Creating synthetic fuels also seems like the only practical option in the table for seasonal storage. If solar energy is free in summer, even pathetic round trip efficiency could be worthwhile to provide winter reserves.
https://www.moderndescartes.com/essays/factobattery/
The main downside to factobatteries is the same as for e-fuels: high capital cost due to low equipment utilization.
What really means that it's a job for the government. Because overbuilding on solar is a social safety matter, and it will probably never be profitable. (As also is storage for long-tail events.)
> As that article says, there aren't many factories for what this is cost effective.
That's my point.
>What really means that it's a job for the government.
The real answer? "It's the Market, stupid." A carbon tax (or even better, cap-and-dividend) is consistently rated as the most efficient solution by economists. One-sided subsidies (or even worse, privatization as you propose) unavoidably causes false corrupted price signals, which leads to both economic and energy inefficiency.
The government's proper role is to be the referee, not to pick winners and losers. The Invisible Hand Of The Market should decide which technology "wins," not some bureaucrat in Washington.
What government exactly? Because mine is a tropical country that won't need those things for decades.
But yay! Free market! Let's just hope your free market cares about you not freezing up on a 1 in 10 years weather.
Anyway, you do you.
There's a difference between treating the market as an end and using one as a means. You (and yukkuri below) are criticizing the former, but I'm advocating the latter.
When society sets the values ("reduce this harmful pollution below X please"), a market can be a very efficient means of accomplishing that. NOx trading is one example. The problems come when the market itself starts getting held up as the primary underlying value in-and-of-itself.
Markets should be considered as powerful tools, not the main goal. Just my opinion. Anyway cheers.
For seasonal balancing, nothing is certain. Maybe you luck-out and there's a profitable way to consume the summer overproduction. But I'd advise against betting your life on it. Anyway, carbon taxing does absolutely nothing to change the profitability of this one.
The funny thing is that the US (I imagine this is your context, because most people thinking this way are there) is one of the democracies that most intervene on energy safety. It doesn't show on the final result, but the amount of reserves that government holds is so large that when it changes its mind on something it bankrupts people.
[citation desperately needed]
Insurance seems to be quite an effective mechanism for handling rare events.
>Anyway, carbon taxing does absolutely nothing to change the profitability of this one.
Of course it does. When "Good Old Reliable" carbon-heavy baseload gets more expensive, that creates more incentive for storage (factobattery or otherwise).
Remember that the end goal is to achieve 100% renewable energy, not to build the most factobatteries. If you build more factobatteries than needed to efficiently achieve 100% renewable energy, you did it wrong.
shorter equipment life, and significantly reduced efficiency for things that require heat. A lot of processes are continuous, where the cost of stop/starting is much greater than absorbing the energy price differential. aluminium, smelting is a prime example. Yes you need kiloamps to smelt, but you also have to keep the alumina molten.
> /? MOST Molecular Solar Thermal Energy Storage
https://www.google.com/search?q=MOST%3A+Molecular+Solar+Ther... :
> ... Molecular solar thermal energy storage systems (MOST) offer emission-free energy storage where solar power is stored via valence isomerization in molecular photoswitches. These photoswitchable molecules can later release the stored energy as heat on-demand.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44&q=MOS...
> The technology is based on a specially designed molecule of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen that changes shape when it comes into contact with sunlight.
> It shape-shifts into an ‘energy-rich isomer’ - a molecule made up of the same atoms but arranged together in a different way. The isomer can then be stored in liquid form for later use when needed, such as at night or in the depths of winter.
> A catalyst releases the saved energy as heat while returning the molecule to its original shape, ready to be used again.
> Over the years, researchers have refined the system to the point that it is now possible to store the energy for an incredible 18 years
The Szilard-Chalmers MOST process.
And then at what efficiency? "How the gas turbine conquered the electric power industry" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38307596#38314851
Though, you could do CAES with captured CO2 and it would be less of an accelerant than standard compressed air. How many CO2 fire extinguishers can be filled and shipped off-site per day?
Can CO2 can be made into QA'd [graphene] air filters for [onsite] [flue] capture?
FYI, we have clean, and proven, energy sources in our toolbox that are not intermittent.