Cost is like 90-99% of what matters. Last year, China installed 300GW of new renewables and 0GW of geothermal, despite geothermal being "an inexhaustible 24/7 production capable".
Geothermal will compete with solar if they can get the cost low enough. I hope they succeed!
These are typically representative of cost performance per watt of one part of a more complex deployed energy system. Things like the aluminum / steal for the container / framing, copper / aluminum for the transmission and wiring, land and labor for installation decline at much less aggressive rates or increase over time.
In almost all pareto optimal least cost energy system models that I've seen, high penetration of solar, wind, batteries plus some minority amount of (clean) baseload power is the most capital efficient energy system.
An inexhaustible 24/7 production capable plant has many advantages over solar and maintaining large most types of battery banks.
Cost is like 90-99% of what matters. Last year, China installed 300GW of new renewables and 0GW of geothermal, despite geothermal being "an inexhaustible 24/7 production capable".
Geothermal will compete with solar if they can get the cost low enough. I hope they succeed!
Some people don't really want the planet covered in solar panels. Others are cool with it so long as they don't have to see it.
Night time? But batteries! Several cloudy days in a row? More batteries! Cost? -> a mix of sources becomes attractive
Batteries? You mean like digging a hole/making a wall and pumping water?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taum_Sauk_Hydroelectric_Power_...
Or we could just spin some rocks around.
https://www.torus.co/torus-flywheel
Rather have solar/wind and this than shipping depleting goop from foreign nations.
https://imgur.com/a/dV8gk3R
can you find curves like this for any other power source?
also batteries are getting exponentially cheap too
These are typically representative of cost performance per watt of one part of a more complex deployed energy system. Things like the aluminum / steal for the container / framing, copper / aluminum for the transmission and wiring, land and labor for installation decline at much less aggressive rates or increase over time.
In almost all pareto optimal least cost energy system models that I've seen, high penetration of solar, wind, batteries plus some minority amount of (clean) baseload power is the most capital efficient energy system.