There are technologies for battery storage that don't look like batteries. Thermal energy storage is an example. It consists of heating something very big that holds a lot of heat and releases it slowly, then using that stored heat to generate electricity while it cools down. This isn't suitable for home use, but at the city scale, or larger, it's quite efficient:
reply> There are technologies for battery storage that don't look like batteries. Thermal energy storage is an example.
replyYeah, there's also pumped water storage, and other forms of gravity/kinetic storage, various means of chemical energy storage, and all kinda other neat battery-like ideas folks have been trying/using.
Enough to store the energy between gaps, plus a buffer?
replyBatteries aren't exactly made from gold. Grid scale batteries especially, where weight and size doesn't matter as much, are totally viable on a mass scale.
Fear really IS the mindkiller! Stop being afraid and start educating yourself. You are on HN, you are supposed to be smart.
replySmart people understand pragmatism, which means not throwing the baby out with the bath water in the name of ill thought-out feel-good measures.
replyYou're not being pragmatic, you're being myopic. Our current energy systems are the result of deliberate complex work. It seems shortsighted to think it's somehow the only system that can ever be built just because other systems have new challenges to overcome.
replyThat is literally what you are doing right now.
replyFox brain alert!
replyWe have batteries for this. See Texas and California.
This gets tiring. No, china has no electricity problem in the night and their share of solar is off the roof.
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