Solar makes sense when the demand correlates with sunshine, like running an AC system. Or when the use has a storage system inherent with it, like charging an EV during the day. It might also make sense for on-site use in certain industries to reduce cost when it's available.
But these would all make normal economic sense and could be handled with any of the normal business loan and investment structures we already have. When you start getting government fun bux involved, it no longer has to make sense and people start trying to cram it in everywhere.
I think its great for things like putting on houses in certain areas, or for use in small mobile signs or things that need smaller amounts of power but can't be hooked up to the grid.
It's a really nice supplemental system and a way to generate electricity without having to burn any kind of fuel, but battery technology just isn't there for it to be a total replacement for coal or nuclear power plants.
It's never going to be there. Batteries are wear items. They will inevitably need to be replaced. Which means mining minerals out of the ground while will require machinery that requires some kind of fossil fuel. Then we have to figure out what to do with these batteries when they inevitably hit their end of life. Not to mention that batteries don't really scale very well. That's not even getting into what's going to happen with the constant charge/discarging they'll undergo.
Solar makes sense when the demand correlates with sunshine, like running an AC system. Or when the use has a storage system inherent with it, like charging an EV during the day. It might also make sense for on-site use in certain industries to reduce cost when it's available.
But these would all make normal economic sense and could be handled with any of the normal business loan and investment structures we already have. When you start getting government fun bux involved, it no longer has to make sense and people start trying to cram it in everywhere.
I think its great for things like putting on houses in certain areas, or for use in small mobile signs or things that need smaller amounts of power but can't be hooked up to the grid.
It's a really nice supplemental system and a way to generate electricity without having to burn any kind of fuel, but battery technology just isn't there for it to be a total replacement for coal or nuclear power plants.
It's never going to be there. Batteries are wear items. They will inevitably need to be replaced. Which means mining minerals out of the ground while will require machinery that requires some kind of fossil fuel. Then we have to figure out what to do with these batteries when they inevitably hit their end of life. Not to mention that batteries don't really scale very well. That's not even getting into what's going to happen with the constant charge/discarging they'll undergo.
But even assuming we manage to solve all these issues, we'll have to deal with what happens when these "batteries" start catching fire.