[Discuss] Eclipses Re: Great talks last night, however...

[Richard Pieri]

On 7/22/2017 8:56 PM, Robert Krawitz wrote:
> But it's considerably more than 10% in practice, right?

It depends. It's as much an ideal as Musk's asserted 90% efficiency for
Tesla and Powerwall when in reality Tesla and other EV owners see as low
as 50% with new cells. And as noted previously, that figure drops as
batteries wear.


> You still need storage for those blackouts (albeit less), right?

Yes, but with blackout windows of ~70 minutes you can effectively use
supercapacitors which in principle should be superior to chemical
batteries for short term storage.


> The author is quite clear that he simply doesn't see this as being
> plausible any time soon.  And no doubt batteries will improve along
> the way.

I do doubt it. Li-ion appears to be it, the pinnacle of commercial
battery technology. Li-air has potential but it needs a breakthrough to
make it commercially viable and you can't count on breakthroughs.
Likewise Li-sulfur which has wear and volatility (read: safety) issues.
And, of course, batteries aren't renewable.

-- 
Rich P.