Keystone pipeline springs leak in South Dakota

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(11-27-2017, 02:41 PM)Benton Wrote: A little more on the story, which I thought was interesting.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/07/tesla-to-build-worlds-biggest-lithium-ion-battery-in-south-australia

One thing I did notice, though, is the intent of the battery. 

I've done several stories with TVA, and peak power is an issue in terms of cost. Their hydroelectric dams provide a lot of electricity that's pretty cheap and clean... but it's not enough to meet demand during certain times of the year. August when air conditioners are going and tourism is peaking, December when holiday events are burning up meters. So they have to use more from their more expensive plants to keep up. TVA is a wholesaler of electricity; if they can't meet peak demand, they have to buy additional plants, which may be virtually dormant at times of the day/month.

I'm not in energy, but I would think a 'mega battery' project where storing cheaper clean energy like the Australian wind farm or TVA's hydroelectric would have some cost savings over buying a coal plant to prevent brown outs 3-6 hours a day.

Yeah, I mean it's an interesting thing they did. I just think it's ultimately a waste of money.

Agreed peak power is an issue in terms of cost, but if you spend $50m in order to save enough energy for 30,000 homes for 1 hour (before the battery starts degrading) then is it really going to save you money after all? You're still paying the $50m in the long run.

Say 3 people per home in an area of 1.7m and that means you need 19 of them just to save your area 1 hour of electricity. That's $950m for something that's going to last you less than a decade. It probably is cheaper to replace all the batteries since some of that cost is in building a facility and running the lines and all that, but still. It'd be just 1 hour's worth of power. Might be good to reduce brownouts, but I can hardly see it solving the issue.

Is that really a savings in the long run? Don't know yet. That $950m figure out be about $559 per person (that's including children and such, so if you figure per taxpayer, it would probably be much closer to $1k.) Does ~$200/taxpayer/year for that 1 hours worth of battery time save you enough to offset the peak hour prices per yet? I don't know.

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I'm not saying coal is the answer (I think updated/safer/more efficient nuclear energy is the way, advancing/perfecting the way until we move to Helium-3) but Australia is actually already a massive exporter of coal, so honestly from a pure financial standpoint, it'd likely be the cheapest solution.

In fact they're the #1 world exporter of coal and the #2 world exporter of liquid natural gas, I believe. Their energy problems are 100% all self inflicted.