The Catch-22 of Energy Storage

"It’s important to understand the nature of this EROEI limit. This is not a question of inadequate storage capacity – we can’t just buy or make more storage to make it work. It’s not a question of energy losses during charge and discharge, or the number of cycles a battery can deliver. We can’t look to new materials or technological advances, because the limits at the leading edge are those of earthmoving and civil engineering. The problem can’t be addressed through market support mechanisms, carbon pricing, or cost reductions. This is a fundamental energetic limit that will likely only shift if we find less materially intensive methods for dam construction.

This is not to say wind and solar have no role to play. They can expand within a fossil fuel system, reducing overall emissions."

Comments

  1. Marshall Rosenthal23 August 2014 at 13:00

    Emissions of what? CO2? The percentage that CO2 occupies in the atmosphere of Earth is .04%, four hundredths of a percent. This is a trace amount and cannot possibly impact on the climate. We polluting humans add but a trace amount to that trace. That's all. Stop trying to justify solar and wind power, especially since you must be aware that they are hopelessly inefficient and four time as expensive as power generated by other means. It's fine to dislike the petroleum industry for some of the things that they have done, but don't mindlessly run all of us into the ground in order to ingratiate yourself with consensus thinking about so-called "renewables".

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