5000 cycles, 1V and <$100/kWh. If real, then build them and sell them. What are you waiting for?

There are many tons of uranium U238 in storage that will never be used for power but can be used for a redox battery as well as vanadium. The new organic compounds seem to be useful but how big of a unit has been built and tested. There is a large vanadium one in USA Utah and a newer one in USA Oxnard California. The very high power electronics now available make batteries very interesting for power reliability in factories and other buildings. The Edison power distribution system of direct current could be used again in local areas or buildings to save on AC losses in conduits. The battery power does not have to be converted to AC for lighting or motors: CFLs can run directly from batteries and so can efficient balasts for other lamps and efficient motor drives can be use modified easily to also run directly from the batteries as can computer power supplies. Inverters are available for other uses and can be modified UPS sysytems. ..HG..

If their costs and lifecycle are correct, this is great. If each kwh of storage costs $20 and lasts for 5000 cycles, that is $20/5000 = $0.004/kwh. This would make it viable to store wind generated electricity for use later. Probably not viable for solar yet in many locations. If solar is $0.12/kwh, it is competitive with daytime rates, but I have overnight rates of under $0.03/kwh, so probably not feasible to store solar generated electricity for overnight use, at least not yet.

" If solar is $0.12/kwh"

Solar PPAs (Power Purchase Agreements) are being signed in the US SW for $0.05/kWh and a bit less.

Add back in the federal subsidy and the price is around 6.5 cents. Adjust the price for the lower sunshine of the NE and the price would be around 8.5 cents.

We're well under 12 cents in the US.

We're getting close to the point at which is will make sense to store daytime solar for late afternoon and early evening high demand hours.

Stored solar isn't likely to ever be competitive with late night onshore wind (which is apparently now signing 2.5 cents/kWh PPAs).

<sigh>  Only someone like Bob Wallace could claim a subsidy as part of the accounting of what something costs.  All a subsidy does is shift part of the price away from the bill to other things/payers, just like the subsidy of free waste-dumping enjoyed by fossil fuels.

It seems to me the cost of production has little meaning. These only make sense for "excess" producton of solar and wind, meaning the energy produced has no value unless stored. Now, for you engineers that assume the entire system is going to be optimized that is not a problem. But in the real world, there will eventually be more electricity produced than needed at certain times of the day, in some locations. Someone previously posted that Hawaii already has this problem.

I don't think we are going to build a nuclear reactor that will not go into operation for at least 10 years, on the assumption we can start it up on demand as backup capacity. Flow batteries may not be the only answer, but everything is on the table.

E-P, try reading what I wrote.

Solar PPAs (Power Purchase Agreements) are being signed in the US SW for $0.05/kWh and a bit less.

Add back in the federal subsidy and the price is around 6.5 cents. Adjust the price for the lower sunshine of the NE and the price would be around 8.5 cents.

I started with the selling price of solar, 5 cents.

I then added back in the federal subsidy, ~1.5 cents to get 6.5 cents.

The non-subsidized cost of electricity from solar in the US SW is about 6.5 cents, far less than the 12 cent number used earlier.

You would be correct if I had claimed that the cost of solar was 5 cents and did not account for the subsidy.

JMartin,

You have shown why a battery like this would be useful. Audi is using excess wind power to make SNG. Efficiency obsessed people might say this is the wrong thing to do, but with the prices for natural gas in Europe, this may be practical. Europe does not have a 100 million EVs to use all that electricity at night, if they did not use it then it goes to waste, so much for efficiency.

If wind is so cheap, why do those regions with a higher fraction of wind generation typically have higher utility rates (see CA and Denmark, et alia)?

As for the cost of wars: humankind has killed one another over everything from the meaning of holy words to the control of spice trading routes. The idea that fragile, unreliable wind power will have us handing flowers to one another is sadly misplaced hope. Don't worry: we'll find plenty of other reasons.

Thanks, E-P; I warn you in advance that after replicating your numbers in a few exercises I plan to lightly plagiarize your rhetorical approach.

