The road towards this current, faltering energy transition has been filled with myriad lofty promises of technological miracles to come. Those predicted quantum leaps are always just around the corner, but too often that corner never ends up being turned. When that happens, one of two options present themselves: Either a change in direction, or another promise of another unproven miracle solution to come. Again, it’s just around the corner.
Nowhere has this oft-repeated cycle of failed promises been more prominent than in the space needed to solve the problem of scalable storage for electricity generated by intermittent renewable power sources, i.e., wind and solar. In my own career, I have frequently written about developing technologies in the battery space for more than a decade now, and none of the promised solutions I’ve detailed have come to fruition. The technologies that were just around the corner in 2012 remain just around that same corner today despite billions of dollars in subsidized investments.
Most often, those stories have involved one form or another of stationary battery technologies designed to become needed upgrades to current lithium-ion tech, a great deal of which has now been installed across the globe. The biggest problems with lithium-ion batteries are 1) they discharge rapidly even in ideal weather conditions, and 2) like wind and solar, their performance is also greatly diminished when the weather conditions become less than ideal. The average cycle time for stationary batteries installed in Texas, for example, is roughly 3 hours, leaving them of little value in a major winter storm that lasts for the better part of a week like Texas experienced in February 2021.
New technologies designed to mitigate these issues like solid state, liquid metal, and vanadium batteries have been the focus of major investments and have advanced in feasibility as time has gone on. But none have turned that crucial corner that would allow them to become the magic bullet the power industry still seeks. (RELATED: DAVID BLACKMON: How Energy Policy Is Fueling Congress’ Budget Wars)
A new report from the UK Royal Society at Cambridge University advances a finding that that particular corner may never be turned, at least as it applies to the UK’s power grid. While this study claims it is still feasible for renewable energy sources to fulfill all of the UK’s electricity needs by 2050 at sustainable costs, the authors contend that the storage needs for such a grid cannot be met by stationary battery technology.
As an alternative, the researchers turn to a largely unproven technology that also amounts to a magic bullet that lies just around the proverbial corner. “Meeting the need for long-duration storage will require very low cost per unit energy stored,” the report says. “In GB [Great Britain], the leading candidate is storage of hydrogen in solution-mined salt caverns, for which GB has a more than adequate potential, albeit not widely distributed.”
It is key to note those final qualifiers the authors admit: This is an experimental technology that has potential, but no one really knows right now if it can be scaled up to meet society-changing needs. (RELATED: CHRISTOPHER BARNARD: The GOP Can Win By Embracing Climate Solutions, Rejecting Climate Hysteria)
In case this experimental hydrogen thing won’t actually work, the researchers point to a second, even less proven magic bullet, that of ammonia, in the very next sentence: “The fall-back option, which would be significantly more expensive, is ammonia.”
Going into this brave new power storage world equipped only with these two unproven options for renewable storage is akin to going into a gunfight armed with a Star Trek phaser set on stun with a Star Wars light sabre in your hip pocket for backup.
This study presents a perfect microcosm of what is happening all over the world in the green energy space as the harsh reality sets in about the futility of trying to replace 80% of the current sources of global primary energy with unreliable, unpredictable, intermittent wind and solar power generation and EVs. There is no truly feasible way yet discovered to achieve this, mainly because the laws of physics, thermodynamics, and supply and demand are immutable laws, and not mere guidelines or suggestions that can be waived away by a combination of hope and fantasy solutions that are always just around the corner.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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