> To be fair, the same is true of pro-renewable arguments. Do some people claim the solution is non-existent (at scale) solutions? Sure. Does it come up anywhe

> To be fair, the same is true of pro-renewable arguments. Do some people claim the solution is non-existent (at scale) solutions? Sure. Does it come up anywhere near as often as "we just need <insert Nuclear technology that's never proven reliable/commercially viable>"? Not in my experience. > Storage is always hand waved away with pumped hydro (not enough suitable reservoirs) Keep in mind that "how do we power the world" isn't a US-centric problem. ~35% of Switzerland's electricity is already generated from pumped hydro. > Energy is a really difficult problem and we have no obvious solutions. It's so difficult that South Australia (a state with a relatively small economy - about on par with South Dakota, with double the population) went from 1% to more than 70% electricity generated from renewables (wind and solar), in the space of 15 years. > an absolutely unfathomable amount of chemical batteries I wanted to come back to this after talking about South Australia. SA hit 70% renewables, with less than 1% accounted for by battery storage. Renewable energy has increased exponentially in technological advances and installed capacity in the last few decades, and while some people may be pinning their hopes and dreams on as-yet-unproven "renewable" pipe dreams like world-wide HVDC networks, there are real-world technologies out there doing what opponents have claimed for years, is impractical (it was claimed for a long time that renewables could at best provide 20% of South Australia's power needs).