old Texaco, Shell, and Gulf refineries are still there (bought out now) and the ports at Beaumont, Galveston, Houston and Port Arthur are fully capable of handling mass export because they've already been there, done that.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[MightyMartian]

What "oil hungry" nations are there right now? With the price of oil globally pretty cheap, it's not as if the US is the country pumping oil out of the ground, or selling it abroad. Everyone has an oversupply, which is why the price is low.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama made all his money from book sales. Sales that petered out after his first year or three in office.
The clintons had negative equity when they left the whitehouse due to paying for all the lawyers.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[CaptainDork]

A side-by-side comparison of imports vs exports answers that question.

Appreciate that if I send a barge of crude to you, you're probably going to reject it and ask for some refined stuff, instead.

Guess who has the largest refining capacity? (hint: USA)

Many countries who have refineries have crude, but they don't have enough.

China, India, parts of Africa and others.

Remember Aramco? I do.

In the article, notice the companies, Texaco and Mobil Oil.

I worked for both.

My brothers worked for Gulf Oil.

My dad worked for Pure Oil (later Unical).

--

We need to do three (3) things (at least) in tandem:

1.) Make export agreements with countries needing cheap oil (start with Ukraine?)

2.) Upsell buildouts of refineries in those countries. US has the leg up on that one.

3.) Expand shipping ports and build tankers. From around the Gulf Coast, look at Beaumont, Port Arthur, Houston, and Galveston.

Lots of jobs for top-flight engineers, middle managers, draftsmen, steel mills, boilers, cracking units, welders, pipefitters, carpenters, riggers, day labourers, designers, (and shit loads more) and the need for support in the way of hardware/mill supplies, transportation, housing, schools, ...

It would be the boom of of the 1950s all over again.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[GLMDesigns]

But since the produced supply is higher then the world wide price would drop. We would be "subsidizing" oil production at a minimum base price in order to keep production at glut level. Europe and China would have lower fuel costs.

Of course lower prices could mean increased use - thus higher prices. (And a waste of resources and US tax dollars).

It would only work if industrialized countries worldwide continue conversion to alternative energies.

If they don't then we would have to cut production subsidies as it didn't achieve its stated goal.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[MightyMartian]

We need to stop using fossil fuels. That's not something you and I are going to agree on, I suspect.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[CaptainDork]

Your suspicion is logical, but unfounded.

My DNA is in oil patch, but I have evolved to despise it.

It's a filthy source of energy and killed my dad with cancers in the brain, liver, pancreas, stomach and lungs.

My post was not an advocacy for fossil fuels, it was a strategy to exploit it, if we're going to let that pussy-grabbing son of a bitch destroy us, we should flameout with dollars in our hands.

I litigated tobacco and it was a bitch to get those mother fuckers to stop killing us, and it still is.

At least with fossil, we have a replacement to use as a weapon.

I'm please to see the progress we're making with renewables and the persistence of manufacturers to continue rolling it out.

This kind of chickenshit short-sighted legislation will spread like cancer and the only way to stop it is pressure from buyers:

The new Wyoming bill would forbid utilities from using solar or wind sources for their electricity by 2019, according to Inside Climate News.

The bill's nine sponsors—two state senators and seven representatives—mostly come from Wyoming's top coal-producing counties, and some have denied the scientific validity of climate change, according to the website.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[MightyMartian]

My apologies! That's what I get for drawing hasty conclusions.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[CaptainDork]

Thank you, and no problems. Your conclusions were my fault.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[stoatwblr]

The reason you're seeing $2 oil is a price war kicked off by the Saudis (who don't pay much to get their oil out of the ground) aimed at undercutting tight oil suppliers (who pay a lot more) and pushing the market price below the costs of extracting tight oil.

That's a strategy they lost (the tight oil suppliers didn't go bankrupt) and has put their entire economy in danger (SA is hugely in debt now and even considering introducing income tax). Prices are now rising quickly and you can expect them to go back to where they were, if not a lot higher.

Incidentally the high oil prices are an indication that we've hit peak oil worldwide - the easy stuff is all gone and now the cost of extracting oil is going up (through most of the 20th century you'd get an energy return of at least 25-50 barrels for every barrel expended. In some areas of extraction the return is down to 5 barrels per barrel expended. Tar sands and shale oil are extremely expensive to process (There's more energy in a bowl of cornflakes than in the same volume of oil shale).

The fact that tar sands are regarded as important is a big indicator. When I was a kid it was taken for granted that such resources were hopelessly uneconomic to extract and would only be a last resort supply.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[GLMDesigns]

Right. They tried to put the frackers and oil sand drillers out of business by dropping prices. This happens with increased supply. The opposite happens with limited supply, especially when dealing with monopoly powers.

Frackers can make money in the 40-50 / barrel range (some less than that). Saudi Arabia has a break even in the low 30s (IIRC) but has a budget requirement of about 100/barrel. (They need 100/barrel to not run a deficit.)

At issue with carbon-based energy is bridging the gap until solar and wind can take over. Alternative energy production has been growing at an exponential pace for 40 years and there's no reason for us to think that the rate of growth will slow anytime soon.

We need carbon-based energy for another 20+ years. And that's it.

But don't worry Exxon and Mobil will do quite well there will still be a need for refining oil. We just won't be using it as an energy source.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[eric_harris_76]

How exactly is that supposed to work? They sell their entire portfolio for cash, and put the cash in a bunch of safe deposit boxes, or hide it under a mattress?

Or maybe just sell it all and buy U.S. Treasuries?

Maybe that's not the phenomenally bad idea it seems to be.

That'd certainly provide one strong incentive to preserve and even improve the U.S. government's credit rating, now wouldn't it?

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[stoatwblr]

"Alternative energy production has been growing at an exponential pace for 40 years and there's no reason for us to think that the rate of growth will slow anytime soon. "

The problem is that even if you carpet the countryside in windmails and panels you can only match existing power generation. In order to eliminate carbon you need to also convert domestic/industrial heating and as much transportation as possible to electricity AND get developing countries on board

That translates to an increase in demand in developed countries somewhere between 6-8 times and 20-50 times in developing countries over existing electricity generation capacity.

The only viable way of doing this is nuclear power and realistically we should have had MSRs ready 20 years ago. If anyone attempts to hold back developiong countries by restricting their energy generation there _will_ be a war. We can't keep billions of people poor in order to maintain our own affluent lifestyle. (Poor people have more children. The statistically proven way of reducing population growth to zero or negative is to make them affluent. Wars and famine only result in a minor downtick in population which is more than made up in a couple of generations. The Black Death proved that)

I tend to regard wind and solar as an expensive boondoggle because they're so fiddly. If you have upbiquitous MSRs (LFTR) then they're unnecessary irritations on the power grid which operators will be glad to get rid of.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[GLMDesigns]

Very good points about war being inevitable if attempts are made to restrict growth in developing countries.

Nuclear is definitely an option that should not be ignored.

Re solar and wind - I see nothing but growth on horizon; and it doesn't need to be the wet dream of photo-voltaic paints or other such things.

