>Or on batteries, or on liquid salt thermal storage upgrades for old fossil plants, or on hydro storage, or on salt cavern pneumatic pressure, or on hydrogen, o

>Or on batteries, or on liquid salt thermal storage upgrades for old fossil plants, or on hydro storage, or on salt cavern pneumatic pressure, or on hydrogen, or on regenerative iron dust cycles, or... None of those are actual options. Pumped hydro is pretty much the only viable option but you need the geography for it. Germany does not have the geography to roll out pumped hydro at enough of a scale to bridge the intermittency issues with renewables. But don't believe me, look at the present reality - there is no nation on earth that is able to power it's economy with renewables (+batteries). The only viable option is hydro-electric and unfortunately, we've pretty much ran out of places to dam. >Solar is currently the cheapest source of energy with a margin. Again, there is no battery technology that is able to store enough excess energy to power a modern economy (or even a mid-size city). >The german failure to finish the "energiewende" is a political one The sad part is that it isn't. Material science is hard and you can't just will non-existent technology into existence ... as the Germans found out. That's why Germany was signing multi-billion/multi-decade deals with Russia to import their natural gas.