alt Hacker NewsIf solar becomes 2 times cheaper, it will be economical to capture nitrogen from atmosphere and produce ammonia and use that for long-term energy storage and fuel. And with that one does not need massive solar overbuild.
This does not require any magic technology, just scaling up what is available today is enough and will definitely happen within the next 20 years, before small nuclear will have any effect.
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chickenbig • yesterday at 8:08 PM
> If solar becomes 2 times cheaper
It would be good to see a techno-economic analysis of this. For instance, taken to the limit, if solar were free what would be the CAPEX and OPEX to produce the ammonia? In addition, the plant to consume the ammonia to produce electricity would not be free.
If I recall correctly solar panels are already so cheap that to halve the installed cost again will require most of the efficiencies to be found in other costs like manufacture of associated hardware and equipment and installation. I don't know if those costs will be so easy to reduce.