If we can get residential small towns to be energy self-sufficient (whether in the US or the Congo) that will be a godsend in-and-of-itself.

Ocean based wind-farms will soon be a reality. A large percentage of major cities are coastal (Paris, Berlin, Mexico City, Moscow, New Dehli, Beijing being obvious exceptions).

OK. Lots of people don't live in coastal cities :-) but if ocean based windfarms can take care of NY, LA, London, Tokyo, etc... that would be a great start. .

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[stoatwblr]

Large wind turbines are surprisingly expensive to run. The 2MW+ ones have an alarming tendency to shred their gearboxes or have them catch fire - to the point where they're barely breaking even with subsidies - and having 8MW ones at sea makes it that much harder/more expensive to maintain them.

The cost of reticulating the network to them is also a big deal. Windpower generation is seldom located convenient to demand centres.

I'm fairly sure that practical molten salt nuclear systems will result in forests of turbines being abandoned, as unlike [PB]WRs, MSRs can be _safely_ located near or in population/demand centres and not be dependent on geologically unstable features (rivers tend to track fault lines and drought conditions mean river-cooled xWR systems have to be derated in hot weather, lakes and seas are subject to tsunamis) and will be substantially cheaper to operate than current nuke tech (which is around half the cost of wind/solar as it is), due to the reduced waste handling costs.

It's worth noting that Edison's original power plans were for regionalised, distributed power generation, but our current worldwide centralised power generation model was proven more economically and physically practical more than 80 years ago. Solar/Wind plants are in many ways a step back to that century-old philosophy with its attendant massive administrative complexity. Whilst grid automation could handle a good deal of the load/generation balancing, politicalisation of generation makes it much harder for planners and operators - and the cost of that interference is borne by energy consumers, with approximately 40% of the average UK power bill being attributable to wind/solar systems that only average 4-6% of the actual generation.

Wind and solar systems are only going to stop being a network menace when they are teamed with energy storage local to the generation plant, to smooth the peaky feeds they provide. At that point their economics largely go out the window as you need ~50% increase in generation capacity to maintain the same overall output - and that's on top of actual output over time being only 15-20% of nameplate rating, necessitating massive overbuild to get real capacity to where it's needed. It effectively takes 1800-2200 2MW turbines to match _one_ 1200MW power station, not the 600 you'd think at first blush - and even then 600 turbines is a LOT of space. (Yes, oceanic turbines are bigger but see comments above about the gearboxes and reticulation - there are only so many spaces suitable to install them anyway)

The thing about windfarms is that the low hanging fruit goes quickly - one example being the Tararua/Te Apiti/Te Rere Hau farms in New Zealand which are unusual as it they are in an area with near constant wind year round. The first tranche of turbines generated steady power, but followup ones have proven to be less and less cost effective, with more complaints about noise. Even these farms, with a near-constant wind supply don't go anywhere near nameplate output levels when averaged over a year.

Yes, there are times in europe when wind reaches 100% of energy consumption - but if you look closer you'll usually see that it's a combination of extremely low demand period coupled with unusually high winds over a widespread area, and until the issue of generation when the sun's not around and there's no wind coupled with demand peaks (such as Europe's rather notorious cold, still cloudless nights) is addressed, you'll still need backing capacity - which right now is fossil based. If you can make it practical to supply this with nuclear then for the incremental cost of enlarging the nuclear plant you also just made all those turbines/solar panels redundant.

Re:Critical mass?!?! DAMN that Trump!

[Coren22]

Naa, we just lost a ambassador, no biggy, happens all the time. It was all because of a video too!

As fast as humanly possible? Not good enough!!

[Anonymous Coward]

HIRE MORE ROBOTS!!!!

But they use lithium-ion

[fustakrakich]

This is a stationary setup. Weight and size shouldn't matter. They should use nickel-iron for longer durability, a hundred years or more.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Neuroelectronic]

Economics doesn't matter when Wall Street and DC are writing you a blank check.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Penguinisto]

Not to mention safety. I'd hate to be the nearest Fire Department to that place...

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Anonymous Coward]

"Visionaries" are hoping the momentum of making lightweight batteries a bigger market will spur steady improvements in cost.

My personal opinion is in line with yours. Without a new breakthrough technology in our pocket, batteries technology should be determined by the real use case. Lithium ion is a good technology when weight is very important, but a lousy technology when does not matter. Why use a bad technology when a pretty good on is on hand?

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[ColdWetDog]

Why? We like to watch earth shattering kabooms.

Re: But they use lithium-ion

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that lithium ion batteries are about 85% efficient round-trip power where is nickel iron batteries are something more like 70%. That's double the energy loss in addition to requiring nearly 10 times the weight and volume. Nickel-iron batteries also need maintenance, that's cheaper than replacement, but it adds up over time.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Anonymous Coward]

Longer durability is just one of the desirable characteristics of a battery. Besides low "energy density", charge retention is also very poor on Nickel-iron.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a stationary setup. Weight and size shouldn't matter. They should use nickel-iron for longer durability, a hundred years or more.

Nickel-iron is too heavy. Weight *does* matter when it comes to economics. JB Straubel has mentioned in interviews that the raw material costs are starting to matter more and more. A lot of the cost reductions per unit of storage have to do with the increased kWh density per pound of battery. In other words, if you double the capacity of a pound of batteries, you cut the price per kWh in half (with everything else being largely equal). Lithium-ion makes sense because they have more power per kilo than any other technology. The old adage I remember from years ago is: 70% of the cost of a manufactured item is in the raw materials. Not salaries. Not equipment. Not research. I don't have the figures for Tesla's inputs, but I can't imagine they're much different.

This relates to why I think batteries are so awesome: small adjustments to chemistry can lead to noticeable gains in density and economics. Automakers have resorted to using a whole host of expensive, complicated technologies to up their MPG figures - turbochargers, aluminum blocks, variable timing, 8 speed transmissions, direct injection. In the meantime, Panasonic & Tesla added a little extra silicon to the anode and upped capacity in otherwise-identical batteries.

Re: But they use lithium-ion

[fustakrakich]

I just believe that in this situation, robust is more important than brittle efficiency.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[ShanghaiBill]

Economics doesn't matter

This is not about "economics". It is about PR and meeting a political mandate, and not because the project actually makes sense. Alternative energy actually fits the demand curve fairly well (people run ACs when the sun is shining), and "smart meters" can help to shift demand to fit available supply. Car batteries, which are likely to be a major power consumers in the future, can be built with "smart chargers" that charge only when surplus energy is available (and thus the price is low). There is no actual need for these battery storage facilities.

These battery storage facilities make little sense today, and will likely make even less sense in the future. They are only being built because the California state government has required the utilities to build them.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Neuroelectronic]

So they've replaced voters with batteries...

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[wbr1]

Not to mention safety. I'd hate to be the nearest Fire Department to that place...

Have you ever seen video of a refinery going up? Or a propane storage facility?

