Some key insights from the article:

Basically, what they did was to look at how much batteries would be needed in a given area to provide constant power supply at least 97% of the time, and the calculate the costs of that solar+battery setup compared to coal and nuclear.

  • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    The point is if 97% of the energy is cheaper… Then you would have to pay more than coal for 3%. Which you could use any other form to supplement that, or just pay more for that 3% as the prices keep dropping and it will be below it soon. Countries use more than one source of energy. Whether you use a nuclear plant, hydro, geothermal, wind, or even gas/coal to supplement that 3% until it becomes cheaper (likely in the next 3 years)… and then we’ll just burn off the extra energy in useful tasks hopefully. You could do anything with it. Shit hook it up the pumps and lift water up into towers and tell people if we have to much energy we need to burn off you’ll get extra water pressure for your showers or something. Use it for desalinization of saltwater to send to areas in a drought. Can power the shipping to get it there as well. Idk, there’s always something useful we need energy for.

    (Note those numbers were just for Vegas though, so it could be 20% your trying to supplement for now)