Fusion will have to, maybe, compete with solar/wind/storage in 20-30 years, and beat the prices for that 20-30 years from now. With solar+storage being cheaper than many fossil fuels today, fusion is going to have to be extremely cheap to be able to be a competitive terrestrial energy source with 20-30 years more of solar and storage improvements.
That said, there are significant grid scale batteries coming online. The largest of these in California is 1.2GWh. By comparison the UK has about 30GWh of pumped storage.
https://ambri.com/ (liquid metal battery)
https://www.hydrostor.ca/ (compressed air)
https://www.energy-storage.news/battery-storage-at-us20-mwh-...
It seems that we are at the turning point.
Hydrogen, anhydrous ammonia, and liquified air all produce a valuable industrial product once the tanks are full. Used to be their round-trip efficiency was considered too low, but with solar panels getting dirt cheap, just putting up more panels accommodates almost any conceivable loss. Likewise for long-distance high-voltage transmission lines; China is even building cables to Chile (!) for winter power from desert panel farms.
Factories for industrial amounts of iron-air batteries are already under construction, and will be in full production by end of next year.
It turns out that pumped hydro, the most mature and efficient current method, has far more potential than generally assumed. A regular hydro power dam has to be in a river valley with a big watershed area. But for hydro storage, all you need is a penstock up to a depression in the hills, no watershed or river needed. There are millions of those. Even if you build a dam along one end, it's cheap. And you can float solar panels on it, where they will reduce evaporation and also run more efficiently.
Storage is a solved problem. We don't have much of it yet just because a renewable dollar is today better spent on a panel or turbine, and because cost for storage is falling even faster than for solar panels. Wait a bit, get more for the same money.
Where did you read this? China is 18000 km from Chile, so this seems really unlikely.
> One growing solution to this, Bolinger said, is the addition of batteries to utility scale solar projects. While adding storage can increase the PPA price from $5-$20/MWh depending on the size and duration of the battery, Bolinger said, they are growing in popularity. Of 460 GW of solar projects in queues around the nation as of 2020, 160 GW included a battery.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/developers-increasingly-pai...
We are right at the inflection point of deployment, where projects are cheaper with storage than without, so the amount of projects with storage is going to skyrocket very soon. The thing that makes it cheaper to include storage is lowering of prices during peak production hours, or even curtailment. So after a state gets > ~10% or so of their energy from solar you will see far more storage.
Standalone, for-profit batteries are also becoming common these days, especially on highly-renewable grids that are purely profit driven, like Texas' ERCOT grid. And ERCOT is purely pay-for-energy, so deploying a battery there requires analysis of the arbitrage opportunities, and understanding the grid congestion, etc.
Here's a small battery deployment, but the interesting thing was this current analysis of arbitrage market depth:
> According to John Hancock’s Andrew Mazze, the first hour of energy arbitrage is the most valuable in ERCOT’s market construct and adding extra hours of storage does not justify the extra capital cost required. “I don’t need four hours to maximise the value of the battery [in Texas], you can get 90% of the value with much less capital cost, with a one or two-hour battery [system],” he said.
https://www.energy-storage.news/texas-broad-reach-power-brin...
Obviously there are alternative locations such a roofs of commercial buildings and over the top of car parks. But that bring some of there own problems, structural problems with old roofs and cost to modify car parks.
The UK have done a brilliant job of offshore wind, that works well.
My point is traditional Nuclear and Fusion use a lot less land and that is an important factor to consider long term.
There is also a reasonable chance that solar panel efficiency could practically double. That would definitely make things interesting.
First, the amount of land used for fossil fuel extraction today is less than the total needed to park all the power generation equipment we will need. All of that land will soon be unused.
Second, putting up solar over existing farm and pasture land increases yield and reduces water needs. Solar over canals and reservoirs cuts evaporation loss. Solar over parking lots keeps off sun and rain, making cars last longer. There is no need to devote any land exclusively to energy production.
Finally, wind also coexists nicely with agriculture. A wind turbine not connected to the grid can be synthesizing ammonia whenever the wind blows, for local use as both fertilizer and fuel, much more cheaply than central industrial production that then must be trucked in.
Quite right you can graze sheep (and other cattle) under solar. You cannot grow crops though, which is what I was suggesting by “agricultural” land, should have made that more clear.
I live about two miles from what is proposed to be the UKs largest solar farm [0], I believe it will be 8.7x the size of the next largest by area [1]. The local community largely don’t want it [2], personally I would not be unhappy if it happed. However I can see and understand the arguments about placing it on such fertile land that should be used for growing crops - their main argument against it. But there is also a NIMBY sentiment too.
There are good reasons for placing it in that location, there is a significantly large substation there and it’s either side of a major railway line.
The point is, we in the UK need to be growing as much of our own food as possible. Solar is a potential threat to that under the current incentives. The government absolutely should be incentivising solar but in other locations, all that you have listed, but currently farmers can get a better return from solar than crops.
0: https://www.mallardpasssolar.co.uk/
1: https://www.deegesolar.co.uk/uks_biggest_solar_farms/
2: https://www.mallardpassactiongroup.com/
See also:
https://www.stamfordmercury.co.uk/news/amp/aerial-video-show...
https://www.stamfordmercury.co.uk/news/amp/clock-is-ticking-...
The panels do not cover every square inch of farm; 50% is common. Most plants, including the most productive crops, will only do a certain maximum of photosynthesis in a day; insolation after that just adds heat stress.
Fully support it if it can be made to work, but I'm sceptical.
Certainly pasture and row crops most easily coexist with elevated solar, but there is a lot of pasture. The yield benefits for row crops are attractive, though. In water-stressed areas, the reduced irrigation need might be the main benefit, but they all add up.
Walmart figured that out years ago: https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/sustainability/201405...
The US has plenty of room for solar. And that's before you even consider vertical space. Several companies have solar power generating windows in the market already. Nice if you are building a new skyscraper.
And of course you can use good old fashioned copper cables to transport energy around. E.g. California has some nice salt lakes and deserts close to where millions of people live (e.g. LA). After all, you wouldn't put a nuclear plant in the middle of a city either. Nimby's wouldn't allow that. Solar is a lot less controversial.