Finnish City Inaugurates 1 MW/100 MWh Sand Battery

This is super cool but the ending is bizarre.

> A comment on the YouTube video below complained, “Not a word about return on investment in the presentation. That means it’ll never pay off” MAGAlomaniacs are everywhere these days.

Given the supposed 50+ year lifespan of such a battery, I find it hard to believe it doesn't turn a profit at some point. And I understand that debunking low-effort accusations is asymmetric warfare. But why cite a random YouTube comment if you have no intention of addressing its claims? A more charitable interpretation is that it's meant to ragebait the readers. But to me, it seems like trying to make people feel ashamed for having doubts, by making a public example of a skeptic.

If, say, further insulating your house or building a sand battery will pay for itself in 50 years, it's a bad investment, financially speaking, and probably environmentally speaking as well. You can deploy "the same amount" of resources in something else with a higher ROI, like maybe solar panels with a one-year payback, and get a much bigger benefit. This is an important consideration as long as you are constrained by some kind of resource limitation.

So I think ROI is a first-order consideration.

Finland is the only country in the world where solar isn't the cheapest form of electricity because they get so little sun and they have good alternatives.

You could be forgiven to think that about northern places, but the dark winters are compensated by the long (or even round the clock) daylight in summer. It's still fewer sunlight hours than markedly sunny places like italy or california but not 50% less.

see eg this map where scandinavia is the same color as france or southern uk: https://vividmaps.com/annual-sunshine-hours-of-world/

But of course wind is more stable around the year and produces more in the winter when there's more need for energy. And the sunlight is more direct closer to the equator.