Germany opened a new battery storage just this week. It has so much capacity that it can power a city like Leipzig over a night completely. And there are plans to upgrade it from 500 megawatthours to 800 megawatthours before 2026 ends. That’s not just remote cabin scale to me.
Hydro, although great in many ways, causes immense ecological devastation and is not suitable for all places.
Okay, here i gotta agree with you.
Nuclear also has issues but a mix of wind+solar on a base of hydro+nuclear is probably the ideal.
“Issues”. Yeah. The deadly waste nuclear plants produce is just a minor “issue”. And I’m not even talking about safety in general (Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island).
I’m not even necessarily against nuclear, but this is a weird argument. How many times have solar panels blown up and made entire cities uninhabitable for decades, and how many are there total in use ever?
The percentage of failures of nuclear power plants may be low, but the fallout (literally) is incredibly devastating.
I’m sure batteries will play an important role in the future, but it’s not significant today and I don’t see any indication of this changing rapidly in a meaningful way. I’d love to be wrong though.
Regarding the issues with nuclear power, the ecological impact is far better than hydro and health impact/deaths is also significantly better. I’m not trying to badmouth hydro here, but I think it’s important to be fair and acknowledge that on those two issues (ecological impact, human health) nuclear has a better track record.
For context, that’s growth, not total capacity. And after covid one would suspect ppl would understand exponential growth and to understand what that means for a business Modell $$$
Also we don’t need capacity for the whole output of a year.
That doesn’t change the fact that battery storage is a business case with exponential growth and is just taking off while nuclear power is expensive, takes long time to plan and build and all the new fancy stuff is still hypothetical and it’s not certain it will ever take off in regard of recent bankruptcy’s in the smr field
True, and if we can make cheap batteries (e.g. sodium based) at scale then it absolutely could become a thing over the next decades. I just don’t want energy transition to hinge on unproven tech. We can’t play around with this, climate change is way too serious.
Yes, like those. Your three examples show how benign nuclear power is, factoting in the absolute worst of circumstances and most ridiculous levels of incompetence.
Maybe you should do your own homework before linking Wikipedia at me. Nuclear is safer than hydro in terms of human casualties per energy produced as well as per land mass destroyed, and if you want to make a counter-argument or add any other variable the burden of proof is on you.
https://www.pv-magazine.de/2026/08/13/batteriespeicher-mit-rund-500-megawattstunden-kapazitaet-in-sachsen-anhalt-eingeweiht/
Germany opened a new battery storage just this week. It has so much capacity that it can power a city like Leipzig over a night completely. And there are plans to upgrade it from 500 megawatthours to 800 megawatthours before 2026 ends. That’s not just remote cabin scale to me.
Okay, here i gotta agree with you.
“Issues”. Yeah. The deadly waste nuclear plants produce is just a minor “issue”. And I’m not even talking about safety in general (Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island).
You named 3 incidents. Now name all nuclear power plants ever. Compare the numbers.
I’m not even necessarily against nuclear, but this is a weird argument. How many times have solar panels blown up and made entire cities uninhabitable for decades, and how many are there total in use ever?
The percentage of failures of nuclear power plants may be low, but the fallout (literally) is incredibly devastating.
I’m sure batteries will play an important role in the future, but it’s not significant today and I don’t see any indication of this changing rapidly in a meaningful way. I’d love to be wrong though.
Regarding the issues with nuclear power, the ecological impact is far better than hydro and health impact/deaths is also significantly better. I’m not trying to badmouth hydro here, but I think it’s important to be fair and acknowledge that on those two issues (ecological impact, human health) nuclear has a better track record.
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/global-battery-storage-capacity-additions-2010-2023
Well fortunately you are wrong
For context, global energy output is 30k TWh/year. That’s T for tera.
For context, that’s growth, not total capacity. And after covid one would suspect ppl would understand exponential growth and to understand what that means for a business Modell $$$
Also we don’t need capacity for the whole output of a year.
For even more context, the annual growth in electricity output is about 5x the addition of battery capacity.
That doesn’t change the fact that battery storage is a business case with exponential growth and is just taking off while nuclear power is expensive, takes long time to plan and build and all the new fancy stuff is still hypothetical and it’s not certain it will ever take off in regard of recent bankruptcy’s in the smr field
True, and if we can make cheap batteries (e.g. sodium based) at scale then it absolutely could become a thing over the next decades. I just don’t want energy transition to hinge on unproven tech. We can’t play around with this, climate change is way too serious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_energy_storage_system#/media/File:Average-battery-cell-price-b.png
It’s already happening
Like Fukushima, three miles island or Tschernobyl?
Yes, like those. Your three examples show how benign nuclear power is, factoting in the absolute worst of circumstances and most ridiculous levels of incompetence.
Oh, there are so many more incidents.
Maybe you should do your own homework before linking Wikipedia at me. Nuclear is safer than hydro in terms of human casualties per energy produced as well as per land mass destroyed, and if you want to make a counter-argument or add any other variable the burden of proof is on you.
Sure it is, buddy