You should look sometimes. This is little more dangerous than those. In face with other fuels, things like gas and liquid fuels are transported by pipeline, truck and rail. All have had accidents near populated residential areas.

Any sufficiently dense energy storage can be dangerous if it somehow releases that energy quickly. I would rather that be at a stationary facility that is isolated and perhaps less manned than trucks and rail carrying large volumes of fuel about.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[aaarrrgggh]

Sorry, but you are wrong. California's peak demand is now about an hour before sunset to an hour after, and the renewable generation falls off a cliff making it difficult for base-load plants to ramp up quickly.

Battery storage is needed when you want more than ~10-20% of your generation to be from solar. Demand-side management can handle some of the issues, but won't let solar grow (easily) past 25%.

That said, I am surprised the Li-Ion pencils out, even with subsidies. The charging characteristics must be a big part of the formula for it working-- being able to quickly absorb power would give it an advantage over sodium and the flow batteries, I think the nickel iron batteries have the same challenges.

Re: But they use lithium-ion

[AmiMoJo]

Sodium sulphur is used elsewhere. It used to require high temperatures but now runs at more manageable levels. There are some deployed in Hawaii, Japan and Europe.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[minogully]

Here's a video of what actually happens when you TRY to catch one of the modules on fire

https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-safety/

TL;DR... Thanks to the safety measures built in to the module, the failure is contained to the module and even parts within the burning module are still intact.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[ShanghaiBill]

California's peak demand is now about an hour before sunset to an hour after,

That demand is already met by NG "peaker" plants, which are very cost effective because THEY ALREADY EXIST. Electricity demand is falling, thanks mostly to LED lighting and variable speed DC motors, so there is no need for more capacity.

renewable generation falls off a cliff

Solar drops. Wind power tends to rise in late afternoon.

making it difficult for base-load plants to ramp up quickly

Yet they do it every day. California has no coal plants and few nukes. Most power comes from NG, which can ramp up quickly, especially when the demand peak happens predictably every afternoon.

Battery storage is needed when you want more than ~10-20% of your generation to be from solar.

1. We are no where near close to that.
2. It is not at all clear that batteries will be "needed" even at 10-20%.
3. Even if batteries are needed, it would make way more sense to put them near the endpoints rather than out in the desert.
4. These decisions should be made by the utilities not the politicians.

That said, I am surprised the Li-Ion pencils out, even with subsidies.

Who said it "pencils out"? The utilities don't care about the cost because they are allowed to push the costs onto their customers. The legislators don't care because boondoggles win votes whether they make sense or not, and by pushing for lithium, they get their picture in the news standing next to Elon Musk. The consumers don't care because these projects are too small to matter. Stupid policies can work as long as you keep them small.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Anonymous Coward]

Economies of scale would be one reason, in many cases you can produce things much cheaper by producing them in massive numbers. Secondly I think one of Teslas main business plans is to produce batteries for vehicles which will be need replacement every 5-10 years when their capacity drops significantly, but instead of recycling these batteries immediately they intend to reuse them for a time in other applications (power walls, utility storage, etc).

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[eliphalet]

It's not quite in the desert - it's in Ontario, CA, where people live. http://www.latimes.com/busines...

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Anonymous Coward]

Lithium Ion batteries cost 50% less than they did in 2014. 50 fucking percent!!! I think my 10 year old daughter can figure it out why its a good thing.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[religionofpeas]

Durability gets in the way of incremental improvement, though. Given that the technology keeps improving fairly rapidly, it's probably worth the effort to strip the lithium from the batteries in a few years time, and build better ones.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[religionofpeas]

Batteries can be divided into sections with firewalls in between.

Re: But they use lithium-ion

[WindBourne]

This is designed to lower the price of batteries for vehicles. And with current Tesla chem , it is supposed to last many times more than normal.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[wbr1]

Indeed they can. My post was an argument for battery storage, even without protection mechanisms like firewalls - as opposed to other storage mediums.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[naughtynaughty]

Size and weight do matter. As well as the cost to maintain the batteries, self-discharge rate, charge rate, discharge rate and efficiency.

There really is a reason Nickel-Iron batteries are niche products and it isn't because smart people in the field don't know about them.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[religionofpeas]

I wasn't disagreeing, just adding another point. In a lot of cases, it's easier to divide up batteries in safe chunks than something like a refinery, which needs a lot of interconnected structures with plenty of energy flowing in between them.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Anonymous Coward]

"making it difficult for base-load plants to ramp up quickly" ... "Yet they do it every day. California has no coal plants and few nukes."

Because they buy a large chunk of their electricity from WA hyrdo power which has something crazy like 20,000MW of hydropower capacity.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[mbkennel]

Argh. The CA utilities have a good reason for this---the gas supply and storage is constrained because of the major leak at Aliso Canyon. They don't have capacity to run the NG peaker plants now, couldn't get it to be installed before the summer of 2017, and would prefer to store up cheaper electricity from the daytime.

It's up to the storage suppliers to bid on the project and choose the technology, and they have all the motivation to choose the most cost-effective one for the project. They know that capacity will degrade with some rate, and probably decided that the likely cost of adding capacity in 10 years would be less than doing something different now. Perhaps there aren't fully proven ready-to-go nickel battery storage units.

The requirement from the utility was to get something installed, successfully, now. No time to waste with a technology that wasn't production ready or had supply problems.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[sexconker]

Car batteries, which are likely to be a major power consumers in the future, can be built with "smart chargers" that charge only when surplus energy is available (and thus the price is low).

This works until charging cars becomes more than a microscopic blip in the overall demand. As more people charge their cars, however smartly, the exploitable demand curve flattens, and the area under the entire curve increases. If electric cars start to replace regular cars, energy prices will go up, up, up and the opportunity to charge your car during "off-peak" times for a relative discount will go down, down, gone.

If you want a car analogy for charging your car, try this. Uber "surge" pricing. The more people using Uber, the more normal pricing approaches surge pricing, and the higher "surge" pricing goes.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[hey!]

Well, what really matters is economics, and what happens a century out from now is so thoroughly discounted by the time value of money that no businesses seriously consider it.

So I expect the biggest thing is the economies of scale of the Li-ion cell manufacture and Teslas expertise and ability to supply the components of the system. If you run the numbers and the net present value works out better for Li-ion then Li-ion it is, even if you have to replace it in ten years -- by which time the batteries will have become even cheaper.

It doesn't matter if NiMH is a better technology in the long run; it's what you can build now and for how much that drives your decisions. I'm totally convinced that EVs will displace gasoline cars in my lifetime, but it doesn't mean I'd buy one today.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[sexconker]

Batteries can be divided into sections with firewalls in between.

This is what makes a battery a battery. If it's not compartmentalized, it's a cell. A battery of cells is a battery.
Your average AA/LR6 "battery" is more accurately referred to as a "cell".

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[mbkennel]

| If you want a car analogy for charging your car, try this. Uber "surge" pricing. The more people using Uber, the more normal pricing approaches surge pricing, and the higher "surge" pricing goes.

