Bofferbrauer2 said:
Like I wrote before, Photovoltaics and Wind alone would need huge battery storage and an overly robust grid to compensate for the wild fluctuations. And it doesn't care how cheap Solar and Wind energy gets per KW, the higher their amount, the bigger the fluctuations get, and as a result, the more expensive they make the bill. Case of point, the two leading nations in renewable energy from Wind and Solar, Denmark and Germany, are also the countries where electricity is the most expensive. So until we find a way to cheaply store energy anywhere we need it to in large quantities, we will need to have some other power source(s) for the baseline. And don't get me wrong, I'm all for expanding renewable energy production. I'm just saying that the tech isn't there yet where they could take over the whole power production and until that point, we need other kinds of energy sources to fill that gap. |
To be fair, half of Germany's energy is imported and energy is a major source of tax revenue in Denmark. I'm not sure how these factors mutually interact to make up the prices to consumers, but it seems a stretch to credit it to a single cause, that is, renewables.
As for the other point, I'm not sure it's worth it to invest billions and billions in infrastructure for stop-gap solutions when we could use whatever is in place as long as it is needed. Yes, it would perhaps mean more emissions, short and mid term, but this money could be invested in a myriad of other more pressing environmental concerns - such as loss of biodiversity and research on renewables themselves.
