Is there enough lithium in the world that we can mine to build enough batteries?
I have mostly seen claims to the contrary. However, there are other technologies that work very well at storing energy at industrial scales; phase change materials come to mind as promising.
My impression is that this sort of thing is not done already because nonrenewables are so cheap. Musk pays more attention to the energy markets than I do, so he might be correct that solar is going to happen in a big way in the near term, but I think this is more likely to be a conspicuous consumption thing than an economically wise thing for the next decade or so.
Investment bank Deutsche Bank is predicting that solar systems will be at grid parity in up to 80 per cent of the global market within 2 years, and says the collapse in the oil price will do little to slow down the solar juggernaut.
Over the last decades solar doubled price efficiency roughly every 7 years.
Batteries also get exponentially cheaper.
Coal doesn’t get cheaper but a little more expensive. It also easy to make it more expensive by creating higher environmental standards and cutting coal subsidies if there’s political desire to do so.
I have mostly seen claims to the contrary. However, there are other technologies that work very well at storing energy at industrial scales; phase change materials come to mind as promising.
My impression is that this sort of thing is not done already because nonrenewables are so cheap. Musk pays more attention to the energy markets than I do, so he might be correct that solar is going to happen in a big way in the near term, but I think this is more likely to be a conspicuous consumption thing than an economically wise thing for the next decade or so.
A bit of Googling brings me to http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/solar-grid-parity-world-2017:
Over the last decades solar doubled price efficiency roughly every 7 years. Batteries also get exponentially cheaper.
Coal doesn’t get cheaper but a little more expensive. It also easy to make it more expensive by creating higher environmental standards and cutting coal subsidies if there’s political desire to do so.