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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

Where are the cheap batteries? List prices are gradually coming down but availability remains limited for any large projects. And if you actually want to store a useful amount of energy, that takes a lot more than just a big box full of battery cells.

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Where are the cheap batteries? Getting installed right now. Grid assets are usually measured in MW or GW, but multiply by 3-4 to get the GWh.

EIA said developers expect to add 30GW in 2024 here:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61202

Note the 7GW of batteries already in California, 3GW in Texas. Texas will move much more quickly than California now because it's a profit based market with few barriers to entry.

There were other estimates in 2024 were for 14.1 GW for this year, but IMHO 30 GW is much more likely:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61424

We are at the start of an exponential growth curve. As prices fall, more demand appears. There are plans for massive amounts of battery production capacity. BNEF has tracked 7.9TWh/year of planned factory capacity by the end of 2025 (probably only 50%-70% of that will get developed):

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-12/china-...

However, this is exactly on track with the estimates I heard, 3 years ago now, of 10x growth in production capacity every 5 years. By 2031 we should see 20-30TWH/year of production.

So...what's the story with grid-scale battery disposal? Are we heading for another series of super-fund cleanups? That's a lot of toxic material that's going to have to be disposed at end of life.

It will be recycled, there's tons of recycling facilities that are just waiting for recyclable material to show up. So far it's just defective new batteries that go into them.

Plus, they're really not that toxic. Not as bad as fly ash from burning coal, or fracking fluid from natural gas, for example.

https://electrek.co/2024/04/11/north-america-just-got-its-fi...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2023/11/02/redwood-...

https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/

(Redwood Materials was founded by Tesla's CTO co-founder JB Straubel)

I'm a nuclear proponent, but similar arguments can be made for why we cannot solve our woes with nuclear. I'd also suggest scaling battery production is going to be less challenging than scaling nuclear production.

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