1 00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:16,140 [SQUEAKING] [RUSTLING] [CLICKING] 2 00:00:16,140 --> 00:00:17,890 JEFFREY C. GROSSMAN: This is the grid now. 3 00:00:17,890 --> 00:00:21,340 So we went from small to very big, right? 4 00:00:21,340 --> 00:00:25,330 The growth in solar and wind has been incredible 5 00:00:25,330 --> 00:00:28,250 over the last 10, 20 years. 6 00:00:28,250 --> 00:00:31,640 The problem, as I think I've shown you, is the variability. 7 00:00:31,640 --> 00:00:33,470 And so this is like if you zoom in here, 8 00:00:33,470 --> 00:00:35,080 that's the load, the black line. 9 00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:37,450 And this is like what these two resources give you. 10 00:00:37,450 --> 00:00:39,400 And you can see that it doesn't match. 11 00:00:39,400 --> 00:00:43,420 If you zoom in on a day, then you really can see it, right? 12 00:00:43,420 --> 00:00:44,320 There is the load. 13 00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:46,735 And there's what you would get from solar and wind. 14 00:00:46,735 --> 00:00:47,860 And so here's the question. 15 00:00:47,860 --> 00:00:51,050 You say, well, OK, how do you fix this? 16 00:00:51,050 --> 00:00:52,540 You got to store it. 17 00:00:52,540 --> 00:00:56,177 There's no way to use renewables at large scales 18 00:00:56,177 --> 00:00:57,010 unless you store it. 19 00:00:57,010 --> 00:01:00,520 In fact, we're really at essentially the tipping point. 20 00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:03,850 Because if I look at the countries in the world and what 21 00:01:03,850 --> 00:01:06,350 their PV penetration is-- and this is a couple years old, 22 00:01:06,350 --> 00:01:07,892 but it's still pretty much the same-- 23 00:01:07,892 --> 00:01:11,050 Germany, Greece, Italy at the top. 24 00:01:11,050 --> 00:01:14,460 Sad frowny face here for the USA. 25 00:01:14,460 --> 00:01:19,180 But you know, Germany is at 7.1% as of a few years ago. 26 00:01:19,180 --> 00:01:21,660 That's a huge penetration of PV. 27 00:01:21,660 --> 00:01:23,950 But here's the problem. 28 00:01:23,950 --> 00:01:26,420 If you look at-- 29 00:01:26,420 --> 00:01:28,220 this is Germany now-- 30 00:01:28,220 --> 00:01:29,060 huge penetration. 31 00:01:29,060 --> 00:01:31,130 These are these six years, right, 32 00:01:31,130 --> 00:01:33,230 seven years of adding PV. 33 00:01:33,230 --> 00:01:34,670 This is how much they had. 34 00:01:34,670 --> 00:01:37,490 They're now at 7%, 2016 was 7%. 35 00:01:37,490 --> 00:01:40,820 This is how much the price of electricity 36 00:01:40,820 --> 00:01:42,350 was in Germany when they added. 37 00:01:42,350 --> 00:01:44,210 So notice that here is the sunlight 38 00:01:44,210 --> 00:01:45,800 electricity during the day. 39 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:47,750 They can sell it for a lot of money. 40 00:01:47,750 --> 00:01:51,260 But as they add more and more of this renewable to the grid, 41 00:01:51,260 --> 00:01:54,110 its price goes down when it's available. 42 00:01:54,110 --> 00:01:57,770 In fact, it's now not economical for them 43 00:01:57,770 --> 00:02:02,057 to add more PV unless they can add it with storage. 44 00:02:02,057 --> 00:02:04,140 Because actually, the price has gone down so much. 45 00:02:04,140 --> 00:02:05,730 And it's gone up here when they're not 46 00:02:05,730 --> 00:02:08,320 generating any PV electricity. 47 00:02:08,320 --> 00:02:11,130 So you can come up with-- and they did in this paper-- 48 00:02:11,130 --> 00:02:14,010 this sort of value factor, which when it goes below one means 49 00:02:14,010 --> 00:02:17,770 there's no economic outcome that's positive here. 50 00:02:17,770 --> 00:02:18,270 Right? 51 00:02:18,270 --> 00:02:21,268 You can't make money anymore. 52 00:02:21,268 --> 00:02:22,560 And look at where that happens. 53 00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:23,935 It's right around where they are. 54 00:02:23,935 --> 00:02:25,820 It's at 5%. 55 00:02:25,820 --> 00:02:28,880 You can't solve renewables at the scale of the grid 56 00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:31,320 without storage and no option exists today. 57 00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:32,973 It might be batteries. 58 00:02:32,973 --> 00:02:33,890 It might be batteries. 59 00:02:33,890 --> 00:02:36,320 But there's nothing that actually does it today 60 00:02:36,320 --> 00:02:37,470 at the scales that we need. 61 00:02:37,470 --> 00:02:41,740 So that's a real challenge for chemistry.