this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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I'll accept your math. So now in-order to solve america's storage problem to convert to a 100% renewable grid, we just need to build (Population of the US) / (Population of NYC) = 340million / 8million = ~43 Hoover dams. Do you think that is maybe a non-trivial problem to solve?
Don't forget that we also need the ~250sq miles of reservoir space for each dam. (technically it's the volume that is important, but for reservoirs you are often limited by surface area because of the topology required)
You're glossing over the fact that the battery is a backup to kick in only when renewable production doesn't meet demand, and that much more space-efficient energy storage solutions exist, even if they lose more power to inefficiency.
That happens literally every night though and wind also doesn't blow 100% of the time. There are significant amounts of time where the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. The current solution to this issue that is used all around the world are fossil fuels. Renewables make up a trivial* amount of power production compared to fossil fuels, and as we phase out fossil fuels, the requirement for energy storage is going up drastically.
*<30% by 2030 is the prediction by the EIA
Very true, but the fact that wind blows often and there's also varying amounts of direct sunlight during the day already massively decreases the amount of storage required for a grid. You don't need the capacity to cover 100% of energy usage, sustained, like you suggested earlier. Especially as grids become (geographically) larger and smarter — we need wind and sun somewhere to cover energy needed elsewhere — it doesn't have to be localized. Plus solar output obviously peaks during the day, when demand is also highest.
The percentage is absolutely not trivial today. Especially considering there are multiple large grids today that can easily sustain 50%+ renewable energy over sustained periods. And 30% by 2030 is a lot, though of course it could be a lot better.
Yes, no-one is arguing otherwise.
30% is NOT trivial lmao
Do you know what else decreases when the sun goes down? Power demand.
If we built 43 Hoover Dams, we wouldn't need to build any other renewables at all-- the Hoover Dam doesn't just store power, it also generates it. I'm not sure of the numbers for pure pumped storage hydropower systems (I don't think "pure" systems even exist, everywhere gets some rain), but we only need enough capacity to take over when the normal grid is underproducing.
To answer your actual question though, we need about 85 times our current pumped hydro capacity to transition to a fully renewable US. This seems daunting, but:
Pumped Hydro doesn't need to singlehandedly handle the storage load of the entire US because there are other options to use in conjunction with it and even a partial storage solution produces benefits. This is good, because Pumped Hydro is geographically limited.