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Ground up infrastructure can only recoup some of the energy storage costs and mostly for home use. It's not going to help a steel factory, for example, or help

• AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  When you're at early stages of development you don't have steel factories. When you reach later stages you build nuclear. To the extent that an intermediate stage even exists, it's very short, because once you have roads and ports and a stable government you get foreign investment. To get the first aluminum smelter the first world had to invent it. To get one now you just have to build it -- or have someone else build it for you. Then you power it with a ton of cheap solar panels and only run it during daylight hours. So why would waste money building a bunch of coal fired power plants that you won't even need in a couple of years? And why would it be uncompetitive on cost globally if everyone else stops burning coal too?