Comment by Veedrac

> Replacing the whole system every 20 years still seems really wild to me, especially in worlds where price doesn't fall past the cost of maintenance, because the only wear part is the battery, and batteries are modular.

It may be pessimistic. At the same time, you amortize things based on history.

Things like substations are amortized over 30-40 years. Battery banks don't have the history; a 20 year timeframe seems like a reasonable amortization time. Indeed, if technology improves and costs reduce like people are advocating for here, it'll be thrown away and replaced. If it wears out in ways that don't justify refurbishment, same. And refurbishment/recycling/etc are not well understood processes at scale, yet, nor are future usage patterns well enough understood to know if we will have those resources at the right places.

Again, we could get lucky: batteries could last longer than expected; we could use technologies that are close enough cousins and have a really good time at refurbishment; we could not hit any kind of scaling limitations with battery storage; etc. I agree battery storage is great. And I agree it could be sufficient alone (well, combined with other storage options) if we hit the top third of possible scenarios.

I just am concerned about the other scenarios. I can't rule them out. And if we're going to have insurance against them, it's time to buy it now.

I'd much rather face a future where people say that we wasted a few tens of billions on nuclear power plants than to face a future where people shake their head that we wasted the opportunity to save the climate by foregoing nuclear.