We got an email from one of our energy providers “Brrr, it’s cold outside!” and “Stay warm, stay safe” with a multicultural mom bundling a child. Then it said “Ready if the power goes out? Winter storms, heavy ice accumulation and high winds can wreak havoc on your city’s power grid. Being ready with backup power solutions and emergency kits can help you comfortably weather the storm.” And we thought (a) so you admit cold is bad, even dangerous and (b) you’re going to say get a gas-powered generator (we smugly have one). But instead to our surprise it was offering to rent us “reliable backup power with a battery storage system”, i.e. a Battery Electric Storage System or BESS. Which prompted the thought that we might one day have something good to say about the so-called “green energy transition” if ever it starts working, and meanwhile we will heckle people who pretend otherwise.

The same people who have been googly-eyed about the GET all along still are. For instance Heatmap Daily emails us:

“In the world of ultra-long-duration energy storage – batteries capable of deploying for 100 hours or more – Form Energy’s iron-air system often dominates the discourse.”

No it doesn’t. Or if it does it’s a distinctly boutique conversation. As in you never heard of it and neither had we. (They do later admit that it’s “the rarified space of ultra-long-duration energy storage.”) But we’re not here to be relentlessly snide. At least not entirely. The first item to which that newsletter linked started out, rightly, as follows:

“Whatever you think of as the most important topic in energy right now – whether it’s electricity affordability, grid resilience, or deep decarbonization – long-duration energy storage will be essential to achieving it.”

Indeed. In both senses. It can’t happen without it. And it could happen with it. The piece continued:

“While standard lithium-ion batteries are great for smoothing out the ups and downs of wind and solar generation over shorter periods, we’ll need systems that can store energy for days or even weeks to bridge prolonged shifts and fluctuations in weather patterns.”

Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. Lithium-ion batteries actually have huge limitations (including, as a different Heatmap article discussed frankly, the unusually severe mining-engineering difficulties obtaining lithium to begin with). But yes, we will need that kind of storage because of the tendency of wind and solar to create more power than is needed at some points and less at others, often critical ones as this winter storm has reminded us. And the history of technology records that breakthroughs are often feeble at first and seen as just an improvement on existing systems, but eventually become mighty and transform how we live.

Indeed, the theoretical capacity of solar to provide decentralized power not reliant on the political authorities is very appealing. Its existing capacity, not so much. But the first motorcars were not a big advance on the horse and buggy except as status symbols and look at them today. We are not oil-and-gas fans in the same embarrassing sense that we are Toronto Maple Leaf fans. We’re just fans of things that work (except in ice hockey). Which is why among other things we mock Toronto’s slow snow removal; perhaps less DEI and more core capacity would be good. Snow plows not Sankofa.

Because of our fixation with effectiveness over enthusiasm we also had a wary reaction to a Bloomberg Green email “The fast charging future is here” about an article claiming:

“The time it takes to fuel an electric vehicle, long a stumbling block to EV adoption, is shrinking in the US, as more capable cars and trucks plug into a rash of new, high-speed charging machines.”

We’re skeptical partly because, based on the record, people like Bloomberg Green or Canary Media, which was also on this story, would say it whether it were really true or not. But we’re not head-bangers. In fact in the world of personal electronics we have noticed that charging times have improved dramatically, and that newer laptops have deep-sixed the dreaded proprietary chargers with their cumbersome adapters and frequent loathsome huge “wall wart” plugs (even if they insist on putting one in the box) for high-capacity charging blocks and USB-C cables. So maybe this bottleneck too can be overcome. And if it is, by private investment not inane government subsidy, we won’t be bitter.

Just don’t announce it until it is, please. Because then we will be.

P.S. In the spirit of fair-mindedness we also want to note a David Blackmon post “ERCOT #TexasGrid Tuesday Morning Update: The Crisis is Over - Natural Gas, Wind, Coal the big winners.” Yes, gas (and he praises measures to winterize gas assets that had attracted some scorn). Yes coal. But also yes wind, which performed creditably and should be recognized for doing so.