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Recent Posts
- Book review of “Livewired. The inside story of the ever-changing brain”
- The conveyor belt may be slowing down — Yikes!
- Battery Energy storage batteries (BESS) too complex to ever be commercial
- New war and energy alliances over next resource wars
- Book review of “Siege: Trump Under fire”
- Why do people vote for Trump?
- Book review of “Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID”
- The evolution of the Republican party from 1960 to 2024: from moderate democracy to extreme authoritarianism
- Why some people are conservative and others liberal
- Book review: Bring the War Home: The white power movement & paramilitary America
- Book review: How Democracies Die
- Book Review “Conservatives without Conscience” by John Dean
- Book review of “The Power Worshippers. Inside the dangerous rise of religious nationalism”
- Fox news estranges millions of families and instills hate and fear in its cult members
- Book review of “Deer Hunting with Jesus” Best book on why people vote for Trump
Category Archives: Energy Storage
Renewable costs don’t include transmission & energy storage backup from Nat Gas & Coal plants
Preface. Wind and solar advocates don’t include transmission and backup costs in their net energy and cost calculations. But without fossil backup, the electric grid will come down due to lack of storage. There is almost nowhere left to put … Continue reading
Posted in Electric Grid & Fast Collapse, Energy Storage, Solar, Solar EROI, Wind, Wind EROI
Tagged energy storage, fossil fuel backup, renewable, solar, wind
2 Comments
EV cars and utility scale energy storage batteries are not likely to materialize
Preface. Clearly there’s not enough minerals and metals to shift from fossil fuels to electric vehicles and utility scale battery storage, due to peak critical elements, peak platinum group elements, peak precious elements, peak rare earth elements, and peak everything … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Batteries, Battery - Utility Scale, Peak Lithium
Tagged battery, EV, lithium, utility scale energy storage
13 Comments
Natural Gas essential for energy storage
Preface. The U.S. Department of energy has admitted that a renewable grid is impossible without long-duration storage (LDES) and plans to hand out half a billion dollars to commercialize (LDES) (Colthorpe 2022). Another recent report also argues that round-the-clock renewables … Continue reading
Concentrated Solar Power is dying out in the U.S.
Preface. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) contributes only 0.06 % of U.S. electricity, mainly in California (64 %) and Arizona (24 %) because extremely dry areas with no humidity, haze, or pollutants are required. Of the 1861 MW power they can … Continue reading
How safe are utility-scale energy storage batteries?
This 2 MW battery, installed by the Arizona Public Service electric company, exploded in April 2019 and sent eight firefighters and a policeman to the hospital (Cooper 2019). At least 23 South Korean lithium-ion facilities caught fire in a series … Continue reading
Posted in Batteries, Lithium-ion, Safety
Tagged battery, failure, fluoride gas, hazardous, hydrogen fluoride, phosphoryl fluoride, toxic gas
Comments Off on How safe are utility-scale energy storage batteries?
Gravity energy storage
Preface. This is interesting, but not commercial. And as my book “When trucks stop running” explains, trucks are the basis of civilization, and can’t run on electric batteries or overhead wires. Even if they could, I explained why a 100% … Continue reading
Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS)
Preface. This is the only commercial way to store energy now (CAES hardly counts with just one plant and salt domes to put more in existing in only 5 states). Though of course hydropower is only in a few states … Continue reading
Posted in Dams, Energy Production, Hydropower, Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS)
Tagged dams, energy storage, hydroelectric, NIMBY, PHS, Pumped hydro storage
15 Comments