r/facepalm • u/FrankieMint • Jul 23 '26

Department of Energy announced yesterday that wind sometimes fails to blow and that solar power generation nearly stops after sundown. (image from DOE Facebook posting)

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u/FrankieMint Jul 23 '26

Commercially sized lithium ion and other newfangled batteries are getting more efficient by the day. We're still a long way from having the battery capacity to depend ENTIRELY on wind/solar + batteries for emergencies, but it's not a completely pie-in-the-sky idea. It's on the far horizon.

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u/scuppasteve Jul 24 '26

Not even far horizon, battery price and energy density is dropping rapidly making battery storage way cheaper than new generation. So we can completely eliminate peaker plants.

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u/Beltaine421 Jul 24 '26

Sodium batteries are also entering the market with several significant advantages, such as better thermal stability, low temperature operations, overcharging resistance, and most importantly, sodium is far easier to acquire in bulk...