And the market response on supply from increased prices? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

If utilities start to see more overall electricity demand from vehicles, they will also have more money. Some of the money which used to go to petroleum will go to them. They will have more money to add capacity and storage. Most vehicles will charge at night when costs will stay low for quite a while. At some point, utilities will pay people to plug in their car at 6pm and discharge it for a couple of hours to lower peak demand, and then recharge it back at night.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[aaarrrgggh]

You are thinking from a fixed perspective; the California Energy Commission has pretty good projection data for the next 10 years, which will make the cliff problem worse. California is moving to net-zero for new residential in 2020, and commercial a couple cycles later.

In general, grid-scale batteries are an odd solution, but Mira Loma substation is transmission-constrained, or at least was several years ago. It has an on-site peaker plant to address some of the constraints, but there are issues with that as a solution. (Not privy to the issues.)

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[budgenator]

I think it's more a case of we're going to have a shitload of Li-ion batteries that will be too soggy for long range vehicle use, but are perfectly fine for other uses that don't require 100% capacity. They're using fresh batteries now, gaining economies of scale and will be able to recycle in used vehicle batteries as the opportunity arises.

I'm not sure about the cost of recycling a Li-ion cell, but I bet it's pretty hi; lithium is potent stuff and shouldn't trivially. Dumping good batteries into the recycle bin just because not pristine is probably a no-go financially.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[sexconker]

Do you really expect the invisible hand of the free market to work out for loosely-regulated electricity monopolies?
Have you heard of the state of California?

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Ol Olsoc]

Not to mention safety. I'd hate to be the nearest Fire Department to that place...

An electrical car is a death trap, and a bank of 20 Li-Po batteries is about one Hiroshima scale explosion.

Here is some video of what happens when just a Tesla catches on fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Anonymous Coward]

> Well, what really matters is economics, and what happens a century out from now is so thoroughly discounted by the time value of money that no businesses seriously consider it.

If what you wrote is true, than mankind is doomed for extinction... (Yes, I mean AGW!)

On the other hand, there are numerous centennial and bi-centennial businesses, having been around since "time immerorial" (outside of the USA, of course). Many "rest of the world" businessmen also look into the farther future, even if not a full hundred years. Recently the 50-year (!) marketing plan of the japanese company behind "Hello Kitty" brand has been leaked online, due to a hacker incident. The expansion schedule of Japan's shinkansen bullet train network is fixed down to the littlest nail for 30 years ahead and generic plans exist for new routes for a further 50 years, including maglev trains. The railway companies are privatised, but Japan's gov't is heavily involved in planning an co-ordination.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[DerekLyons]

This is a stationary setup. Weight and size shouldn't matter.

Even in stationary setups size and weight matters - because these directly affect any number of design details of the building.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[willy_me]

The main application for these batteries is in vehicles. They can also be used in a stationary setup - but only after they have been pulled from a vehicle because they only hold 80% of their original charge. In another decade there will be a large number of such batteries being made available. At that point we should see some interesting stationary setups become reality. If the giga-factory can produce more cells then Tesla can use we might see it sooner but, I wouldn't count on it.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Anonymous Coward]

Altairnano have supposedly been making fast charge lithium batteries for many years. Their 60ah cell can be charged in like 10 minutes. They claim 25 year calendar life and >16,000 cycles. (@2c rate in and out) 10 second pulse load at 600A. They have been promoting grid backup products since the beginning.
check US patent 6890510 and wikipedia for more info.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Anonymous Coward]

the 10K filings they present are very old, maybe the company dried up? Delisted?

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[jabuzz]

It can matter but most of the time it does not matter. For example in the UK most houses have suspended floors at ground level without basements which provides a space for a large amount of batteries without impacting the normal living space. My gut feeling is that even with lead acid batteries I could run my house for a couple of days if I filled that space up. Nickel-Iron would be much more sensible though.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[cwsumner]

This is what makes a battery a battery. If it's not compartmentalized, it's a cell. A battery of cells is a battery.
Your average AA/LR6 "battery" is more accurately referred to as a "cell".

This is true, actually.

Re: But they use lithium-ion

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar generation doesnt fall off a cliff at sunset. It starts declining at solar noon and fades away gradually.

Re:But they use lithium-ion

[Ferretman]

I see both one coal fired and one nuclear power plant still in operation in California:

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

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

Ferret

Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does CA choose Tesla batteries when there are lower cost options that perform as good or better?

Re:Why

[bluefoxlucid]

Why didn't they just go with adiabatic compressed air energy storage?

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because it isn't as practical to use on a car? One of the objectives of this initiative is to heap benefits on battery production scale... so anything that don't involve "battery" won't make sense.

Re:Why

[WalksOnDirt]

It's not so easy. Compress air enough to be useful and it gets too hot to contain. Bleed off the heat and you get inefficiency. Still, the losses might be kept low enough for it to work eventually. Just not yet.

Re:Why

[Joce640k]

If only there were a way to turn that heat into electricity.

Re:Why

[WalksOnDirt]

There is but you lose efficiency.

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does CA choose Tesla batteries when there are lower cost options that perform as good or better?

Let me clarify. There are lower cost Grid Scale Battery (lithium ion) products that cost less and are available. Why not go to the lowest bidder?

Re:Why

[bluefoxlucid]

Adiabatic compressed air energy moves the heat from compression into an insulated thermal mass chamber, and uses that to heat the expansion vessel. It recouperates that loss and has 70% total effective energy storage--higher is possible, up to 90%.

Batteries can store and discharge about 6-10 times the energy required to create them in their lifetimes. Adiabatic compressed air energy storage plants can cycle 240 times their energy cost. Batteries are pathetic technology at power grid scale and will never catch up to modern methods of grid-scale energy storage.

Re:Why

[JaredOfEuropa]

Batteries can store and discharge about 6-10 times the energy required to create them in their lifetimes.

That number seems very low. Got a source?

Re:Why

[sconeu]

They can use Congress as the source of the hot air!!!

Re:Why

[CaptainDork]

Compression is not by magic wand.

It's done using an energy source.

Why not cut out the crap and just use the original energy source?

The laws of thermodynamics makes energy conversion a losing strategy.

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. This is why I read slashdot. I wish that I had mod points to give you for this answer. I'd never heard of such a technology but I am certainly going to look into it now. Thanks for posting this.

Will

Re:Why

[whh3]

Wow. This is why I read slashdot. I wish that I had mod points to give you for this answer. I'd never heard of such a technology but I am certainly going to look into it now. Thanks for posting this.

Will

PS: Sorry for reposting. I accidentally posted as AC the first time!

Re:Why

[hankwang]

Adiabatic compressed air energy moves the heat from compression into an insulated thermal mass chamber, and uses that to heat the expansion vessel. It recouperates that loss and has 70% total effective energy storage--higher is possible, up to 90%.

The way you describe it sounds not at all like an adiabatic (no heat exchange) process but rather like a thermodynamically irreversible process. Maybe you mean an isothermal process?

