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http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/tesla-build-titanic-battery-facility
Tesla announced today that it will build the world's largest lithium-ion battery system to store electricity in Australia. The 100-megawatt installation—more than three times as powerful as the biggest existing battery system—will be paired with the Hornsdale Wind Farm near Jamestown, operated by the French renewable energy company Neoen, in a deal with the state of South Australia. The Tesla battery should smooth out the variability inherent in sustainable power generation schemes.
"Cost-effective storage of electrical energy is the only problem holding us back from getting all of our power from wind and solar," says Ian Lowe, an energy policy specialist at Griffith University in Nathan, Australia, near Brisbane. The Tesla system, he says, will "demonstrate the feasibility of large-scale storage." It might also win over skeptics who doubt that renewables can match the dependability of conventional fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, says Geoffrey James, a renewable energy engineer at University of Technology Sydney.
[...] The battery installation will be a key feature of the state's aggressive move toward reliably generating half of its electricity from renewables by 2025. That drive suffered an image problem last September and again in February, when power blackouts hobbled the state. Conservative politicians were quick to blame South Australia's shift away from fossil fuels. "It's very easy to use a blackout to attack renewable energy," James says. Investigations concluded that the failures were not due to the reliance on renewables but rather to the collapse of transmission towers in one case and unexpected power demands in another. In addition to helping match renewable energy generation and use, James says, the battery facility's "high power capacity will be available in quick bursts" to keep the electricity's frequency in the right range in the event of grid disruptions and demand surges.
Also at BusinessInsider, The Washington Post, and Tesla.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday July 10 2017, @10:33AM (1 child)
Events like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, on one hand, and the coal lobby on the other.
Lots of people campaign for thorium reactors (something goes wrong, they shut down, rather than go "boom"), but the military-types love DU and other "nuclear" weapons, so it is hard to get investment when there will be no "secondary sale" of waste* material.
*not completely convinced some nuclear power stations aren't *primarily* there for the supposed "by-products"
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Monday July 10 2017, @03:11PM
The way most power plants operate is useless for making bombs. The plutonium in the waste is contaminated with bad isotopes that ruin its usefulness as explosives. If you cycle the fuel through quickly you can produce plutonium for bombs, but it's easier if the reactor is designed for that. Of course, if all you have are commercial reactors you can do it, but the major powers don't bother.
If all you want is depleted uranium you can just use natural uranium instead. There's nothing to be gained by producing depleted uranium if you don't have a use for enriched uranium.