batteries
Storage as the thing that decides how much intermittent generation is worth building.
FilterEveryone, all time28 from 15 people
- MY
Matthew Yglesias quoted
Writes Slow Boring, a near-daily newsletter on American…
Their wordsIt’s a bet that the battery optimists are correct that storage technology will keep getting better and cheaper so that this line will keep going up rather than hit a wall when the summer market gets saturated.
- 3 weeks earlier
- NS
Noah Smith quoted
Economics writer; author of the Noahpinion newsletter
solarChinaAmericaclimate change
Their wordsChina scaled solar and batteries when America refused to, because the CCP got scared of climate change.
- 7 days earlier
- BM
Bill McKibben quoted
Writer and climate campaigner
Their wordsthere is actually one thing we do know how to do, and that is build out lots of cheap solar, wind, and batteries.
↗Facts on the groundbillmckibben.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- 4 days earlier
- NS
Noah Smith quoted
Their wordsBecause solar has, broadly speaking, won the technological race. Intermittency was the last big problem, and batteries have gotten good and cheap enough to make solar reliable.
- 3 weeks earlier
- BM
Bill McKibben quoted
Their wordsBatteries are the transformative technology for the second half of this decade, as sun and wind were for the first half
↗Fun with numbersbillmckibben.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- 4 months earlier
- PD
Polly D'Arcy quoted
VP of Design at Wealthsimple
Their wordsif you open our app and you see a bug and you feel like it's janky then you're like I don't trust these people with my money. That framing has like really helped the team I think level up and realize that like oh these like small UI bugs really do matter because over time they're paper cuts and they wear down that trust battery
↗Polly D'Arcy - Going from IC to VP of Design at Wealthsimpleyoutube.com 8th of 24 in this recording
- 7 weeks earlier
- DP
Dylan Patel quoted
Founder and chief executive of SemiAnalysis
Their wordsThen all of a sudden, you've unlocked 20% of the US grid for data centers because most of the times that capacity is sitting idle and it's really only there for that peak, right? Which is a day or two, right?
↗Dylan Patel — The single biggest bottleneck to scaling AI computeyoutube.com 21st of 28 in this recording
- 3 months earlier
- HR
Hannah Ritchie quoted
Data scientist at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World
Their wordsThe rapid drop in renewable energy costs in the last decade (alongside huge improvements in battery technologies) has started to break this deadlock.
↗Can we break the human development-environment trade-off?sustainabilitybynumbers.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- CH
Casey Handmer quoted
Physicist, formerly at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Their wordsDo we need to drastically expand the grid in order to metabolize renewables? No.
↗Energy Predictions 2025caseyhandmer.wordpress.com 1st of 6 in this piece
- CH
Casey Handmer quoted
Their wordsStoring electricity for months is economically difficult, but storing heat is easy.
↗Energy Predictions 2025caseyhandmer.wordpress.com 3rd of 6 in this piece
- 3 months earlier
- BE
Benedict Evans quoted
Technology analyst whose weekly email on tech reaches over 150,000 readers
Their wordsBut you're still going to buy a smartphone. You're still going to buy the nice one with a good battery and the fast chip to run the models and the good screen and the best camera, which will still be an iPhone because Apple still has the best chip team and a whole bunch of other hardware advantages. But everything you do on it will be from someone else.
↗Why Everyone Is Wrong About AI (Including You) | Benedict Evansyoutube.com 15th of 16 in this recording
- 3 weeks earlier
- CH
Casey Handmer quoted
Their wordsYou you also don't know like in order to make that money back, you have to then operate that plant at that capacity for 20 years, right? And if I was looking at the same charts as they're looking at right now, I'd say what are the odds that in 25 years time we can produce gas turbines at a price that is relevant in a world where solar is already at its current price and batteries at a price where they're already like you cannot win.
↗China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmeryoutube.com 11th of 24 in this recording
- 3 weeks earlier
- DH
Demis Hassabis quoted
Co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind
Their wordsI think fusion and solar are the two that I would bet on. Solar, I mean it's the fusion reactor in the sky of course, and I think really the problem there is batteries and transmission.
↗Demis Hassabis: Future of AI, Simulating Reality, Physics and Video Games | Lex Fridman Podcast #475youtube.com 12th of 20 in this recording
- 2 months earlier
- HR
Hannah Ritchie quoted
Their wordsBut, China mainly dominates these markets because it has produced a long-term industrial strategy for these technologies and has honed an optimised, modern supply chain as a result.
