What would you do with 5 times today’s grid for 10 months of the year?

Solar and wind used to be too expensive to do this – hence my many years supporting nuclear power. But see the green? That’s the storage costs – which were way too high with expensive wind and solar to pay for as well. But now wind and solar are so cheap, see the line down the bottom? That’s how many times you can OVERBUILD the solar. How many ‘grid’s worth’ of power. See how as you overbuild solar to prepare for the darkest cloudiest weeks in winter, the green storage costs get smaller and smaller? Now here’s the question. What do you do with all the 5 times solar the rest of the year? Turn those farms off or they’ll melt the grid! But what if someone comes up with a seasonal business model that can use it – as long as they can shut down for our worst winter months? It’s something like 5 times the grid for around 10 months of the year? That is truly vast amounts of super-cheap energy just waiting to be tapped for a seasonal business model. Will it run Direct Air Capture of CO2? Will it desalinate vast amounts of seawater in some desert countries – as water is easy to store? Will it run Plasma Waste recyclers – which are the best most comprehensive waste recycling system on earth but currently crippled by high power costs?

What other thoughts do people have? I’m pretty sure this is coming.

For more on this lecture please see Tony Seba’s talk below

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