Empty Promise: Why Giant Batteries Can’t Fix Wind & Solar’s Natural Unreliability

The truly deluded reckon that by adding a few giant lithium-ion batteries we’ll soon be running on nothing but sunshine and breezes. Those that (often grudgingly) concede wind and solar’s weather-driven (ie perfectly natural) unreliability, claim that storing wind and solar power when the sun’s up and the wind is blowing, just right, and releasing […]

Exploding Force: Lithium Battery Bombs Just Another Part of Our ‘Inevitable Green Transition’

Giant lithium-ion batteries are touted as planet saviours, but make sure you’re on the other side of town when they explode into toxic fireballs that firefighters simply can’t extinguish. On the large-scale, it’s the kind of terrifying Tesla moment experienced by locals in Victoria when one of these lithium-ion wonders went up in flames and […]

Storage Stories: Why Giant Batteries Can’t Solve Wind & Solar Power’s Natural Intermittency

It only takes a moment’s reckoning to appreciate that the grid-scale storage electricity generated by wind or solar is a perfect nonsense. It hasn’t occurred anywhere in the world; nor will it. The combined capacity of all of the batteries on Earth would store a trivial 10 minute’s worth of the World’s electricity needs. The […]

Hype-Dream: World’s Renewable Energy Storage Capacity Destined to Remain Totally Trivial

When they’re not bursting into toxic fireballs, the contribution made by giant lithium-ion batteries remains utterly trivial. They are, after all, electricity storage devices and don’t add a lick to electricity generation capacity, anywhere. The cost of battery storage, at scale, is out of all proportion to the benefits returned and we wouldn’t be having […]

Tesla’s Incendiary Mega-Batteries: The Bigger They Come, The Longer They Burn

Giant lithium-ion batteries are said to be the saviour of intermittent wind and solar. But their pesky habit of exploding into toxic fireballs suggests that they’re not really part of the ‘inevitable transition’ team, after all. ‘Bombs’ are designed to store and quickly release copious amounts of energy, so are the mega-batteries being rolled out […]

Economic Nonsense: Why Grid-Scale Battery Storage of Wind & Solar Power Can Never Work

At the recent Glasgow climate gabfest, plenty of hot air was dedicated to the mythical notion of grid-scale battery storage of wind and solar. It’s true that renewable energy storage is setting the world on fire. But not as wind and solar acolytes might have hoped (see above and below). When giant lithium-ion batteries aren’t exploding in […]

No Solution to Wind Power’s Hopeless Intermittency: Cost Kills Big Battery Myth

The big wind drought in Europe has acolytes ranting about giant batteries saving the day. It’s a typical but delusional response to wind power’s hopeless intermittency. True enough, at the margins, it is possible to store electricity. But, the cost of doing so on any kind of scale is simply out of this world. Then […]

World’s Biggest Renewable Energy Battery Becomes World’s Biggest Joke

  The French owners of the world’s biggest battery are being sued for simply failing to deliver the goods. When Elon Musk’s 150MW battery was hooked up to the South Australian grid, the wind and solar cult rejoiced. The meme had it that – with a few thousand more just like it, we’d soon all […]

Tesla Terror: Lithium Battery ‘Bombs’ Exploding In Toxic Fireballs That Burn For Days

Giant batteries are said to be the Planet’s saviour, but be sure you’re well clear when they explode into toxic fireballs that firefighters can’t extinguish. On the large-scale, it’s the kind of terrifying Tesla moment experienced by locals in Victoria when one of these lithium-ion wonders went up in flames and literally burned for days, […]

Impossible Dream: Why Energy Storage Systems Can’t Solve Wind & Solar’s Intermittency

Renewable energy storage is literally setting the world on fire. When giant lithium-ion batteries aren’t exploding in toxic balls of flame, their limited capacity means that they add a trivial occasional trickle of electricity to the grid; and do so at an astronomical cost. The wind and solar acolyte would have us believe that if […]