this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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Solar/wind + battery storage is cheaper than natural gas and a hell of a lot cleaner. It makes no sense to go for a more expensive, dirtier form of energy.
there's not enough lithium on this planet to store enough energy for like half of europe nevermind entire world
you know how to do this the right way? use pumped-storage hydropower. need more? build more, then dump power into heaters (or better yet heat pumps) on demand from grid since fossil fuel heating will be replaced anyway. (we're nowhere close to this, but it can sink a lot of energy quickly while not using it at some other times)
You know what pumped storage hydro is? A battery. Unfortunately that is not an option everywhere and takes up a massive amount of space. The space portion is not a huge issue for grid energy storage for the most part but it can definitely limit where you can do it and its capacity.
As for the amount of lithium available, there is absolutely more than enough considering it is one of the most abundant materials on our planet. Not that we need to use lithium for grid energy storage. Lithium is very high density energy storage which you are correct that is not a high priority for grid energy storage.
Basically there is no one solution for grid energy storage. There are mechanical batteries, medium density chemical batteries, and even "depleted" EV batteries. We just need to apply what is right for each particular scenario.
I'm not disagreeing with you overall. But I figured more info and context is helpful.