And from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... :
"real compressors and turbines are not isentropic, but instead have an isentropic efficiency of around 85%, with the result that round-trip storage efficiency for adiabatic systems is also considerably less than perfect."

Wikipedia doesn't say so much about isothermal compression in practice, but it sounds to me like practically infeasible to reach your 70-90% roundtrip efficiency. You'd need an enormous thermal mass that doesn't change much in temperature despite 1/3 or so of the energy being stored as heat, you need enormous heat exchangers to transfer the heat with negligible temperature differences, and your compressors and decompressors need to have a very high efficiency.

Re:Why

[bluefoxlucid]

Well, there's Wikipedia...

The cell's energy is equal to the voltage times the charge. Each gram of lithium represents Faraday's constant/6.941 or 13,901 coulombs. At 3 V, this gives 41.7 kJ per gram of lithium, or 11.6 kWh per kg. This is a bit more than the heat of combustion of gasoline, but does not consider the other materials that go into a lithium battery and that make lithium batteries many times heavier per unit of energy.

There's a paper from a DOE lab that suggests:

On a per-unit-mass basis, the Evm values for battery production are quite large, especially when compared to the overall VMA burden. Indeed, the incremental manufacturing energy rate is 13.3 MJ/kg of vehicle whereas the values are 91 MJ/kg of Li-ion battery and 105 MJ/kg of NiMH battery (Burnham et al., 2006).

91MJ/kg for Li-ion battery manufacture to store 0.0417MJ/kg as of 2006. With 6,000 full discharge cycles, that's 250MJ of energy storage in its lifetime, or 2.75 times the energy required to make the battery itself.

It's ten years later; energy cost of Li-ion manufacturer has fallen with newer manufacture technology. Recent reports suggest anywhere from 6 to 10 times energy stored than used to create the damned things. Pumped storage (raising water behind a turbine) is 210:1 and adiabatic compressed air is 240:1.

It gets a bit worse than that: once a battery is expended, you need to remove and dispose of it. That means disassembly and recovery of the lithium, the housing, etc., along with transportation fees for the extreme weight of the thing. Adiabatic CAES requires recertification or replacement of storage tanks, hoses, fittings, pumps, and the like. The latter is going to be easier to improve than the former, so future CAES will likely be more-efficient and require less maintenance, and plants will benefit from these improvements as they upgrade tanks and turbines; future batteries will be more-efficient, but not likely to as great a degree--definitely not without inventing a whole new type of battery.

The actual cost is higher, too. Imagine the cost per kWh to stabilize a grid when you have to have people constantly remanufacturing and recovering batteries, as well as monitoring the station to make sure the battery bank isn't showing signs of failure which could lead to explosion. Compare that to the cost of people remanufacturing what is essentially a large structure (those tanks aren't going to be trucked in and bolted down; they'll be built on-site from plates and seals) 1/24 as often, and monitoring temperature and pressure for lower-criticality events (a damaged battery may run away and explode immediately; an overpressurized tank should have enough safety overhead and valves to fail more-slowly or, preferably, non-critically). It's not all about energy.

Re:Why

[bluefoxlucid]

Looking at your Wikipedia link:

The theoretical efficiency of adiabatic storage approaches 100% with perfect insulation, but in practice round trip efficiency is expected to be 70%.

Practically-infeasible?

Re: Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Speed.

They needed the capacity fast, so bids from several companies were accepted.

Re:Why

[toadlife]

Batteries can store and discharge about 6-10 times the energy required to create them in their lifetimes.

That number seems very low. Got a source?

I was wondering too and did some searching. It looks like the number is realistic. What I found...

I hope I didn't screw up the math. If I did, please ridicule me and mod me down....

Modern EV batteries which are temperature controlled and charge limited have, so far, shown extremely low degradation over 100,000K EV miles.

The owner of this Volt, who is a member of a Facebook Volt owner group claims to still get the EPA rated 35 miles per charge from his Volt after 120K EV miles...

http://www.voltstats.net/Stats...

I personally own a Volt with 32K EV miles and still get the same EV range...

http://www.voltstats.net/Stats...

One charge in a Gen1 Volt is about 10.5 kWh. This means that over 100K EV miles, a Volt battery stores in the neighborhood of 29 MWh of energy.

1/10 of that would by 2.9 MWh

A quick search shows 828MJ per kWh of capacity to produce a lithium ion battery pack. This equates to 3.68 MWh to produce a 16kwh Chevy Volt battery pack.

https://www.quora.com/How-much...

Given that those Volt battery packs have shown little to no degradation so far, it's safe to say they have quite a bit more useful life to go, so they will probably make it close to 36 MWh of lifetime storage, but they will eventually succumb to the laws of physics though and start to degrade.

Re:Why

[MightyMartian]

The point of any kind of storage system is to still be able to deliver electricity when primary generation isn't happening. Whether you're talking about a battery, about compressed air, pumped dams, the point is to convert an inconsistent primary generation system like solar or wind into a system that can produce power all the time, and in particular during peak hours.

Re: Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because they just had a big blowout of their last compressed-gas storage facility...

Re:Why

[TomGreenhaw]

Grid scale storage could be a good dumping ground for worn out lithium ion batteries that don't work to full capacity. People complain if the batteries don't have the full range for a car, but these batteries may still be useful for grid scale storage during that part of their life cycle.

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Because most electrical plants (even fossil based) don't respond very well to fluctuating energy demands. This becomes more apparent when dealing with renewable (wind/solar). Many fossil plants have to maintain a decent percentage of excess production capacity to handle spikes in demand unless they have other production (peak plants, solar/wind, stored power) sources to draw from. These kind of storage plants can at a bare minimum help smooth demand by soaking up most of the unused electricity from a variety of sources when demand is low and then pushing it back onto the grid when demand is higher.

Re:Why

[JaredOfEuropa]

Thanks, that was as depressing as it was informative.

Re:Why

[hankwang]

Hum, I guess I should have read the article front to end rather than skim it...

Re:Why

[ColdWetDog]

They couldn't get the politicians to shut up for a long enough time period.

Re:Why

[quicks0rt]

This method of adiabatic variant seems to be still in development stage and not fully proven, with expected first example of pilot plant going online in 2018. If the hypothetical efficiency of 70% or more is achieved, I am quite in favor of this technology where central system storage is required. However, it is not quite ready for prime time where as battery stations are available now and cost to produce them are massively dropping as the likes of gigafactories are coming online. Contrary to what you have said, transporting battery grid stations are trivial effort as they are not one monolithic battery store, but many refrigerator sized units strung together. If one fails, you simply replace that unit. No reconstruction required. All indication of the adiabatic system suggests that it requires underground cavern (drilling) to store the vast quantities of pressurized air, not a simple insulated tank out in the open as you have suggested, with many moving parts (motor, cooling tower, compressor, recuperator, high/low pressure turbines, generators, etc) involved where as battery stations simply need to be charged and can be placed practically anywhere where there is a power line. This also means that battery stations can be a distributed network and not a centralized system. The risk of explosion is frankly overblown with modern battery technology. However, this is all a mute point as we have not really seen this work in practice. When the first German plant comes online, we will see how practical it is to deploy than deploying battery stations.

