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zizee ◴[] No.26598033[source]
I think the future will be robust national/international grids, with a mixture of storage options (batteries/pumped hydro) to smooth out the intermittent nature of wind and solar.

Cynics always talk about the amount of energy storage required for solar as if you need to store 24 hours of energy for solar/wind to be viable.

I'd like to see numbers on having 1 hour of storage for peak demand, a robust national grid, and appropriately provisioned and placed solar and wind, taking the duck curve into consideration.

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flgb ◴[] No.26598329[source]
I suspect most of the intermittency of wind and solar will be addressed through super-capacity (500% of peak demand, not 100%) and geographic diversity. Batteries will be used for very short-term local balancing and power regulation ... then for those occasional times when hydro, wind and solar don’t cut it, we’ll still burn a little gas but it will be bio gas or green hydrogen, rather than fossil gas. This gas will be expensive, but these plants will hardly ever run.
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1. Hypx ◴[] No.26599204[source]
Super-capacity is going to be a major driver for the build-out of water electrolysis for the production of hydrogen. You can turn what will basically be a waste product into a highly useful fuel. I've seen people contend that this will be expensive, but given the very cheap input costs I believe this will be a very cheap process.