↗Why are solar panels and batteries from China so cheap?sustainabilitybynumbers.com 2nd of 5 in this piece
- HR
Hannah Ritchie quoted
Their wordsAnother factor that is killing Europe’s competitiveness — not just for batteries but for many industrial products — is the high electricity costs.
↗Why are solar panels and batteries from China so cheap?sustainabilitybynumbers.com 3rd of 5 in this piece
- 6 months earlier
- CH
Casey Handmer quoted
Their wordsFor loads below $1000/kW, intermittent operation with some modest solar array oversizing is the winning strategy. Above $1000/kW, we charge and discharge batteries daily to run them.
↗Solar and batteries for generic use casescaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- CH
Casey Handmer quoted
Their wordsA battery that’s discharging every day gets great utilization, but one that’s only there in case the sun doesn’t come up for two days in a row, barely gets used.
↗Solar and batteries for generic use casescaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 3 weeks earlier
- ML
Michael Liebreich quoted
Founder of what became Bloomberg New Energy Finance
infrastructureelectric vehicles
Their wordsThe only way you can make H2FC cars look cheaper than BEVs is to underestimate or ignore the cost of hydrogen production and infrastructure, socialise it, and then load the entire cost of grid build-out onto the marginal BEV.
- 6 months earlier
- AV
Austin Vernon quoted
Engineer and investor who writes quantitative posts…
Their wordsThe solar array sizes under these assumptions are prohibitively large.
↗How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site 1st of 9 in this piece
- AV
Austin Vernon quoted
Their wordsDeleting the UPSs could knock off ~$750/kW after considering equipment, installation, and square footage reduction.
↗How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site 5th of 9 in this piece
- 3 months earlier
- DW
Dan Wang quoted
Writer and analyst of Chinese technology and industry
Their wordsThe foundations of China’s success in EVs were built a decade ago, when the state decided to bet on batteries, and then bought up a lot of the mines for these metals.
- 3 months earlier
- CH
Casey Handmer quoted
Their wordsThe logical end state of this displacement is not some hybrid grid with around 20% solar backed up by spinning generation, but a much more dynamic, versatile grid with around 200% solar generation and hours to days or weeks of battery storage, fully decoupling time of generation and consumption.
↗Radical Energy Abundancecaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 3rd of 7 in this piece
- CH
Casey Handmer quoted
Their wordswe will see batteries aggressively displace transmission as the most cost-effective way to ensure continuity of electricity supply, leading to an eventual pruning of the grid and drastic reduction in the average distance that power travels between production and consumption, even as the average time that power is stored increases.
↗Radical Energy Abundancecaseyhandmer.wordpress.com 4th of 7 in this piece
- 5 months earlier
- AV
by
Austin Vernon quoted
Their wordsShips are great at carrying bulky and heavy stuff with minimal cost and energy usage. We need a battery chemistry that leans into that and sacrifices performance to reduce cost.
↗Why Battery Powered Cargo Ships are Compellingaustinvernon.site
- 5 months earlier
- VS
Vaclav Smil quoted
Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst
Their wordsBut even if that trend continues for the next 50 years, we would still see top densities of about 3,500 Wh/L, no more than a third that of kerosene. The wait for superbatteries ready to power intercontinental flight may not be over by even 2070.
↗Waiting for Superbatteries (IEEE Spectrum, Numbers Don’t Lie)spectrum.ieee.org
- 5 months earlier
- BF
Bjorn Fehrm quoted
Aeronautical engineer, former fighter pilot and airline…
Their wordsThe drone-like architecture of the multicopters is simple, but as the rotors are responsible for keeping the unit at a constant altitude with hover power, they represent an energy-intensive version of VTOLs. Their range is, therefore, short, typically less than 20 miles.
↗Bjorn’s Corner: Sustainable Air Transport. Part 27. Multicopters.leehamnews.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 4 months earlier
- DH
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals
Their wordsOnce a machine is Fast Enough and the battery lasts Long Enough, making it lighter and slimmer really does count for more
- 11 months earlier
- BF
Bjorn Fehrm quoted
Their wordsHaving done the sums before hitting the keys, I was a skeptic. It just didn’t work, even with optimistic assumptions around the parameters for the aircraft and its batteries.
↗Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of hydrogen. Part 31. Wrap-up: Where we standleehamnews.com 1st of 3 in this piece