You are right, I double checked. 275 10^10 Wh are needed as per my comment above and there is 160g of Lithium in a battery per kWh of capacity [1] 275

You are right, I double checked. 275 10^10 Wh are needed as per my comment above and there is 160g of Lithium in a battery per kWh of capacity [1] 275 10^10 Wh = 275 10^7 kWh => 275 10^7 kW * 160 g / kWh = 45375 10^7 g = 453 750 tons This is far less than half the resources of the planet, but it's still a non negligible 1/40. To power half the American, for half a day, assuming that we willing to mine all the Lithium on earth, and assuming we don't need Lithium anywhere else the supply chain (hello solar panels !), and disregarding that the rest of the batteries are also using some valuable metals / rare earth (We will still need those 20 millions tons of batteries, that part is correct, they just won't be made of Lithium alone !) As you can see, Lithium-Ion batteries are not remotely sustainable if they aim to help replace the baseline production that is currently provided by fossil/nuclear with intermittent renewable. They can only be considered at the top of the curve to help renewable manage the peak power, where their ability shine and where the total needs are far, far lower. Other battery type do exist, I am willing to admit that, but grand parent projects all involve Lithium Ion batteries....because the other types are even less economically practical (more loss, less energy density, ...). Rechargeable batteries (Lithium Ion or otherwise) are perfectly fin to store intermittent energy. They just aren't remotely practical to run an entire country off their output, which is why we leverage "natural batteries" aka: fuel (plutonium, oil, coal or otherwise). [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-lithium-li-ion-vehicle-battery-paul-martin/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-lithium-li-ion-vehic...