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

You lose more efficiency if you don't do something useful with that heat.

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick check on Joules -> Wh

1 watt is 1 joule per second
1 watt hour is 1 joule/sec for 3600 seconds
1 kilowatt hour is 3,600,000 joules

828MJ is 828 x10e6/3.6 x10e6 or 828/3.6 = 230kWh
10.5 kWh battery pack would take 2415kWh or 2.415 MWh to create.

36 MWh is ~15:1

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

But batteries have two wining aces: upfront cost and (down)scalability.

You can set up a reasonable battery storage quick without breaking the bank. That's what California has just done. Water or air storage need a heavy investment. It may pay long term, but it makes it more difficult to get it built.

Also, batteries can be scaled down to home use size. With enough users it will create a federated storage that can grow organically and match demand size perfectly. And investment is done 100% by the user.

Re:Why

[cwsumner]

There is but you lose efficiency.

Any useful conversion of that heat -increases- efficiency, because it is waste anyway.
The cost of the recovery conversion just has to be less then the recovered benifit.

Re:Why

[WalksOnDirt]

Adiabatic compression is close to 100% efficiency, although you lose some due to friction. If you have to recover heat your efficiency goes down.

Re: Why

[toadlife]

The Volt battery pack is 16kwh but only 10.5 kWh is useable. Keeping the charge between 20% and 80% allows the pack to last ten years without degrading significantly.

Re:Why

[cwsumner]

Adiabatic compression is close to 100% efficiency, although you lose some due to friction. If you have to recover heat your efficiency goes down.

That depends on how well you can insulate it. We were assuming the lost heat needed to be recovered. But some insulating materials these days can get very good.

On the other hand, it is possible that recovering or storing some of the heat in another form might reduce the pressure requirements. Like, is it better to stop pumping when it hits the limit, or to continue pumping but reduce temperature rise another way.

Keep in mind that one primitive tribe (I think in Australia) used rapidly compressed air to light fires. Small tube with a plunger, and a hammer. Compressed air gets hot quick, even steel has it's limits.

Re:Why

[WalksOnDirt]

Typically salt domes are used for storage. At high enough pressure to be usable the salt melts. Rocks and steel would eventually, too. If you extract the heat you are subject to the Carnot limits to efficiency. Batteries avoid this.

Ok, now I feel dirty. Using 'Carnot' in a general discussion feels wrong.

Re: Why

[Anonymous Coward]

The heat is used when you release the pressure

Re:Why

[bluefoxlucid]

with expected first example of pilot plant going online in 2018.

Building and then decomissioning an inefficient battery plant in 5-10 years is less-efficient than waiting 2 years on the pilot. I feel they're jumping the gun with batteries at the very least, and taking a huge bet that the new technology won't be viable for decades.

Contrary to what you have said, transporting battery grid stations are trivial effort as they are not one monolithic battery store, but many refrigerator sized units strung together. If one fails, you simply replace that unit.

I had said what I said based on the assumption that they would transport batteries in the most-efficient manner possible, with land freight trucks hauling their maximum load. That seems to be what you're describing.

To put this into perspective: Chinese import Men's and Boys's Cotton Trousers cost an average $14.97 at retail. The import costs $6.12 per pair. Importing a 40-foot shipping container across sea from China costs under $1,300; it contains 20,000 pairs, at 6.5 cents per pair to ship across sea. By contrast, the cost of domestic shipping from the port to the retail center (by truck) represents almost half the retail price; while the minimum-wage cashier performs 998 scans per hour at a cost of 0.83 cents per item retailed.

All indication of the adiabatic system suggests that it requires underground cavern (drilling) to store the vast quantities of pressurized air, not a simple insulated tank out in the open as you have suggested, with many moving parts (motor, cooling tower, compressor, recuperator, high/low pressure turbines, generators, etc) involved

Initial construction costs are higher; long-term maintenance costs are lower. Motors and pumps last quite a long time--especially on modern air bearings (or even electromagnetic bearings). Also, an adiabatic system wouldn't have a cooling tower; you pump the heat into an insulated, underground thermal mass to feed back into the expansion chamber.

battery stations simply need to be charged and can be placed practically anywhere where there is a power line. This also means that battery stations can be a distributed network and not a centralized system.

A centralized system requires less labor to manage. Distributed networks of battery stations would have higher cost.

The risk of explosion is frankly overblown with modern battery technology

The risk is still existent, and mitigation involves greatly increasing the price of battery storage by lowering storage density. Time scales for response to anomalies are smaller. Everything that can go wrong is more-critical and more-costly to contain, and allowing it to just fail and destroy your facility every now and then is even costlier.

Mechanical system risks can be mitigated quite readily so that failures are isolated and easy to remediate, thus requiring fewer resources devoted to continuous risk management.

Re:Why

[cwsumner]

Like a lot of things, the key is probably just not to push it too far.

... Ok, now I feel dirty. Using 'Carnot' in a general discussion feels wrong.

Ha! Instead of thinking that, try thinking of a carnosaur, that will divert your subconsious. 8-}

Besides, this is slashdot. Some of us know those words...

So, wait...

[Penguinisto]

Good article, but...

"Critical Mass" indicates that there are more facilities coming online, or at least publicly planning to. No indication of that in TFA... in fact, the closest they got is this:

For now, gas peaker plants still win out on price for projects that aren’t constrained by space, emissions, or urgency, said Ron Nichols, President of SCE, the California utility responsible for most of the biggest battery storage contracts. 3 But that may change in the next five years, he said.

"...may change in the next five years..." is nowhere near actual activity that would indicate a "critical mass" in industry.

How about they call us when it actually gets in motion - regionally, if not nationally or globally.

Re:So, wait...

[David_Hart]

Good article, but...

"Critical Mass" indicates that there are more facilities coming online, or at least publicly planning to. No indication of that in TFA... in fact, the closest they got is this:

For now, gas peaker plants still win out on price for projects that aren’t constrained by space, emissions, or urgency, said Ron Nichols, President of SCE, the California utility responsible for most of the biggest battery storage contracts. 3 But that may change in the next five years, he said.

"...may change in the next five years..." is nowhere near actual activity that would indicate a "critical mass" in industry.

How about they call us when it actually gets in motion - regionally, if not nationally or globally.

Well, my definition is that "Critical Mass" means enough market share and sales for a company/product to have consumer acceptance and brand recognition. Plus, there is a component where it has been scaled to the point where manufacturing costs have been optimized. Given that the plants have just gone online and the products have yet to reach the market at any level of market share and that there hasn't been enough time to optimize the manufacturing process, I think that its a bit premature to be talking about "Critical Mass".

Perhaps a better phrase would be "Critical Capacity". There is finally have enough manufacturing capacity to meet Tesla's needs so that they can start rolling out their home/corporate products and the more affordable versions of their cars.

Re:So, wait...