Once again cheap wind: in my area we are able to purchase "renewable" energy from "cheap" windmills that thrive along I39. Last time I looked the heavily-subsidized Quixote targets could provide power for only about 20-25% more than Byron's good old WeCo PWRs.

Since I work by day and blog later than you folks, I will add my 2 cents negawatts worth to the renewable debate.

This is all about opportunity costs. Is there a better way to spend renewable subsidies on meeting the objectives of renewable power? There has been for decades, and it is called conservation.

NREL estimates that building energy management cuts gross energy consumption in that sector by 57% Bus line capacitors, which merchant power providers are making a hefty profit on, cut gross electrical consumption by 25%. Proper use and fitting of HVAC, including overall airflow management, cut energy demand of this equipment by 30% -- which already consumes typically 40% of household electricity in the summer.

Compared to this, PV is an expensive toy (yes, I'm a ratepayer), whose subsidies are channeled to benefit the well to do: Namely, above-average-income homeowners who have the timeframe and financial security to realize their investment, and the credit to make an apparent "profit" after subsidies and assumed purchases by utilities.

In my locality, we hear the myth that PV "avoids" expensive capital investment in conventional power. That makes sense if your state is in a deep economic funk like mine. But "expensive" conventional power investments are being made out-of-state, which we import on a quite functional grid. Since our utility has nothing better to do than send men scurrying up telephone poles to install 3 foot wide PV panels, which are blocked off by tree shade, we are told that land is at a premium, and this makes sense. In parking lots, PV is installed above enough steel columns and joists to build a new office building -- Where's the sense in that?

My state can't even pay it's public pension obligations. The governor decided he would balance the 2013 budget by simply delaying pension benefits four days into the next year. Can you guess where I'm at?

All of you who will fall over your swords for a green economy, do so at your own leisure in your own bailiwick, not mine. That's my definition of a free country, and a federal republic at that.

The total cost of nuclear energy is much higher than supporters admit.

Canada's AECL has spent $17B in R&D to support the dying Candu Reactor program. Ontario and two other provinces have spent as much for a total of about $35B in R&D subsidies.

The latest production cost at the largest nuclear facility in Ontario Canada is over $0.127/kWh. Ontario Hydro One is loosing money every year.

Examples:

1. Our (Hydro-Wind) Quebec Hydro sells electricity at an average of $0.064/kWh for domestic use and $0.032/kWh for large industrial users. Net profits are about $3.5B/year of which about $2.0B/year are given to the Provincial government as dividend. That is done without subsidies from the Fed or Prov governments.

2. Next door Ontario's predominant (61%) Nuke +(Coal-NG-Wind) sells energy at an average of $0.12/kWh for domestic use and about $0.06/kWh average for large industrials users. It receives close to $450M/yr in subsidies and runs a large yearly deficit instead of giving a $2B/yr dividend to the provincial government.
The nuclear waste stockpile as not been disposed and could cost $BB to the next generations. Most of the Candu facilities are due for major overhaul. A $100B to $200B in subsidies will be required to keep nuke production going for another 40 years or so. That could raise total production cost to something between $0.16/kWh (like the recent UK nuke facilities) to as much as $0.20/kWh.

However, the Canadian Champion is Oil & Gas with $14B/yr in subsidies. Since a very high percentage is exported South at 80% of the international price, it is nothing to be proud of.

EP:

You obviously didn't Google very hard, as this link turned up immediately;

http://static.schneider-electric.us/docs/Power%20Management/Power%20Quality%20Correction%20Equipment/5800DB1201.pdf?tsk=N846V&pc=16319&keycode=n846v&promocode=16319&promo_key=16319

(read section "4.0: Conclusions")

You also missed an underlying point. If privately held merchant providers are willing to bet on the technology, to the tune of a 30% profit on savings, and they are, then your results may vary, but their results are factored in.

Why are you bloggers so eager to do the loop-de-loop on Atkinson engines, and tirades against big oil, and have so little smarts from the standpoint of consumers, businessmen, or even the electorate?

Wassupwiddat?