The future has arrived

[Old Rocks]

Why Tesla Batteries Are Cheap Enough To Prevent New Power Plants

Last year, analysts hired by Oncor Electric Delivery Company were toiling away on a study of the costs and benefits of installing enormous batteries on Oncor’s grid in Texas. The benefits would surpass the costs, they calculated, if Oncor could buy batteries for $350 per kilowatt hour of capacity—or less. That was the break-even point.

At the time, the cheapest utility-scale batteries cost twice that much, the analysts noted, and some cost nearly ten times that much. But prices were falling, and the analysts predicted batteries might reach the $350 point in 2020.

They didn’t have to wait nearly so long.

Tesla’s utility-scale Powerpack battery, unveiled late Thursday night, will sell for $250/kWh.

“There’s nothing remotely at these price points,” said Tesla product architect Elon Musk.

Earlier Thursday night, I was covering a Northwestern University debate on the future of nuclear energy, in which the nuclear critic Arnie Gundersen predicted Tesla’s new utility-scale battery would render new-build nuclear plants obsolete. The battery would solve the reliability problem of intermittent solar and wind, he predicted, providing a cheaper alternative to nuclear power’s 24-hour output.


Gundersen predicted the cost of the utility-scale battery would fall to 2 cents per kWh of the electricity that passes through it, which in coming years would render renewableenergy with reliable storage cheaper than a new nuclear plant. (Nuclear plants currently under construction will deliver electricity costing an estimated ¢16-¢19 per kWh). Gundersen focused on the utility-scale battery, which we would soon learn to call the Powerpack, but most of the press attention in the wake of Musk’s announcement has focused on the home battery, the Powerwall, which is both more expensive per kWh and less poised to reap benefits.

Some observers noticed both batteries.

“The Tesla battery is better than I thought for homes,” wrote the author Ramez Naam in a review of Tesla’s new battery line. “And at utility scale, it’s deeply disruptive.”

This makes grid scale storage a reality as fast as they can manufacture the batteries.

 

[IsaacNewton]

Why Tesla Batteries Are Cheap Enough To Prevent New Power Plants

Last year, analysts hired by Oncor Electric Delivery Company were toiling away on a study of the costs and benefits of installing enormous batteries on Oncor’s grid in Texas. The benefits would surpass the costs, they calculated, if Oncor could buy batteries for $350 per kilowatt hour of capacity—or less. That was the break-even point.

At the time, the cheapest utility-scale batteries cost twice that much, the analysts noted, and some cost nearly ten times that much. But prices were falling, and the analysts predicted batteries might reach the $350 point in 2020.

They didn’t have to wait nearly so long.

Tesla’s utility-scale Powerpack battery, unveiled late Thursday night, will sell for $250/kWh.

“There’s nothing remotely at these price points,” said Tesla product architect Elon Musk.

Earlier Thursday night, I was covering a Northwestern University debate on the future of nuclear energy, in which the nuclear critic Arnie Gundersen predicted Tesla’s new utility-scale battery would render new-build nuclear plants obsolete. The battery would solve the reliability problem of intermittent solar and wind, he predicted, providing a cheaper alternative to nuclear power’s 24-hour output.


Gundersen predicted the cost of the utility-scale battery would fall to 2 cents per kWh of the electricity that passes through it, which in coming years would render renewableenergy with reliable storage cheaper than a new nuclear plant. (Nuclear plants currently under construction will deliver electricity costing an estimated ¢16-¢19 per kWh). Gundersen focused on the utility-scale battery, which we would soon learn to call the Powerpack, but most of the press attention in the wake of Musk’s announcement has focused on the home battery, the Powerwall, which is both more expensive per kWh and less poised to reap benefits.

Some observers noticed both batteries.

“The Tesla battery is better than I thought for homes,” wrote the author Ramez Naam in a review of Tesla’s new battery line. “And at utility scale, it’s deeply disruptive.”

This makes grid scale storage a reality as fast as they can manufacture the batteries.

I agree you can see this is the moment the world actually starts moving from fossil fuels to alternative clean energy. Elon Musk is like a modern day Preston Tucker except Musk is very smart and no one was able to railroad him out of the industry.

Now he is creating a new industry and, in reality, a new reality for the future of the human race.

The only question I have is, will enough carbon fuel be left in the ground to avert the coming Runaway Global Warming that appears to have already passed the thresh-hold of no return. In any case where would we be if instead of fighting research and development of clean energy for the last 40 years as the fossil fuel industry has done, had they instead saw it as a new market and poured their own money and resources into it?

"In every revolution there is one man"

 

[Mr. H.]

The world without fossil fuels and hydrocarbons is fucked. Get that through your thick skull, old rock for brains.

Watch the series Occupied on Netflix. An absurd premise, terrible acting, and laden with irony.

 

[Mr. H.]

Without hydrocarbons and fossil fuels, the image you are about to see would not exist.

In other words, fuck you Old Rocks

 

[Mr. H.]

You dare to use my hard-earned labor to promote you precarious bullshit?

Fuck you master of fraud and ultra-bullshit.

 

[Yarddog]

I wish someone had told me the future was comming! damn it I missed it again!!

 

[IsaacNewton]

The angry dumbasses who are terrified of change, even to the point of their dimwits in Congress protesting the end of the incandescent light bulb, just can't let go of anything. WTF does it matter where energy comes from, it's energy! The only thing that matters about it is how much carbon some forms of it are putting into the atmosphere.

You could see someone getting bent out of shape over a change that makes things worse. But using energy from the sun is somehow abhorrent to these people? You really need to get lives.

 

[elektra]

ha ha ha, more propaganda, now we will have disposable batteries as a solution to run a modern nation? Liberals and Democrats and a whole bunch of Republicans are simply greedy power hungry bastards.

California is going to pump all the water it needs with batteries? Talk about hair brained schemes.

The article Old Crock is using is a year old, and Old Crock claims the future has arrived? Where is the tesla batteries, waiting on the Obama administration to give Tesla free lithium from a new process that they government is developing in government universities.

Time to stop our out of control government, just check the price of your food, that price is high because energy costs too much money.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, one could read the article, to find out where those batteries are in use right now. And both Tesla and Alevo have sold out their 2016 production. And both are scrambling to fill a huge market.