> Batteries will get cheaper faster than nuclear ever will
That's a bold claim. Batteries could also suffer from law of diminishing returns. It might not be physically possible to store energy much more densely, without catastrophic failures.
That's a bold claim. Batteries could also suffer from law of diminishing returns. It might not be physically possible to store energy much more densely, without catastrophic failures.
I don't think it is [1] [2]. Regardless of cell and pack density, there's plenty of open land to install outdoor enclosures. Utility storage isn't cars, where density is terribly important.
[1] https://i2.wp.com/evobsession.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06...
[2] https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/09/100-kwh-tesla-battery-c...
The big Hornsdale power reserve in Australia is 130 MWh. Say you want to store 6 hours of US average energy consumption. That's 1 500 000 MWh, or 11 000 Hornsdale stations. Just for 6 hours of electricity storage.
There are over 7,000 power plants in the United States run by over 3,000 companies. There are over 55,000 substations and over 450,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines. I don't believe what I'm proposing is unreasonable. Hard? Sure. But unreasonable? Absolutely not. Going to the Moon was hard, and we still went to the Moon.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/introducing-megapack-utility-scal...
So you can put them in cars, boats, planes, and other things.
Yeah, I know, we have Teslas. But do you know it's twice the weight of an ICE alternative? Weight matters a lot. While we've made a lot of progress in the last few decades, the best research batteries are still 100x below any fossil fuel in terms of energy density.
The Model S (2019) appears to look roughly the same and appears to be roughly the same size as the Audi A7 (2019), and is just a bit heavier (Tesla curb weight 4883 lbs, Audi 4332 lbs).
https://www.cars.com/research/compare/?acodes=USC90TSC024F0,...
So though they're weights are similar the Audi has a range of 424.6/559.9 and the Tesla has 285. That's 50.1%-67.2% of the range (let's say 60%).
Yes, ~300mi is a mostly comfortable range, but it's the same weight for 60% the range (and 5k more). To get the same range we'd have to add a ton of weight, which would probably push us to 2x (maybe the original comparison was decent enough?).
With Supercharger stations being no more than 150 miles apart (and that distance shrinking as more stations keep coming online), home charging, and per mile costs half that of internal combustion vehicles you mentioned, it’s a no brainer even considering the vehicle is somewhat (but not outrageously) heavier.