alt Hacker NewsIt was about 15 years back, I remember some reasonably smart but partially anti-renewables folk talking about this. By anti-renewable I would say they were just skeptical with a much higher bar to get over than others. Weren't saying it was impossible but where much more cynically inclined.
They argued there would be issues with renewables unless there was a big uptake in storage. That was the key to making it all happen. Well now we have a big uptake in storage and it is starting to look like the future in that sense is very bright.
Scale is funny like that, it looks like it won't happen for the longest time and then it suddenly become ubiquitous. There is still a long way to go but improvements are happening fast.
We’re still a long way from figuring out storage for renewables. Here in Ireland in winter we get weeks long periods of calm, cold, overcast weather where renewables generate almost nothing. There’s no known energy storage mechanism that can handle this, so we still have to burn fossil fuels. I don’t doubt we’ll figure it out, but I think skeptics still have a valid point on storage.