> t also required just the right combination of natural resources (coal) and economic conditionsL deforestation
This argument is repeated often, but I don't think it's really true. Both Savery and Newcomen's engines were initially aimed at evacuating flooded metal mines and not coal mines.
Thermal storage has very poor discharge rates unfortunately (usually slower than a day), as well as surprisingly high cost once you factor in inefficiencies and turbine cost
MCF has a bunch of challenges, eg no good pigtail connector, need for rotational alignment, inability to radix (MCF is great for point to point, less good if you want to fan out from one chip to multiple chips), etc
And then even after all that, it’s still 1-2 orders of magnitude lower density than waveguides
This is a lot of words to say “solar + battery lcoe is $70/MWH and gas is $40/MWH, but most places outside the U.S. don’t have access to tons of cheap gas so it’s more expensive there”
And no, they are wrong, gas is still currently cheaper ($40 is less than $70)
This argument is repeated often, but I don't think it's really true. Both Savery and Newcomen's engines were initially aimed at evacuating flooded metal mines and not coal mines.