Via Iddo Wernick
May 30, 2024
As the source of energy information for many global and U.S. policymakers, International Energy Agency (IEA) reports are highly reputable. In a report published in April, Battery and safe energy conversionThe agency has outlined a roadmap for strong growth in battery energy storage in line with its ‘Net Zero’ target by 2050.
Batteries provide an essential element in plans to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions in the Net Zero vision. A significant expansion of battery energy storage capacity globally over the coming decades is seen as necessary to facilitate the growth of wind power, solar power and electrified transport, all essential elements in ‘Energy Transition’.
The fact that batteries are so important to the energy system of the future is taken for granted. Data from the last decade showing growing investment and lower battery costs are often cited as evidence of past market success and future market viability. Forecasts predict a sharp and sustained increase in global battery energy storage capacity in the coming decades. It is an open question whether the transformation of the global market for battery energy storage by 2050 will affect other parts of the energy system. However, in keeping with the zeitgeist, the authors answer this question with confidence.
The starting point is 2050 and policies must work backwards from there. The argument is that the rapid phase-out of the internal combustion engine will leave society with no choice but to adopt battery-powered vehicles. Similarly, unpredictable times of sun and wind will force humanity to consider the need for batteries to compensate for intermittent renewable energy sources in the future.
A little background: Despite advances in battery technology and falling costs, several scientific and engineering facts still distinguish batteries from other forms of energy storage. Like fuel, batteries store energy chemically. In reality, however, batteries store energy less efficiently than hydrocarbon fuels and release that energy much more slowly than fuels during combustion. Short of major breakthroughs, electrochemical battery power supply and energy storage technologies require much greater mass and volume than similar fuel-based technologies. The energy density of a storage technology is determined by its ability to store energy in a given volume or mass. What is relevant and more than ironic is that the energy density of biomass fuels such as straw and animal dung is 20 times greater than that of today’s best lithium-ion batteries, and gasoline has a greater energy density. 50 times.
Additionally, the slower release of energy from batteries is evident in the long charging times of electric vehicles and the need for extremely high voltages to increase charging speeds. The mass and energy storage capacity of batteries is only increased by the inclusion of power conditioning devices, such as inverters and transformers, as well as the transmission lines needed to integrate the sources Distributed energy with these facilities and with the grid. These system features will profoundly influence the technical performance and economics of future battery energy storage.
The report addresses the challenge of supplying many of the key minerals needed for the dramatic increase in battery production, including a chart showing a projected 5- to 30-fold increase in demand for battery cells. different battery metals by 2050. However, the authors hastily describe this, and other difficult challenges, as “obstacles” that need to be managed. As in the previous 2021 IEA publication, The role of critical minerals in the clean energy transition, the report sees strong demand for critical battery metals as inevitable and any headwinds arising from market pressures as manageable. With the complacent tone of officials reaching consensus, the authors argue that policy mandates and technical fixes will solve the complex problem of securing battery minerals. They called for policy revisions to “create safe, sustainable supply chains” to meet potential growth in mineral demand. The prospect of rising geopolitical tensions and the enormous scale of the industrial build-up needed are met with confidence-boosting adjectives.
Other potential downsides to the rapidly expanding global battery market will shrink. China’s dominance in the production of batteries and the processing of minerals used to make them has been acknowledged but its implications remain unexplored. Any mention of battery waste is concerned with downstream waste and the need for future recycling, with little attention paid to the upstream waste generated before battery production. Mention of high-pressure acid leaching avoids noting the recent large-scale deployment of a China-funded, highly polluting, coal-fired process to produce battery-grade nickel in Indonesia . There was no allusion to other waste streams that would accompany a sharp increase in battery production. The flammability of lithium-ion batteries, already a safety factor in commercial aviation, maritime and in dense urban areas, is only worth mentioning in the context of new battery chemistries – Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) and Sodium-ion – help reduce the risk of fire and explosion and also have a much lower energy density.
In fact, the inherently cumbersome nature of battery energy storage is quickly being demonstrated in real-world applications. Using current technologies, half the energy produced by an electric vehicle’s battery pack would be used to move the battery itself, a fundamental problem for mobile power. However, because battery costs play a key role in electric vehicle prices, manufacturers are turning to cheaper battery chemistries, such as LFP, which exclude rare metals but have low energy density. than current Lithium-ion batteries. For residential power grids, the amount of battery needed to keep a city running all day is staggering. Consider the greater Seattle area. Powering the Seattle grid for 24 hours with batteries would require a cylinder over 60 meters in diameter at the height of the Space Needle (184 meters), filled with manufactured battery packs. Today, at Kapolei Energy Storage outside Honolulu, more than 6,000 tons of LFP batteries (enough to fill a column one meter in diameter and the height of Mauna Loa (4170 meters)) can power one-sixth of million residents of the city. Oahu for three to six hours.
The report ignores options for incremental changes to the energy system that could reduce emissions more effectively and have greater implementation potential. Consider the fact that increasing electricity generation from natural gas and nuclear power could reduce carbon emissions more effectively than building and maintaining the complex physical infrastructure required for solar power. solar, wind and battery power. Or the fact that hybrid electric vehicles require much smaller battery packs, take advantage of consumer familiarity, and may hold more promise in reducing total vehicle emissions than all-electric vehicles in the long term. Instead, the authors express a preference for algorithms that seamlessly manage real-world residential and industrial energy systems. Enthusiasm is on “smart charging” to improve the efficiency of bulk vehicle charging, “variable tariffs” to balance daily electricity demand, and “AI for innovation and sustainability.”
Climate ideology is now so widespread that its assumptions are taken as global policy imperatives without reservation. The report ignores the sheer magnitude of the industrial (and polluting) activity needed to support market growth for battery technology at the scale imagined, as well as the economies of scale imposed by these limitations. inherent limitations of batteries as an energy storage technology. The lack of oversight is ultimately evident in the expectation that consumers and taxpayers will absorb higher costs indefinitely through government subsidies.
In a world rife with international tension and war, modernizing the global energy system so that people everywhere have increased access to affordable energy is vital to ensure peace and prosperity in the future. Providing that abundant energy with the least impact on nature requires confronting physical and chemical realities. Massive increases in battery power storage capacity may be essential to the energy future imagined by Net Zero’s determined technocrats. But closer scrutiny reveals serious flaws in the technical basis for deploying batteries as a comprehensive solution. There are easier ways for humanity to avoid the problems that batteries aim to solve.
Iddo Wernick is at National Energy Analysis Center.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and is available via RealClearWire.
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