There is nowhere that renewables are remotely close to working "nearly alone" if you are talking about total energy needs (which MacKay is/was).
replyThere's some incredible progress for electricity generation, but there's still huge amounts of energy being used in ways that are not currently electrified and not close to electrifiable in the short term.
We should celebrate the forward progress, but also not be blind to what is not yet feasible (while also hoping that it may soon be so).
You're right, and I appreciate the correction — even Norway mostly runs its transport on fossil fuels, not electricity, and trucking and ships aren't going to be electrifiable in the short term. Here in Argentina, when we ran our grid mostly on hydroelectric, the cars were still running mostly on gasoline and compressed natural gas.
reply(Yes, I know that makes me sound like an LLM.)
Right, as long as you specify “without energy storage”, renewables “can’t work alone,” even though energy storage is included in most common sense definitions of “renewables”
replyThankfully, energy storage is being deployed worldwide, so this is a moot point, and renewables can and will replace fossil fuel electricity generation.