[Luthair]

Logic doesn't matter in the Silicon Valley press Tesla circle jerk.

Re:So, wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Critical mass typically is when the market has about 10% saturation. It's a tipping point before something starts to take off, creating the classic s-curve.

Gas peakers are dead

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the beginning of the end of fast-start gas peaker plants. I wouldn't expect too many more to be built. 4 hours of power delivery cuts the head off the daily duck curve, which is the most profitable part of the power generation business.

Re:When this fucker melts down...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure you can put it out, you use a graphite fire extinguisher.

http://www.fireextinguisherguide.co.uk/types-of-fire-extinguishers/extinguishers-for-metals-2/

Re:When this fucker melts down...

[Anonymous Coward]

ZOMG! Lithium Oxide! Run for the hills!

Re: When this fucker melts down...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't find the video at the moment, but they've had full fire testing.

You think the utilities insurers are going to let something into their switchyards that isn't UL listed?

Just like Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Except people _complained_ about the fawning, free press that he got.

Re:Just like Trump

[CaptainDork]

... fawning ...

Finally!

[colin_faber]

I can get my hands on non-counterfeit 18650 and A123's!!

Re:Finally!

[DontBeAMoran]

It would be nice to be able to buy 18650's directly from Tesla so we know for sure they're not fake ones.

Re:Finally!

[DontBeAMoran]

Oups, I meant 2070. Or is it 2170? There seems to already be two standards competing. At least they're extremely close and the one variation should be easy to handle in battery sockets.

Earth = big Note 7

[Anonymous Coward]

One earthquake and it we go up in flames!

Re:Earth = big Note 7

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah an' an' set us up with the bomb!

Where?

[Anonymous Coward]

So is it in Reno, NV or in the California desert?

Re:Where?

[aicrules]

Look up Reno on a map. Go just a little bit west and TA DA! You're in california. Summary even says NEAR Reno. That is the major city closest to the site.

Re:When this fucker melts down...

[Anonymous Coward]

The stupid!!! It burns!!!!

Good imitation of a stupid Drumpf voter, though. Impressively moronic.

Conflict of interest

[sjbe]

Anyone who's president should not have any stocks whatsoever. Conflict of interest.

Same is true of Congress. However Congress has given themselves the legal right to engage in insider trading.

Battery Storage Facility?

[TechyImmigrant]

It sounds nice, but after 2 years, the capacity of the battery storage facility will be about 70% of what it is today and a couple of years later it will drop to 5%. Let's hope they built the facility with a user replaceable battery.

Re:Battery Storage Facility?

[s122604]

So li-ions go to 5% of their original capacity in 4 years?

that doesn't sound right

Re:Battery Storage Facility?

[TechyImmigrant]

It did with my Nexus 4. My Nexus 5 and current iPhone 7 seem to be holding up better.

Re:Battery Storage Facility?

[Binestar]

These devices aren't going to be used like a phone battery. They will be setup for optimal life rather than longest possible runtime. Industry will be doing all the little "tricks" to keep them in longest lifetime condition. Not charging to 100%, not discharging to 0%, storing in a temperate controlled area, etc.

Re:Battery Storage Facility?

[Anonymous Coward]

These devices aren't going to be used like a phone battery. They will be setup for optimal life rather than longest possible runtime. Industry will be doing all the little "tricks" to keep them in longest lifetime condition. Not charging to 100%, not discharging to 0%, storing in a temperate controlled area, etc.

How much energy will be required for the site to maintain a ideal temperature for the batteries packs (due to it's location in the California desert)?

Re:Battery Storage Facility?

[TechyImmigrant]

These devices aren't going to be used like a phone battery. They will be setup for optimal life rather than longest possible runtime. Industry will be doing all the little "tricks" to keep them in longest lifetime condition. Not charging to 100%, not discharging to 0%, storing in a temperate controlled area, etc.

My post wasn't entirely serious Mr Logic.

Re:Battery Storage Facility?

[zwede]

It sounds nice, but after 2 years, the capacity of the battery storage facility will be about 70% of what it is today and a couple of years later it will drop to 5%. Let's hope they built the facility with a user replaceable battery.

My 4 year old Tesla (car) battery is at 98% of new capacity, not 5%. Try again.

Re:Battery Storage Facility?

[hey!]

I often wonder why people think engineers are too stupid to see obvious engineering problems. I'd assume the Tesla engineers would reckon on capacity losses and simply size the installation large enough to deliver the required performance over the planned service lifetime. It's not like they don't understand battery technology.

Li-ion batteries are not nearly so bad as you paint them to be -- although obviously you can abuse them into early failure. Tests of electric cars shows battery aging to be less of a problem than anticipated. Tesla Roadsters retain over 80% of their range after 100,000 miles, for example, and data suggests the batteries in the Model S are aging even better on average -- almost negligible after 100,000 miles.

If you're extrapolating from your experience with your phone, phones probably represent the worst case. They often have barely adequate batteries so users deep-discharge them then top them off to 100%, every single day. That's the worst thing you can do to Li-ion batteries.

Re:Battery Storage Facility?

[TechyImmigrant]

FFS, is no joke safe from the ASD crowd?

Re:Battery Storage Facility?

[Luthair]

Its hard to really judge the trends though since it depends on the number of complete cycles as well as temperature. Plus we don't know whether the car is accurately reporting or not. I doubt its anywhere near as bad as the poster claims but the current cost of battery packs its still worrying.

Re:Battery Storage Facility?

[hey!]

I'd keep my day job if I were you...

Re:When this fucker melts down...

[MightyMartian]

It's hard to know whether you're trolling, or really are a fucking retard.

Yippy!

[AndyKron]

After buying your batteries you get to buy them all over again in five to ten years. Yippy!

Re:Yippy!

[DontBeAMoran]

Still better than buying fuel every week.

Economics

[sjbe]

Without a new breakthrough technology in our pocket, batteries technology should be determined by the real use case. Lithium ion is a good technology when weight is very important, but a lousy technology when does not matter. Why use a bad technology when a pretty good on is on hand?

Several reasons, all economic.

1) Economies of scale. Producing two types of batteries is more expensive than producing the same number of a single type of battery.

2) Standardization. Picking the exact optimal battery type for every application instead of using a standard battery actually results in product fragmentation and added cost. It's actually cheaper in many cases to use a standardized product instead of an optimized one.

3) Excess capacity. If you already are producing a product it's often cheaper to make extras and use those than to build a whole new production system for another product for marginal efficiency gains.

Re:Economics

[AmiMoJo]

I imagine they are planning to recycle a lot of cells that have been used in cars and have maybe 80% capacity remaining after a million miles. As they come onto the market in quantity the price of energy storage will fall even more rapidly.

Re:Economics

[Quince alPillan]

Or they can do what they do in CPU manufacturing and sell those batteries that failed the performance/capacity benchmarks for the higher tier uses, but still meet the benchmarks for the lower tier uses.

Re:Economics

[Spoke]

Actually, Tesla has stated that it's actually cheaper and easier to simply recycle used batteries and then turn the recycled batteries into new batteries than to try to refurbish used batteries.

