The Tesla warranty is ten years. So assuming the Megapacks are replaced in ten years, the cost is $9.2 trillion, or about 1/3 of total USA GDP -- every year -- forever -- to cover only the energy produced by coal-fired plants. Extrapolate that to all energy -- not just electricity but everything, including transportation, space heating, industrial processes -- and you get something like thirty times total USA GDP every year, forever.
Assuming 100% efficiency for pumped-hydro storage, and a 1,200-foot elevation difference between the reservoir and the pumps and generators, California would need only fifteen reservoirs the size of Yosemite Valley. Inserting realistic figures for efficiency and losses, the number is closer to sixty.
Using figures for the capacity of Australia's Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro project, to provide storage for an all-electric USA energy economy would require only 9,600 of them. USA now has forty pumped hydro storage systems, mostly smaller than Snowy 2.0 -- which is nowhere near completion, and probably won't get built, even for ten times the originally-estimated cost.
More details in my new book "Where Will We Get Our Energy?"
The Tesla warranty is ten years. So assuming the Megapacks are replaced in ten years, the cost is $9.2 trillion, or about 1/3 of total USA GDP -- every year -- forever -- to cover only the energy produced by coal-fired plants. Extrapolate that to all energy -- not just electricity but everything, including transportation, space heating, industrial processes -- and you get something like thirty times total USA GDP every year, forever.
Assuming 100% efficiency for pumped-hydro storage, and a 1,200-foot elevation difference between the reservoir and the pumps and generators, California would need only fifteen reservoirs the size of Yosemite Valley. Inserting realistic figures for efficiency and losses, the number is closer to sixty.
Using figures for the capacity of Australia's Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro project, to provide storage for an all-electric USA energy economy would require only 9,600 of them. USA now has forty pumped hydro storage systems, mostly smaller than Snowy 2.0 -- which is nowhere near completion, and probably won't get built, even for ten times the originally-estimated cost.
More details in my new book "Where Will We Get Our Energy?"
It all sounds wonderful until you start running the numbers. Then it all falls apart.
Climate change is not nearly as scary as climate change policy.
True that!