Elon Musk stated this at AGU 2015:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Economics

[Anonymous Coward]

What he means is that reusing batteries isn't subsidized.

the biggest of its kind

[Anonymous Coward]

California desert -- the biggest of its kind on earth.

I'm sure there are bigger deserts on earth.

Re:the biggest of its kind

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure there are bigger deserts on earth.

You're thinking of Eugene, Oregon.

Re:the biggest of its kind

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but it's the biggest Californian desert on earth.

It's simply a special snowflake of a desert, like everything else Californian.

Re:the biggest of its kind

[CaptainDork]

Typo,

"Dessert"

Death by chocolate.

Size matters

[fyngyrz]

Size matters too. The amount of space taken reflects directly on the cost of the installation in a number of ways, and likely upon tax liabilities as well.

Dead Ends

[Jodka]

Highly variable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar in combination with energy storage using batteries to balance out variations in both load and supply might well be the wave of the future. However, it seems unlikely that these Tesla battery packs, optimized as they are for use in automobiles and thus designed to meet standards for compactness, weight, and collision safety, are also optimal for grid energy storage, which has different requirements. Assembling grid-scale energy storage from individual cells is probably a technological dead-end and will be supplanted by flow batteries.

 

Re:Dead Ends

[religionofpeas]

You don't need to use the exact same packs for cars and fixed storage. I'm sure that a bunch of smart engineers can come up with a solution that shares a lot of the key technology, especially in the production of individual cells and small packs, but find two different ways of putting the different parts together to get optimized solutions for the two different applications. Also, compactness and weight are still useful properties for a fixed installation.

Re:Dead Ends

[MightyMartian]

I thought the general idea was to use the technology, not necessarily to use identical specs. There are better overall battery designs out there, but the point here is to use the same basic battery system to gain some economies of scale. In other words, Tesla is looking beyond simple optimization of storage capacity. They want to build enough batteries to bring down overall production costs for both cars and for other storage systems.

Re:Dead Ends

[Anonymous Coward]

They arent using car battery packs, they are using the same cells in different packs.

Re:Dead Ends

[Anonymous Coward]

Optimized is a loaded word. Systems with many input variables are unlikely to have sharp optima. And there is a basic mathematical fact that the derivative of a function at its maximum (ignoring irrelevant subtleties) is zero. So near an optimum point small variations don't to change much.

Re:Dead Ends

[gweihir]

I don't think so. Or not entirely. I think there are two kinds of batteries that are economically viable for this. One is, as you said, optimized for this application, and will come later. The other is used car batteries. They are not good enough for a car anymore at 60-70% or so remaining capacity, but can still take a _lot_ of charges before they become non-viable in stationary installations like this one, typically many more then the viable lifetime in a car. True, they may have new batteries in there at the moment, at least in part, but the kicker is that weight does not matter much in stationary installations and that the used batteries are essentially free and will keep coming. Also the charge/discharge profile is a lot more benign than in a car, extending lifetime further. And from a grid-stability perspective, these are an engineer's dream as they can react in sub-second time. Noting else can do that except exotics like spinning flywheels.

It is also possible that even new car batteries are economically viable, because of the long lifetime in this type of installation and because they can be made with an existing process in an existing factory, hence zero development cost. May also be that you get certain amount of batteries that fail the quality requirements for a car, but are perfectly fine for stationary storage. Of course, specialized batteries will eventually be better, but at this time, if it is cost-neutral it is already a winner as it is a demonstration project.

I think this was long overdue. It is a bit pathetic that the boost needed to get better batteries was the smartphone-revolution. But late as it may be, it is exciting and definitely a big step in the right direction.

66 percent is not horrible

[Anonymous Coward]

66 percent efficiency is not horrible. It's not good either. Those Tesla lithium ion battery packs are not 100% efficient themselves. Electricity has to be converted from AC to DC, then the voltage has to be changed again for the exact battery. The lithium ion battery itself is not 100% percent efficient. I think it is over 90% efficient, which is pretty good. Then the voltage from the battery has to be converted to 120 VAC. Lead acid batteries are assumed to be 85% efficient. Compressed air storage is relatively cheap, if you have a big salt dome underground, and mature. There has been a compressed air stoage plant running in Germany since the 70s, and one in Alabama since 1991.

Solar & Batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to cover my entire property and roof with solar panels!!
And, I want to fill my garage with Tesla batteries!!!

Take that, DTE Energy!

Re: When this fucker melts down...

[minogully]

Here's an article with the video embedded

https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-safety/

Musk as an advisor

[PackMan97]

Except that Elon Musk is one of Trumps economic advisors...not to mention with Tesla's entire manufacturing in the US, including the massive Gigafactory as well as SpaceX employing only American citizens...I'm pretty sure that Trump is getting a good amount of advice that isnt' just big oil.

Re:Musk as an advisor

[naughtynaughty]

You are mistaken, Tesla and SpaceX both employee people here in the US who are not American citizens.

Re:Musk as an advisor

[PackMan97]

Tesla certainly does, SpaceX does not as their rockets fall under military arms regulations. My apologies for the imprecise grammar. https://www.inverse.com/articl... Although there are procedures to allow SpaceX to hire foreign workers, that would require permission from SecDef or SecState.

Re:Musk as an advisor

[Harlequin80]

Would all SpaceX employees covered by those regulations or only those with access to certain knowledge. Ie could their sales team for example be non US-Citizen?

Isn't this the evil plot from Batman Returns?

[Anonymous Coward]

In that film, the bad guy is building "power plants" all over Gotham, which he will use to sell overpriced power to the city. As I recall, the "power plants" turned out to be giant capacitors that stole power from the city power supply so he could resell it at the higher price.

Re:When this fucker melts down...

[naughtynaughty]

Wow, comparing a short lived lithium ion battery fire to Chernobyl, a nuclear wasteland for the next 100+ years.

Where do you get your alternate facts from?

You might want to reconsider those biases

[Anonymous Coward]

Go read more about that case. The warnings were trying to cheat elements of a law, not something she ever asked for, and her request was far more reasonable, they just suffered punitive damages for how they went about this.

Critical mass?

[GuB-42]

Battery storage reaching critical mass? I hope they are not talking about nuclear batteries...

Fossil Backup

[Neuronwelder]

Alternate fuels are great when the "surfs up". - Fossil fuels are very much more important for a backup, and an easy way to manufacture plastics and lubricating oils. You never know what is going to happen, wars, weather... Always be prepared with a 2nd plan..

We don't need more batteries, just less politics

[Anonymous Coward]

The earth as a whole receives sunlight 24x7 and long distance transmission of power is a proven technology. O.K. there are some losses, but less than for storage.

Re:We don't need more batteries, just less politic

[cwsumner]

The earth as a whole receives sunlight 24x7 and long distance transmission of power is a proven technology. O.K. there are some losses, but less than for storage.

It would be a good idea, but there are oceans in the way. And they are hard to get wires over... ;-)